Importing photo's & using ken burns

I'm importing photo's into i movie OK.
They are fine, and run as a movie in clip viewer until I add a Ken Burns effect. Then they go Black in the clip pane (disappear).
They return to view only if I remove the ken burns affect.
What's up with that?

I found my problem, after numerous hours of frustration.
the movie has to be saved into "movies" icon on main hard drive. Where all the effects, etc. are stored to go with the movie project. I was saving my project to an alternative file on my secondary hard drive.

Similar Messages

Exporting slideshow to .mov file using Ken Burns looks low res?

I've created a slide show using the Ken Burns effect exclusively, and after I export as an .mov file and pull that into iDVD (or watching it in QT player) the moves look like a very low resolution image was used instead of the high res files that I know are there. Any ideas of how to fix this? or is this just the way iPhoto handles the files when using Ken Burns FX.

Have your tried the procedure that seems to solve a variety of problems for the iLife applications? Quit iPhoto and delete your iPhoto preferences. To do this, go to your username> library> preferences> com.apple.iphoto.plist. Delete this file. Then reopen iPhoto; it will create a new preference file with all of the default settings.
Ken Burns also...images do not fit to screen any more.
I am not aware of an option to make the Ken burns effect "fit to screen". This effect is applied in a somewhat random fashion, so what you see on one playing of your slideshow can be slightly different when viewed again. You can avoid undesirable changes, like cutting off the tops of heads, by manually applying the KB effect to photos in question. The control is at the bottom of the window when in the slideshow mode. When you are satisfied with the way the slideshow looks, export it as a QuickTime movie.
I hope this helps.

Importing Photos without using Aperture or iPhoto

Hi all,
I am preparing to migrate from the cuddly world of iPhoto into the big bad world of Aperture. During the transition I was hoping to continue using both programs (especially given the excellent photobook and slideshow functions of iPhoto) and was going to start importing photos and using referenced masters so that both iPhoto and Aperture can look at the same sets of data.
Are there any programs out there that can automate the import of photos from a camera and allow me to do things like autosplit events or change all the filenames to reflect the photos? I often have several weeks worth of photos that I import and it would be nice to do this without creating a single large folder without everything in it.

In the Aperture Preferences you can decide what quality of Previews you generate and also elect to share them with the iLife and iWork applications
Previews are jpegs which are updated as you process your Raws and are a convenient way of sharing the pics with other apps without the whole Export process.
You can access the Previews in iPhoto via the File -> Show Aperture Library and drag them over. Set iPhoto to a referenced Library and they will take up no extra disk space.
In almost all cases they will be sufficient quality for an iPhoto book.
If I am going to use shared previews could I not just import everything directly into the Aperture library?
Yes.
Regards
TD

Photos on timeline showing black when using ken burns effect

My photos in the project are not visible in the preview window when selecting'show settings' after the ken burns effect has been applied. The arrow moves but the screen is black.
Any ideas ??

Although you've posted in the iMovie 5 forum, that sounds like a well-known iMovie 6 bug. If you are using iMovie 6 you may have encountered the bug:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=714698&tstart=0
Karl

"show photo settings" and ken burns glitch? please help :(

hi, i'm having a problem,
my software is the latest version, so is quicktime, all my updates are up to date, i'm not using an external hardrive.
i was creating a music video composed of all still pictures and everything was going fine untill today.
the "show photo settings" display box has a glitch or something.
the slide bars for the ken burns effect have disappeared.
a checkmark on the imovie display is now visible and the apply and reverse buttons have disappeared.
i can no longer exit out the photo settings window the same way as before.
when pictures are added to the timeline they are much too long.
i'm unable to keep the ken burns affect box checked, it keeps unchecking itself and it wont allow me to change any photo settings on certain pictures and on the ones it will allow me to when i press "apply" or the checkmark it stalls and wont render the file (the red line doesn't fill and just stays there)
when changing the length or display time of the picture it will delete itself and replace it with the next picture in line.
can anyone help me? i've spent a massive amount of time on this video and would like to finish it. i dont know what the problem is. maybe i clicked something i shouldn't have?
thanks in advance

