My bride fought hard for eight years and I want to celebrate her life with pictures that I have from our years together.
There are many ‘slideshow’ programs that can merge music and photos.
Depending on your OS (Windows/Mac/Linux), you may already have such a program on your computer.
I am very sorry to hear of your loss.
I used to use a feature that came with Windows — Windows Movie Maker — that allowed you to easily bring pictures in and sequence them and change the timing and transitions. It was also easy to add music to your images and play and edit and make changes if needed.
If you have an older Windows version, you might already have it. If not, do a Bing search..there are a number of free replacements that are supposed to do the same thing.
Best of luck with your project and prayers for your healing.
Animoto may be a good solution as well. Not free but was pretty user friendly when I worked at a school district.
Mary might be able to help you. Her work is genius!
Take a look at this link for some ideas. There are some free programs.
Try searching for “Nero SlideShow” or “Cyber Link SlideShow” ect... You will even find video on You tube about that.
I’m currently using a version of Windows Movie Maker made for either Windows Vista or 7 on a Windows 10 computer. It is a headache. Microsoft no longer supports the program and it will crash and lose work at about any time. I’ve managed to edit old home movies from the fifties but I can’t add captions or titles. I would expect if I tried to add music or narration it would also crash. The sad thing is it’s easy to learn and use.
My sincerest condolences on your loss. I put this together a few years ago using Microsoft MovieMaker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TwyPIShrLY
Do you have windows movie maker? If so you load the pictures in and the music & create movie. It’s that easy
Drag n drop pics, vids, n tunes. Its just software.
I lost my bride Mar 2017 after a long illness, and our grand daughter put together a picture and music slideshow using Smilebox for her reception...
Turned out real nice although I know nothing about how to use it, other than it’s free to use...
My sincere condolences and sympathies to you...
My experience in recent years has been with Animoto. Very user-friendly. For a small fee, you can do up really nice slide shows. Upload your photos, move them into the order you like, upload your music, and the program will automatically time your photos to the music you select. You can add titles upfront and at the end. Did this for my Mom’s “Forever Young” 80th birthday celebration last fall. The song is about 4 minutes long, and I uploaded tons of photos with her in each one. Was able to sort them as best I could based on the age, approximate dates, etc. It all timed out perfectly with the music. Was able to save and send the link to all the family to enjoy. If you decide on Animoto, contact me by private message if I can be of help in any way.
I think some people buy the music as mp or whatever on amazon and give credits in their description, but I wouldn't count on somebody not making a fuss even then.
If any program isn't intuitive, I don't do it. I just clicked around until I had what I wanted. I was used to processing photos in Photoshop and made a lot of my own graphics, what was it? Paint Shop Pro?
I found a nice on of a relative I had remembered meeting as a little girl and always wondered what happened to her. Sadly I found out too late. But the funeral home made a nice video presentation for them. It's on youtube.
It's really beautifully done, gives the name of the funeral home in the opening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s1hy44GB5Q - Dixie Rae Gilstrap Tribute
Sorry on the loss of your wife, may she rest in peace and the two of you be together again in a better place.
I have done this for a number of memorial services. As other’s have said there are so many programs out there that you might already have one on your computer. Here is one of the first that I did. It was done with a program called Ulead Video Studio 6 which came free with an old laptop. With Ulead and many other similar programs you pick the music you want and add the pictures. The program does “random” movement and zooming in and out depending on the settings that you pick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzD8N8-MUBI
The programs give you varying amounts of control over the movement etc.
The only program you really need is PowerPoint.
On YouTube check out instruction videos on the subject:adding music background to PowerPoint.
I have heard positive opinions about Pro-Show Gold, a slide program.
If your computer happens to be a Mac of recent vintage, it has IMovie, which is relatively easy to learn.
I use Microsoft Movie Maker. You just grab your music on the software than add pictures. I’ve done several and it works really well. it is also free.