Creating my first youtube clip--need advice on better way to do this (Power Point, work)

[Caladium]

I'm creating a short you-tube clip to promote a 10K. It is very simple: photos, not video, and a music file.

My first attempt came out too grainy. I created a movie file (slide show) on PhotoShop Elements and then uploaded it to you-tube. The photos were apparently adjusted by you-tube, or maybe compressed, and I think that caused the graininess. My husband thinks the transitions provided by Elements may have been the problem. We will try another test without transitions to see if we get a better result.

Other than that, does anyone have a suggestion for a better way to create this than using PhotoShop Elements? I can't afford to buy software for a one-time only project--but I'm hoping there may be free programs out there. Would power point work?

I am a retiree, and, (as you can probably tell) relatively inexperienced with doing projects like this. So any step-by-step bits of advice are appreciated.

[Peregrine]

What version of Windows do you have?
There is a Movie Maker program in most versions of Windows that should work a little better for this type of video.

[beninfl]

[Caladium]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions. The problem turned out to be the slide transitions in PhotoElements. When we redid the set without any transitions, it looked much better.