In the older versions of Windows, they used to include a tool called Windows Movie Maker. It was really a very convenient and easy to use tool for producing slideshows and videos. You could combine photos, videos and music to produce a video for presentation or for your Youtube channel. But now that it has been removed from the newer versions of Windows, you have to find some alternatives like PhotoStage which is a free software tool designed to prepare a slide-show created using images, videos and music. It offers the same interface as some of the commercial software like Techsmith Camtasia Studio.
Using this software is almost the same as Windows Movie Maker or the Camtasia Studio. After launching the PhotoStage software, you can import the media that you want to work with. You can import images, videos or audio files. After this, you have to start adding all the media files to the timeline of the slide-show that you are going to make. In the middle of the two media items, you can also add transition effects, animations or the texts. On the top-right corner, you can see a preview of the slideshow. The preview can also go full-screen if you double-click on it.
When you have created the slide-show, it has to be exported and saved for later use. You can do so by clicking on the Export button. You can export the slide-show to a DVD or Blu-ray disk, save it to your computer in a number of video formats, upload it to your Facebook or Youtube, or to your portable device. Depending on which of the items you choose, PhotoStage further downloads more components from the internet to complete the exporting process.
Conclusion: PhotoStage is a very easy-to-use, lightweight and feature rich slide-show creator software. It can export the slide-shows into video files or share them directly to Youtube or Facebook.
You can download PhotoStage from http://www.nchsoftware.com/slideshow/ (the link for free version is near the bottom of the web page).