iMovie Tutorial: How to Transform Your Photos into a Motion Picture

When reviewing photos using the LCD on the back of my camera, We find it fun to hold down the navigation button and let the camera quickly zip through all the images. Especially since We frequently shoot in burst mode—holding the shutter button to shoot several shots in succession—the effect is enticing, almost like watching a stop-motion animation movie. And a question is, Can We do it with Mac? Let’s read this article.

Build in iMovie

Here’s how to do it.

1. Import the photos into iPhoto, where they appear grouped into a new event.

2. In iMovie, create a new project.

3. Choose File ? Project Settings (or press command-J).

• Set the Initial Photo Placement setting to Fit In Frame. This ensures that you see each image in its entirety, regardless of whether the photos are a mix of landscape and portrait orientations.
• You can also choose Crop to remove any black borders from the images, but that setting could lead to odd framing, especially for portrait images. (You can change these settings later if you want.)
• You might be tempted to change the Photo Duration setting here, too, but don’t bother. The shortest length is one second, which is too long for the effect I’m going for here. We’ll adjust the timing shortly.

5. Open the Photos browser and click the Events item under iPhoto.

6. Drag the event you created to the Project browser to add the photos to your movie. Depending on the number of photos in the event, this import step could take some time, so be patient.

7. Double-click one image in the project to open the Clip Inspector. You can also select an image and click the Inspector button in the toolbar, or just press the I key.

8. Set the duration as 0.1s, and also select the Applies To All Stills option, to adjust the timing of every frame.

• If you want to change whether the photos are cropped or set to fit within the frame, select all frames (click one, and then choose Edit ? Select All or press command-A), and then click the Crop button on the toolbar. You can then click the Fit or Crop buttons that appear in the Viewer.

Feel free to adjust any of the frames manually. When I set my project to Crop, many of the portrait photos ended up showing just sky. So I simply moved the visible area in those frames to include the action.

Add Music and Titles

When you play the movie, it’s just like the experience you have as you shuttle through the shots on your camera. But in this case, you have the potential to create a lot more variety. You can add music or titles, adjust the timing for specific shots, and use any of the other features iMovie offers. And, of course, you can then share the movie with whomever you want.