i'm estimating around _1000 pictures_ ... they are all being stored on the desktop ...
WOW!
... how long does your poor Mac need for booting??
The >40y old Xerox metaphor of a Desktop/Folders/trashbin had the concept of simulating reallife.. would you store ~1000 pics on your desk while glueing them into an album (ever glued 1k pics into an album?) ...?
I assume, your System is 'cluttered'. totally cluttered.
try to clean up ... in Finder, clean your File 'System'... create folders (many folders...), use the pre-installed structure your Mac came with (how about storing pictures in... ehm, Pictures?), why not using iLife as intended (import into iM from iPhoto), why not using the integrated 'File Management' of iPhoto to create albums, to give your mass of pics some structure, finally consider to use approbiate apps (if you try to create a stopmotion-like movie, QTpro or Boinx' istopmotion are better tools) ...
keep in mind, a Mac needs at last 10-15GB free on internal drive to act normal.
export as much as you can to external drives (firewire connected, 'MacOsExtended' formatted), don't forget to give these harddrives structure too .. you know how to create Folders in Finder?
after all is set and done, your desktop is clean, everything is in its place, use Disk Utility to check&repair... finally, reboot your Mac, give it a chance to 'recreate' itself in better shape
... and there's still a high chance, that the fragile file management of the 20$ consumer app iMovie is still overwhelmed by >1000 stills in one single project...

Inserting Photos and the Ken Burns Effect

First
I have inserted a number of photos from iPhoto onto the timeline via the "Photos" panel in the "Media" section. After adding these pictures to the timeline, with transitions, etc. I realized that I wanted to add some pictures before the current ones in the timeline. How would I do this easily?
Second
These pictures are motionless, which is boring, and I want to add the Ken Burns Effect. However, I don't want the same effect on every picture is there some way to randomize the effect, similar to the way iPhoto does in its slideshows?
Thanks!

I have inserted a number of photos from iPhoto onto the timeline via the "Photos" panel in the "Media" section. After adding these pictures to the timeline, with transitions, etc. I realized that I wanted to add some pictures before the current ones in the timeline. How would I do this easily?
Just select the photos (Command-click) you wish to import, and drag them directly from the photos panel down to the timeline at the point you want to insert them.
is there some way to randomize the effect, similar to the way iPhoto does in its slideshows?
Not in iMovie. You would have to vary them individually.
However, you can use Photo-to-Movie to accomplish this. With this app, you drag in the photos and let the application create the effects. You can also individualize the effects yourself. Photo to Movie

Low quality when using Ken Burns effect

Hi,
I tried to import hi-res photos from iPhoto 6 to iMovie HD 6, adding some zooming with Ken Burns. The resulting clips are very blurry, lots of artefacts - very low quality. Is anyone else having this problem? It happens on my iBook as well on my iMac. Or am I just expecting to much?
Thanks for any advice, Patrick
iBook G4 800GHz, iMac G4 17" 1.25Ghz Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Hi Sue,
Have you ever tried Photo to iMovie? Apple even recommends it.
Yes, I know Photo to iMovie. But if I buy an integrated solution like iLife'06, it makes no sense to buy additional shareware programs to correct some flaws of it.
Isn't it possible to raise the quality of a Ken Burns effect, I would say in iLife '05 it was much better.
So I am looking forward to an update of iMovie HD 6...
Kind regards,
Patrick

Photo's w/Ken Burns Problem

Hi,
I have a G4 powermac and I'm using imovie 6. I am doing a slideshow with around 130 pictures using the Ken Burns Effect on most of them. The problem I encounter is with the last set of pictures I put in (around 30 of them), they look good but when I burn it in iDVD 6 only those last 30 picture's quality is TERRIBLE!! Even with the pictures that don't have the KB's effect. They are blurry, and the ones that have the KB's effect looks like there are lines going thru the top half of the picture. Any help on how to correct this would be great! My headache continues to grow by the minute trying to figure this out!!!!
Russ

Hello Russell,
it seems that you have encountered the bug described by Karl Petersen in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2105598&#2105598
hope this helps
mish

