The Traveler

Getting Photos Prepared for iMovie

It is my experience that preparing your photos for an iMovie is the most important and potentially timesaving task in the iMovie process. I prefer to work with the photos in the iPhoto program before I even think about clicking on the iMovie icon.

I would first open an new album in iPhoto and place the photos for your iMovie in that album. Then I would put the photos in the same order that you would want to see them in the iMovie slideshow. At this time I would do any cropping or editing of the photos in iPhoto. Now when you click on iMovie and select the theme, you just need to open the album from the photo icon, hit Select All and drag them into the work space in the upper left hand section of the iMovie screen. It you want to change the order of a few slides after you view it, it can easily be done by selecting the picture and dragging it to the desired place on the timeline.

Easy peesy, lemon squeezie!

A Word About Photo Order

When I first started making iMovie photo presentations I tried to painstakingly put all of the photos in chronological order. This seemed logical to me because people usually want to see how a person or family evolved over time. Then after creating the same basic presentation for a friend several different times, I tried putting the photos in random order just to see what happened. It turned out that the presentation became more interesting because the viewer did not know what photo from what timeframe was going to come up next. I have even made in chronological order and one with random ordered photos for the same person and let them show whichever one they choose. Give it a try to shake up your photo slide presentations.

Father Pete Lentine Turns 92

Father Peter Lentine, pastor at St Philomena Catholic Church turned 92 last week. He is the oldest servicing priest in the Detroit area Archdiocese and is also a great guy. I have had the great fortune to put together a few iMovie projects for Father Pete over the last few years. I will post the iMovie that was showed during his birthday celebration yesterday. (actually an updated version from his 90th birthday) But until I post that, this is an interesting video that was shot by the Detroit Free Press when he turned 90.

A Word About Transitions

Transitions are the visual effects that take place between photos during a slide show. The transitions help smooth out the presentation because jumping from photo to photo without transitions can look harsh. iMovie offers many different kinds of transitions that can be as simple as a fade-to-black transition between photos, to a ripple effect that looks like pebble being dropped into a pool of water.

Even though it is tempting, I caution against going wild with the transitions. Too many fancy transitions can be distracting and make the slide show look amateurish.

iMovie gives you the option of starting each movie with uniform standardized transitions. I highly suggest selecting that option. If there are a few photos that could use the extra punch of a 'fancy' transition then go ahead and add it separately. Just be forewarned that once you add a transition that is different than the initially standardized transitions, you need to manually add each transition from that time forward because iMove will turn off the standardized transition function.

Photo Slide Show Survey

I am considering starting a business to provide photo slide shows for special occasions. Photos to be provided by the client in either paper or digital format. Paper photos would be scanned as part of the service. Music could be provided by the client or I could use royalty-free music. Is this a service that you would pay for? How much would you pay?

Father Solanus Center Video

I have posted the latest version of the Father Solanus Casey Center video below. It features the phone number of the center and the web address. Enjoy.