iMovie: The Missing Manual

Chapter 12. Photos

You may think that iMovie’s primary purpose in life is working with video, but the truth is, it’s quite handy with photos and graphics, too. For example, you can add images to your movie from iPhoto, Aperture, or your hard drive to use as still shots, which you can then pan and zoom for an authentic, documentary-style effect. You can also use images and graphics to create slideshows. And you can turn individual frames of your movie into still images for use as freeze-frames. This chapter tells all.

Using Photos and Graphics

You may want to import a photos or graphics into iMovie for any number of reasons. For example:

• You can use a graphic, digital photo, or other still image as a backdrop for movie credit rolls (Chapter 10). A still image behind your text is less distracting than moving footage.

• You can use a graphics file for your credits themselves instead of using iMovie’s titling feature. As noted in Chapter 10, iMovie’s titling effect offers a number of powerful features, but it also has a number of limitations. For example, you have only rudimentary control over the title’s placement in the frame (see Figure 12-1).

  Preparing your own title graphic in, say, Photoshop or Photoshop Elements gives you a lot of flexibility that iMovie titling doesn’t. You get complete control over the size, color, and placement of text, and you can add graphic touches or a unique background.

  Figure 12-1. Preparing your title cards in a graphics program gives you far more typographical ...