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The tips and tricks described in this section may help you enhance your stories.
We are discovering new ways to use Photo Story 3 for Windows to create even better photo stories all the time. For the latest tips and tricks discovered by our testers and users like yourself, visit the Tips and Tricks page on the Microsoft Web site.
Before you start narrating your pictures, click the Configure Microphone and Set Recording Volume button 
to test your microphone. It is important to make sure that the microphone is capturing your voice correctly and that the volume is set properly before you start to narrate your story. After you preview your story, you may need to reconfigure the microphone if you are not satisfied with the narration quality or volume.
If no microphone is installed on your computer and you attempt to record narration, Photo Story may record static noise instead. If you do not have a microphone, you can use the Customize Motion dialog box to specify the number of seconds that a picture without narration will display. For more information about customizing motion, see Customizing motion and selecting transitions.
If you want to put together your story quickly, you can import your pictures, but not record any narration. If you have time, you can choose to record narration for some or all of your pictures. As you record narration, it is recommended that you preview your story so you can check the recording volume.
To make it easier to create multiple stories, Photo Story maintains many of the settings from the previous story, including the folders you browsed when importing pictures and the background music you added.
After you select the profile or quality settings and save your story, preview the final story to ensure that the video playback is acceptable. If the video quality is poor (for example, the video stalls or skips frames), you may want to return to the Save your story page and click Settings to select a different profile to use different video quality settings.
You should also consider the computers that other people will use to play your story. If some of these computers do not support the higher quality settings, you may want to change the profile used for your story.
Your friends and family do not need Photo Story 3 for Windows to play your stories on their computers. Your friends and family can watch your story on a computer running Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000, or Windows XP. They can use any program that plays Windows Media Video (WMV) files, such as Windows Media Player version 7 or later, to view your stories.
If people attempt to play your stories on computers that do not have Windows Media Player 10 installed, the Player will prompt them to download the required video codec from the Microsoft Web site.
If you want to play your stories on a portable device that is not listed in the Activities list on the Save your story page, click Check for more story activities on the Microsoft Web site to see if profiles for your portable device are available.
You can add Windows Movie Maker-like effects and transitions to the pictures in your stories.
To create Video CDs (VCDs) or DVDs that include your stories, you can import your stories into a VCD or DVD authoring program that supports WMV files, and then use that program to burn a VCD or a DVD for playback in a CD or DVD player.