Digital+Story+Recipe

Find a children’s picture book with not too many words. Scan and save each page as a .jpg file (or use a digital photo to take a picture of each page)
 * Recipe for a digital story**:

If you need to tidy up your images: - open the image file in **Photoshop** - pull down Image to Adjustments to Auto Level - use the crop tool to draw a rectangle around the part of the image you want to keep and click Enter to get rid of the rest - you can rotate the crop rectangle to straighten your picture. - You can erase the words in the picture: select the clone stamp tool, holding the option key while you click somewhere on the picture to pick up that background texture, release the option key and then paint that background texture over the words. (this can be a little tricky but with practice it works really well) - save your editing image with a new file name (so you still have the original in case you need to go back to it

Insert each picture on its own slide. Try to fill the frame. I find it easier to insert pictures onto blank slides rather than fight with the built-in layout template boxes. In some versions of powerpoint here’s also a shortcut to create a photo album that lets you insert lots of pictures all at once. Each goes on it’s own slide full size – very quick and easy. Apply a design or background if necessary. Put in any drop shadows, transitions or animations you might want.
 * Launch PowerPoint**

(Mac PowerPoint 2008) Pull down Slide Show to Record Narration. Select your recording device (built-in mic, or USB mic) For better playback choose Link narrations – but be aware that they are recorded in a different place than the .ppt file and you will need to ‘package’ the presentation to be able to show it on a different computer. If you have options for recording quality, try 16-bit 44.1 KHz for CD quality. 8-bit sounds terrible. Anything less than 11Khz sounds terrible. Mono is fine, Stereo is nicer. Click the Record button, read your script as you advance through the slides. Check your work. PowerPoint tends to chop off the end of the sentence just before the transition to the next slide. You may need to pause before you advance to the next slide when you’re recording.
 * Adding narratio**n: (where the menu item is depends on what version of powerpoint you have)

Test whether your presentation runs on a different computer. If you just copy the .ppt file to a USB stick and load it on a different computer, then you probably won’t have any audio. You usually need to ‘package’ the presentation to include the linked audio (and/or video) files. (Mac PowerPoint 2008) Pull down File to Save As. For Format choose PowerPoint Package. (Windows PowerPoint 2007) Pull down the Office button to Publish, then Package for CD, then select Copy to Folder. This will create a folder that contains your powerpoint file (pptx) as well as any linked audio files. Copy this folder to the other computer and test it.