Here's how to make an iDVD with no flicker using Ken Burns Effect

iPhoto renders the Ken Burns effect as smoothy as can be - no flicker
iMovie does a poor job of rendering the Ken Burns Effect - much flicker
so
1. Make a slide show in iPhoto. Single out only those slides that have the Ken Burns Effect. Each of these slides is turned into a Slide Show of just one slide at a time.
2. Each single slide with the Ken Burns effect is adjusted for time, etc. and then exported into a QuickTime Movie - a movie consisting of only one slide.
3. Save all the individual movies into one folder (for convenience).
4. In iMovie (I use 06) , assemble the slide show - but only include all the slides that have no Ken Burns Effect.
5. Drag each of the single-slide movies into the iMovie clip pane, and then place them where you want between the other slides.
6. Play the iMovie and see how smoothly ALL the slides play.
7. Send the entire iMovie over to iDVD and burn it. Make sure the "Interlace" feature (File Menu -Interlace) is NOT checked.
8. All the Ken Burns slides will be rendered with hardly any flicker.

Like most iLife 08 owners I use iMovie 06.
Do you believe that your procedure will work the same way using iMovie 06 with iDVD 08?

I made a slide show in imovie using ken burns effect and when i transfer it to idvd the background shimmers. Is there a way around this?

If anyone has done this before and knows how to keep ken burns and lose the shimmer I would appreciate your help.

Add some blur to the image. I know it sounds crazy, but blurring the photo will reduce the flicker on a TV. DVDs are really low res. and by reducing the image detail will help prevent line flicker.

How can I use ken burns end transition frame to set cropping size for next segment?

I am trying to figure out how to trivially take a large frame view, in a clip, and use a Ken Burns transition to "zoom" into a new view, and then grab the ending "frame" location and size and set that as the clipping rectangle in the next segment. It seems like I should be able to just select the end fram view, type CMD-C to copy, and then select the next segment, choose "Clip", and type CMD-V to paste that "rectangle" as the clip. This doesn't work, so I am looking for another way. There's nothing in the popup menus or the main menus that I can find.
Is this possible?

I am afraid there is no easy way to this with Ken Burns. A better way may be to animate the Crop tool instead, using keyframes.

Shimmering of stills when using Ken Burns

I know Ken Burns did not invent panning, zooming, and movement in stills, but I think everyone know what I’m referring to.
I’m using FCP Studio 1, yes, it’s old and not supported by Apple any more, but it is more than enough for me.
On the stills that I set the keyframes for movement, during the movement the faces of the individuals were blurry and the entire still seemed to shimmer.
I have seen that in smaller amounts before, but this particular project there seemed to be much more.
What am I doing wrong?
Hank Kearns

The flickering is an artifact of the interlaced nature of video. It is a result of very thin (often horizontal) elements that exist on one scanline as is common in text or titling. This can also be the case in scanned images with great deal of detail with high contrast.
As the alternate fields play, the flashing element is essentially being turned on/off. The basic strategy is to get the element to exist over two scanlines so it is refreshed every time the field plays or to reduce the amount of contrast so the difference between ON and OFF is not noticeable.
Things to try (In increasing order of image degradation)
• (in FCP) field order>none
• (in FCP or Photoshop) reduce whites by 10% - reduces overly bright areas
• (in FCP) flicker filter - minimum
• (in Photoshop) motion blur>vertical> .2 - .5 pixels - blurs vertically only
• (In FCP or Photoshop) Gaussian blur> .2 - .5 pixels -blurs both horizontally as well as vertically
• (in FCP or Photoshop) deinterlace - throws away half the image and is generally not appropriate on scanned images
Remember: Unless you are viewing your work in the appropriate external NTSC/PAL monitor, you are playing blind. The computer monitor only shows you a proxy image.
If you have slowed your material significantly, and have not used some sort of frame blending/optical flow processing, you may be simply duplicating frames to create the additional material to pad the playback. The flashing you see is the result of this.
good luck.
x

How can I import photos without using iPhoto?

