Before you begin, make sure that you have downloaded at least 25 photos and one music file into your OneDrive folder! If you haven’t done that, check the instructions for Step 1 and finish that first!

 

Open Premiere Elements. You should see it on your desktop:

Or search for it with the Search bar at the bottom or open the Windows menu in the bottom left

The first window offers you the choice of Photo Editor, Organizer, or Video Editor. We need the Video Editor.

Before you start the project, you should check a couple of preferences. Open the Edit menu

and then go to the bottom and choose Preferences, and go into General

There are a lot of different sections of preferences. Start with General

The first thing I like to change is the Video Transition Default Duration. The length of time is measured in frames. There are 30 frames in a second. If you want a slow, gentle transition (if you have slow, soft music) 30 is probably fine

I like half a second, so I change mine to 15 frames

I like the Still Image Default Duration to be about 4 seconds

I like the Timeline Playback Auto-Scrolling to be on Smooth Scroll

Then just make sure the checkmarks are all on the bottom items

The other tab I like to check is Auto Save:

The program will save your work as you go. I like mine to save about every 5 minutes or less. You don’t want it saving too often because it’ll slow you down, but you don’t want to lose too much work if/when the program crashes.

 

Next, you can create your Project file. You can do that under the File menu or with Control+N

Name your project. NEVER leave it as “My Project!”

You want to Save the project into the folder you created in your OneDrive. This is important! Click Browse…

Find that folder that you created for the project:

and press Select Folder

First, we want to import the photos and the music. Click Add media:

Click Files and folders:

Again, look for the folder for your project:

You’ll notice that there’s a bunch of folders in your project folder now. Leave those alone!

We want to select everything else. Click ONCE on the top photo (or music if it’s at the top)

Hold Shift and click the bottom photo or music file to select them all

You’ll see that a lot of files have been added to the box at the bottom. Click Open.

You’ll see all of your files imported into the project:  

You can sort the folder by turning on or off the little icons at the top. I would hide everything except the images

Save your file because it’s time to start putting the pieces into the video: