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Transparent overlay in iMovie

Hi, I want to make a qigong video and I want to overlay a transparency onto the video. It will be simple circle, representing an energy ball, but I need to be able to adjust the size and location of the circle in order for it to have meaning.


Is there some way to do this in iMovie?


Thanks

Posted on Apr 10, 2020 10:02 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 10, 2020 11:26 AM

Creating the transparency screen is easy. Take a duplicate of any random photo and click on it to open it in Preview. Then, in the Preview menu, do Edit/Select All, Edit/ Delete. The picture will disappear leaving you with a blank transparency screen. Then open the picture of your energy ball on your desktop and Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste it into the transparency screen that you created. Use the drag handles on the inserted ball picturedrag adjust the position and size. When done, do a File/Save to your desktop. Then import the transparency ball that you created into iMovie. Insert it above your main clip in the timeline and select the ball pic. Click on the overlay tool (the one that looks like overlapping rectangles) in the tool bar at the upper right of your screen. Click on Picture in Picture in the selection box that appears. Adjust the position of the ball, and the size of it by dragging the corners of the outline of the ball photo. You then use the key stroke tools in the upper left of the PiP screen to animate the ball. Then click on the blue reset button to apply your adjustments.


In my next postI will provide a help link for a more detailed explanation of how to use the PiP feature and how to animate the arrow.


— Rich




2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 10, 2020 11:26 AM in response to Starjumper7

Creating the transparency screen is easy. Take a duplicate of any random photo and click on it to open it in Preview. Then, in the Preview menu, do Edit/Select All, Edit/ Delete. The picture will disappear leaving you with a blank transparency screen. Then open the picture of your energy ball on your desktop and Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste it into the transparency screen that you created. Use the drag handles on the inserted ball picturedrag adjust the position and size. When done, do a File/Save to your desktop. Then import the transparency ball that you created into iMovie. Insert it above your main clip in the timeline and select the ball pic. Click on the overlay tool (the one that looks like overlapping rectangles) in the tool bar at the upper right of your screen. Click on Picture in Picture in the selection box that appears. Adjust the position of the ball, and the size of it by dragging the corners of the outline of the ball photo. You then use the key stroke tools in the upper left of the PiP screen to animate the ball. Then click on the blue reset button to apply your adjustments.


In my next postI will provide a help link for a more detailed explanation of how to use the PiP feature and how to animate the arrow.


— Rich




Transparent overlay in iMovie

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