I'm 37, a lifetime PC/Windows user and have finally made the switch to Mac after years of using every other Apple product, including iPod, iPhone and Apple TV, which, by the way, must be the most under-marketed and best value Apple product ever. I can't believe more people don't have Apple TV in their homes.
With PCs, I was used to importing pictures to my hard drive and then viewing and editing them with whatever software applications I wanted. With my Mac, I notice that when I insert my SD card, iPhoto starts and asks me to import, which I agree. Unfortunately, it imports the images to an iPhoto folder that I can't easily access from another program, such as PhotoshopElements. I have read how to use Finder to navigate to these imported images in the iPhoto library ("Show Package Content") and then I copy the folder of images and paste it to a folder in my "Pictures" directory in Finder, but I find this tedious and also redundant as I now I understand I basically have two copies of every image, one for iPhoto Library and the other for accessing via other programs, such as Photoshop.
Is there anyway I can simply import images straight to a folder on my hard drive?
Also, if I do choose to access these images via iPhoto, am I correct in assuming iPhoto will automatically create a duplicate folder, just for accessing in the iPhoto library? If so, isn't this a waste of hard drive space? Can this be avoided?
Thank you for any and all assistance.
Kevin

Hi Kevin, I am in the same boat as you having been buying PCs for the last 25 years and managing IT for SMEs I have now purchased my first Mac (mac mini). My move to Mac started with the iPhone that led to the iPad then like you I succumbed to the beauty of the Apply TV that then led to the purchase of an Airport Express. The love affair had to conclude in the purchase of a Mac!
For many years I have used the feature to have the date photos taken created as a folder and all photos from that date placed in that folder. Every year I create a new folder for that year and the import on PC creates the daily folders to hold photos …
I was just about to ask how I can keep doing this and realised it’s not as important as I thought – I’ll still create a folder for each year and just have the photos dumped in there. I can sort in Finder by date taken and catalogue in any way I won’t.
I’ll still use folders rather than iPhoto as I want other software like XBMC (on other OS) to read the photos.
Thanks for letting me rant – I thought I will post anyway as this is my first Apple post and it may assist others.

Exporting still photos with Ken Burns from iMovie to Keynote

I am new to the Mac and have no experience of iMovie. I am putting together a slide lecture that uses photos and graphics to promote a coffee-table book on conservation issues. The presentation will use manual advance and will be shown to public audiences on large screens. The quality of the projected image is very important so I will be using a high quality Canon projector with a resolution of 1400x1050.
Some images are of landscapes and I want to use the Ken Burns effect that is available in iPhoto and iMovie but, for some unknown reason, not in Keynote. I posted this first with the Keynote Discussion Forum and was advised to move the photos from iPhoto to iMovie, apply the Ken Burns effect in iMovie, and then export to Keynote via Quicktime. My question is, if I do this, will my Ken Burns landscapes retain the same size and quality of projected image as the rest of my Keynote presentation? My impression is that using this process I may lose quality, but I hope I'm wrong. Please advise.

Some background: Importing photos with the Ken Burns checkbox ON causes iMovie to render a video clip from the photo. That's an entirely different process than importing the photo as a "still" image. Unfortunately, Ken Burns and several other rendering routines are vulnerable to factors that sometimes cause them to fail. The disk format can cause failure, third-party software, inadequate video cards and the like. The factors often have nothing to do with iMovie itself.
The same problems can occur when rendering other kinds of clips too, such as themes and special effects. (Ken Burn gets the bad rep because it's where the problems usually occur for users.)
Some of the items you listed in your Library/QuickTime folder are third-party products. There may be others too in the other folders mentioned in the link I posted earlier, so be sure to look in those too. And in iMovie plug-in folders.
Sometimes necessary items are missing that should exist. One I've seen mentioned here occasionally is the QuartzComposer.component, which should reside in your System/Library/QuickTime folder. If it's not there that might cause the problems you see.
Installing/reinstalling the QuickTime 7.1.6 might help. I've seen reports of problems going away after that update. Repeating the update won't hurt.
Have you tried creating a new user account and running iMovie as that user? If iMovie runs okay as that user that suggests a software conflict when you are the user. Unfortunately, if the software is installed in places where it applies to all users it will cause problems for the new user too.
I'd keep trying to find some software component causing trouble for QuickTime/iMovie. It's clear some third-party components have been installed; there might be others. Perhaps stuff related to AVI?
Karl

