Within minutes you can transform your high-resolution digital image in to a DVquality movie that pans, zooms and rotates the once-still image.

Transcription

1 Slick Motion gives you a simple and easy way to make your still images come alive. Within minutes you can transform your high-resolution digital image in to a DVquality movie that pans, zooms and rotates the once-still image. Whether creating a documentary or independent film project, Slick Motion replaces the need for specialized and expensive video equipment by using the power of the Macintosh and QuickTime to create the pan and zoom movie clips. By starting with a high-resolution image, Slick Motion can use this data to create the highest quality movie possible. With a few simple tools you set the location, scale and rotation of the beginning and ending frames of the movie. There is a preview feature so that you can quickly get an idea of how your movie will look before rendering. The final movie file you save can be imported into imovie or other application that uses QuickTime videos.

2 Using Slick Motion The Slick Motion application is automatically placed in the Applications folder on your computer. Slick motion is compatible with Mac OS X and Mac OS 9. Launch the Slick Motion Application and a new project window will appear. Slick Motion Document Window First Frame Pane Last Frame Pane First Frame Settings Last Frame Settings Select image to import Set desired length of movie Create Preview movie Create Final movie Select Image Click the Choose button or use Command-I to select the image file you wish to open. Slick Motion is can read JPEG, GIF, PICT and Photoshop files. It is best to use images at the highest resolution possible. Low-resolution images may produce jaggies if it needs to be scaled to a larger size. SlickMotion 2

3 Adjust Settings After the image is selected, it will appear in both the Start Settings and end Setting panes. The Start Settings pane shows the first frame of the movie and End Setting the last frame. Here are the various parameters you can adjust for the starting and ending frames of the movie: Location position of the picture in the pane. The 0,0 point represents the upper left corner of the image. You adjust the position by either: Putting the mouse in the pane. The cursor will change to the arrow and you can move image by dragging it within the pane. Also, holding the shift key while dragging will restrict movement horizontally or vertically. Enter in settings manually in the Location boxes Rotation angle of the picture. Use either the slider or manually enter the rotation in the Rotation boxes. Scale size of the picture. At 100%, one pixel of the image file is 1 pixel of the video and there is no scaling. Ease In/Out delay at the beginning or ending of the movie. When this option is checked, there is a 1 second pause before/after the motion. Clip Duration length of the movie. Tip If the duration of the movie is too short, the resulting output may look jerky, especially if panning across a long distance. A longer duration may make the movie look much smoother. SlickMotion 3

4 Preview Movie Once the starting and end frame parameters are set, it is a good idea to preview image by clicking on the Preview Movie button or use Command-R. It will take a few seconds to create a small preview movie. The preview movie is small 12 frame-per-second clip that is lower quality than the final output, but is created quite fast. Click the Play button or press the space bar to play the movie. Change any of the settings until satisfied with the results. Outputting the Movie The final step is to save the finished movie. Click the Make Movie button (or Command-M)to begin the processing and saving the high-quality DV QuickTime movie. It will take a few minutes to output this file as it is quite large (34MB for a 10 second movie) Tip if the file is saved in an imovie project Media folder, it will appear on the shelf as a clip the next time the project is opened. The default setting is to save the file in NTSC format. To change the settings for PAL output, go to the Preferences menu item and select the PAL button. SlickMotion 4

5 Saving the SlickMotion Document At any time you can save the Slick Motion document. This document can be opened at a later time with all of the settings preserved. Note to save disk space, the Slick Motion document does not include a copy of the image. Using the SlickMotion movie with imovie The final movie created by Slick Motion can be imported into imovie. In imovie, choose Import File (or command-i) under the File menu. After selecting the movie file, it will appear on the Clip shelf. Using the SlickMotion movie with other applications If the movie file is opened directly, it will launch the QuickTime Player application. By default, the QuickTime player shows the DV video in low quality mode. To change this setting if QuickTime Pro is enabled, go the Movie menu and select Get Movie Properties (command-j). In the Property window select Video Track on the left pop-up menu and High Quality on the right pop-up. The select High Quality Enabled check box. The movie file can also be used by any other application that can import QuickTime movies. SlickMotion 5

6 Keyboard Shortcuts Command I Import Image Command R Show Preview Command M Make movie Command ; - Open Preferences Technical Information Compatible with Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 File types supported JPEG, GIF, PICT and Photoshop Maximum file size - limited only by memory Output format QuickTime DV, NTSC and PAL Compatible imovie 2.0 or later, other applications using QuickTime 2002 GeeThree All Rights Reserved GeeThree.com 261 Hamilton Ave. Suite 311 Palo Alto, CA USA Portions licensed from Buena Software ( SlickMotion 6