What happened to my ability to edit individual photos?

Bill-Stewart wrote on 12/22/2021, 7:21 AM

I'm a very new user working with Photostory Deluxe (just purchased in Dec. 2021; can't find the version #) on a laptop running Windows 2010. I built a slideshow containing 15-20 slides and was able to edit each one individually using fade-in, fade-out (via drag), adding title text (and setting duration, fade-in/out), etc. Everything seemed reasonably straight forward. However, as I clicked around (Timeline to Storyboard and back again, for example) and exported to MP4, I no longer seem to have the ability to edit individual photos any more. I assume this is because I have something enabled or disabled, but I can't figure out what that might be. I searched both the Magix documentation and the forum and can't find anything that seems to describe my problem. Can you help? Thanks!

PS: I started a new project to see if I could figure out how I lost my initial view and the start-up screen gives me a clue. There are a few checkboxes available, one of which indicates "manual editing in Timeline or Storyboard mode." Assuming this is what I "lost," how can I get it back. The Photostory manual makes no other mention of this feature than it is available initially.

Comments

emmrecs wrote on 12/22/2021, 8:36 AM

@Bill-Stewart

Welcome to the Magix user to user forums.

You can find the exact version number of PS which you have by going to Help>About MAGIX Photostory, the latest is 21.0.1.96.

I'm not at all sure what has happened to prevent you, apparently, being able to "edit" your slideshow but, speaking personally, I would NOT click around (timeline to storyboard...) but would do all my editing on the timeline. However, one thing you might try to resolve your problem is to go to File>Settings>Reset program settings to default. This will remove any "customizations" that you have set, e.g., folder locations, but these should be relatively easy to set up again and should result in the return of the editing facility.

HTH

Jeff
Forum Moderator

Bill-Stewart wrote on 12/22/2021, 10:22 AM

Thanks Jeff. Learning more about Settings helps and I made some changes. But Reset didn't work in my original story. I created a second Story, saved it, and exited Photostory. When I reopened the file, I have all of the manual capabilities. With that in mind, I took another look at my original file. In Timeline mode, I see each of my slides in a format that looks almost like there is another row beneath each slide. This lower "row" is not very high and seems to indicate which slide I'm examining within the slides of my slideshow. If I click on one of the pictures, for example, the timeline pointer runs vertically through the slide, runs down and highlights one of the skinny items (which appears to show me only which slide # I selected). I am beginning to wonder if I am in some sort of wizard mode. I can click on a slide and find options like fade-in / fade-out, set zooming, etc. However, I am no longer in a manual mode in which I can drag to set fade-in duration, e.g. Does this help identify where I am and how I can get back to manual mode?

One more data point: the difference between my two stories is that I exported the first one and have not yet exported the second. Could that have anything to do with the different display modes?

emmrecs wrote on 12/22/2021, 1:28 PM

@Bill-Stewart

Any chance you might take a screenshot of even a small section of the "rogue" project's timeline and post it here? I'm trying to visualise what you are seeing, but failing miserably!

The fact that this project has been exported but the second hasn't should not be the issue, I think.

Jeff

johnebaker wrote on 12/23/2021, 9:58 AM

@Bill-Stewart

. . . .In Timeline mode, I see each of my slides in a format that looks almost like there is another row beneath each slide. This lower "row" is not very high and seems to indicate which slide I'm examining within the slides of my slideshow. If I click on one of the pictures, for example, the timeline pointer runs vertically through the slide, runs down and highlights one of the skinny items (which appears to show me only which slide # I selected). I am beginning to wonder if I am in some sort of wizard mode. . . . .

Do you mean like this:

This is Storyboard mode. The button top right of the image is indicating the mode you will go to when you click it - not the mode you are in.

The timeline cursor that drops down to the small squares shows you the location of the selected image relative to the rest of the timeline, the different sizes of the squares show the relative duration of the images and video clips.

The color of the squares shows:

blue = an image
dark pink = a video clip
yellow/orange - the currently selected image or video.

With respect to the issue with the project, did you use the Slideshow maker wizard on it at any time?

John EB

Bill-Stewart wrote on 12/23/2021, 10:44 AM

Aha! You nailed it, John. Thank you! Short of the difference in content, I see something exactly like what your screenshot shows. OK, so I was describing Storyboard mode. When I switch to Timeline mode, I initially thought I was seeing an indistinguishable block of uneditable stuff. I played with zooming in/out on the content and I finally see slides and text I added. That's exactly what I wanted!

I'll chock this up a rookie mistake. Lesson learned (at least this one). Thank you all for your help!

Bill

johnebaker wrote on 12/23/2021, 4:58 PM

@Bill-Stewart

Hi Bill

You are not the first person to have been caught out by this particular 'issue' with Photostory and probably won't be the last either.

Happy editing

John EB