Easy Christmas Flash Album

Christmas is almost here and what better time than to make a Christmas flash album for your friends and family. I am going to show you how easy it is to do and do it free. Well the program I am going to use is free with a logo at the end of the flash album. You can purchase the program and it will remove the logo. Ok let's get started on making a Christmas flash album.

First you need to download the program Flash-Slideshow-Maker. I recommend you download it to your desktop so you can find it easier. Once downloaded double click the file and install it with the default options. Ok once it is installed open the program from the desktop shortcut on your desktop and you will be given two options. One is to run the wizard which has automatically opened for you. This option is straight forward and you simply add your photos, pick a theme and create the Christmas photo album. That is no fun now is it? You want to make this unique and personal add your own creative touch to it right?

When you open the program you want to close the wizard window. You will see a windows explorer type of interface this is where you pick what photos you want to add to the photo album. You can either double click a picture or click the add button at the bottom of the screen above the timeline. A good time saving trick is to create a folder called "flash Christmas album" and put the photos you want to use in this photo album. This way in the file explorer you simply have to click on the "flash Christmas album" folder then click on t add all button above the time line. Now you have your pictures in the timeline at the bottom of the screen. Click on the file menu at the top left corner of the program and then click save. You should notice the little icon next to each picture by default it is set to random and the icon is a dice. This is the transition effect between each picture. If you want click on it and you can change the transition style. You can even add a link to a website under the properties tab for each picture.

Ok so now we have our pictures and our transitions all set let's make this flash album more Christmas like. At the top of the program you may have noticed the three tabs one is photo the other is theme and the last one is publish. Click on theme and you will be presented with a new window and options. The page is in three sections the top section is where you name your album; you want to set the photo show duration to 5 sec. This is all the changes needed to be mad for now. The middle section is the themes or decorations to add to the flash album. I selected the Merry Christmas theme for mine. Next you move to the lower section of the screen and this is where you add music to the show. If you have a cd then choose that option the options are on the right side of this section. I personally clicked on the add option and picked the songs I wanted to play while the Christmas flash album is playing. Here you will need to do a little math simply multiply the number of pictures times 5. Write this number down then multiply the number of pictures times 2. Add this number and the previous number together and divide it by 60. This is how long your music should be. Example I have 101 pictures so 101 * 5 = 505, 101*2 = 202, and 505 + 202 = 707. 707/60 = 11.83. So your music should be just shy of 12 minutes. If you want in the more options button in the top section of the page you can select to have the music automatically repeat or truncate. I recommend doing the math and picking music length accordingly. Once you are satisfied with all the settings then click on the publish tab. Make sure you click on the file then save often so you do not lose your work. Here you can create either a flash file for sharing over the internet via e-mail or a website. You could create a cd/DVD Christmas flash album that you could distribute via the postal mail. You also have the option of creating an account with skyalbums.com and uploading your flash file to their. The choice is yours. I recommend creating the flash file first to make sure you are happy with the Christmas flash album.

sources:

My own experience

Flash-Slideshow-Maker