Ken Burns Effects Don't Work in iMovie HD (I've Tried Everything)

Version:
OS X 10.4.10
iMovie 6
*Hardware 1:*
PowerMac G4 Dual 500 Mhz, 1GB RAM, Internal 40GB HDD and Internal 320 GB HDD
*Hardware 2:*
PowerBook G4 500 Mhz, 512MB RAM, Internal 20 GB HDD
Problem:
This problem occurs on both of my G4 Macs. In iMovie HD, I imported a JPEG from iPhoto with Ken Burns Effects on. The still photo appeared properly in the Clip Viewer initially, but appeared as a black screen in the iMovie Monitor. Once the imported photo with the Ken Burns Effects completed rendering, the clip in the Clip Viewer turned white and appeared as a white screen in the iMovie Monitor. I have tried almost everything I read about in these forums in search of a resolution.
*Resolutions that Failed:*
1. The photo is definitely a .jpg
2. Tried importing the actual .jpg file as well as importing from iPhoto.
3. QuickTime and all other Software updates have been applied and are running on the most current release.
4. Repaired disk permissions.
5. Created, saved and manipulated the iMovie file in the standard Movie Folder on my main internal hard drive. (i.e. – I'm not saving to an external HDD)
6. Created, saved and manipulated the iMovie file in the standard Movie Folder on my secondary internal hard drive. (i.e. – I'm not saving to an external HDD)
7. Deleted the 'mac.imovie.plist' file and created a new one.
8. Attempted to do apply the effects logged on as a different user.
9. Saved file, restarted machine and reopened numerous times but the problem persists.
10. Tried a lower resolution photo and the problem persists.
11. Attempted to import all the photos I planned to use, added transitions to all of the clips and rendered completely. Saved the file, restarted the machine and reopened the file with no change to the blank clips.
12. The iMovie trash emptying issue did nothing to help.
*Additional Notes:*
1. The problem is confined to the Ken Burns Effects in iMovie. I am able to work with true video clips without incident.
2. Ken Burns Effects operate properly in iPhoto 6 using the slideshow functionality.
3. I would use iPhoto, but it seems like it would be easier to line up specific sections of an audio track with certain Ken Burns Effects in iMovie. (i.e. – a crescendo at the 16 second mark of the audio track coincides with the end of a 'zoom' on a photo, transition from second 16-17 second mark, new photo at the 17 second mark and pan left to right from 17 second mark to the 25 second mark.) Point is that it lines up precisely with the markers on the audio track, which seems far easier to do in iMovie than iPhoto.
4. Please help me, I'm going nuts troubleshooting this bug! I can't find any resolution that works.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Message was edited by: Charlie Brown Jr.

Hmmm. You seem to have tried, without success, most if not all of the methods of resolving a Ken Burns black screen issue.
Some thoughts that have occurred to me:
1. Perhaps your G4 500mhz Mac is not fast enough. I think that the minimum spec for iLife '06 is 733mhz. Might have nothing to do with this problem, but I just mention it.
2. Are the sizes of your images too large, as can happen with some of these new high def cameras? iMovie has trouble working with very large images.
3. Do you have any 3rd pary plug-ins, particularly in Quick Time, that could be causing a conflict?
4. Do you have enough disk space for the project to operate?
5. Have you done a recent Quick Time update? Some users have reported a problem with that.
6. From your post, it appears that you have continuously worked within the same iMovie file that exhibits the Ken Burns problem. If this is true, try creating a new iMovie project and experimenting with a few clips to see if the problem persists in the new project.
Ken Burns issues can be very frustrating. I think that you will need to keep trying things until something works. Wish I could be more help, but perhaps some of the tech experts on this forum will have some workable suggestions.
There is an application called Photo to Movie that reputedly has a far better Ken Burns type of effect. If you can't resolve your problem, you might try downloading that app. I believe that it offers a demo download.
Good luck.

Importing photo's & using ken burns

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