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iMovie drop shadow incorrect when using Scale Bottom title

iMovie 10.1.15. When creating a video for use in the App Store, using the Scale Bottom title produces a drop shadow for the screenshot that is being scaled down and moved up. But the corner radius of the drop shadow is incorrect, so the drop shadow does not appear around the corners, as seen in the red circles in this screenshot. Is there some way to correct this so the drop shadow surrounds the entire image? Using a Scale Top title shows a similar problem at the top corners.

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Sep 18, 2020 10:04 AM

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Posted on Sep 19, 2020 12:53 PM

O.k. I see the issue. I opened a New Add Preview project and got the same findings that you did using the Scale Bottom title. The shadow did not extend around the lower corners of the green clip.


The problem is that the program creates the shadow by overlaying the green clip onto a shadow template, as you can see in Shot No. 1 below where I have used the Crop to Fit setting on the green clip to make the green clip smaller so to reveal the template below:



Unfortunately, with the corp to fill setting that the program applies, the green clip is too large for the underlying template, thus causing the lower end to exceed the boundaries of the template, as you have found per Shot No. 2 below:



That causes the shadow edge of the template to be overlapped so that the corners of the template do not display the shadow on the corners of the clip.


I wasn't able to find a way of either shrinking the green clip or enlarging the template to rectify the issue. There were no control features that allowed that. However, I was able to achieve a workaround of sorts. I used the Picture in Picture feature of iMovie to overlay the green clip on Shot No. 1 above, and adjusted the overlayed clip to fit the template. Below is the result in Shot No 3:



Whether the result is satisfactory to you would be be your call. You might be better off creating the title template in the KeyNote app as I mentioned previously. You could also try tinkering with the App Preview program. You might also try contacting Apple Support to see if they have any suggestions.


Good luck with this.


-- Rich



5 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Sep 19, 2020 12:53 PM in response to mzehngut

O.k. I see the issue. I opened a New Add Preview project and got the same findings that you did using the Scale Bottom title. The shadow did not extend around the lower corners of the green clip.


The problem is that the program creates the shadow by overlaying the green clip onto a shadow template, as you can see in Shot No. 1 below where I have used the Crop to Fit setting on the green clip to make the green clip smaller so to reveal the template below:



Unfortunately, with the corp to fill setting that the program applies, the green clip is too large for the underlying template, thus causing the lower end to exceed the boundaries of the template, as you have found per Shot No. 2 below:



That causes the shadow edge of the template to be overlapped so that the corners of the template do not display the shadow on the corners of the clip.


I wasn't able to find a way of either shrinking the green clip or enlarging the template to rectify the issue. There were no control features that allowed that. However, I was able to achieve a workaround of sorts. I used the Picture in Picture feature of iMovie to overlay the green clip on Shot No. 1 above, and adjusted the overlayed clip to fit the template. Below is the result in Shot No 3:



Whether the result is satisfactory to you would be be your call. You might be better off creating the title template in the KeyNote app as I mentioned previously. You could also try tinkering with the App Preview program. You might also try contacting Apple Support to see if they have any suggestions.


Good luck with this.


-- Rich



Sep 19, 2020 9:18 AM in response to mzehngut

Hi,


I am not aware of a drop shadow feature in iMovie 10, nor of a Scale Bottom or Scale Top title. Some of the titles have shadows around the lettering, but I have not seen a drop shadow background. There are a couple of filter effects that are close to a drop shadow, but not really. Perhaps you could explain what steps you used to get a drop shadow in iMovie. Are you possibly using iMovie 9?


In any case, you can use the free KeyNote app to add a drop shadow and then import into iMovie. You can make adjustments to the shadow in KeyNote.


-- Rich




Sep 19, 2020 10:13 AM in response to Rich839

Rich, thanks for your reply. I am using iMovie 10.1.15. The Scale Bottom and Scale Top titles are available only in an App Preview project.


To reproduce, from the iMovie main window menu, select File -> New App Preview.

Add an image to the timeline. The image must be a supported resolution for an app preview, for example 2048 × 2732. I provide a sample image in this response so you don’t need to create one.

Select the Titles tab and drag the Scale Bottom title to above the image in the timeline.

You can see the drop shadow problem in the preview part of the screen. I am including a screenshot of the iMovie window which shows the problem.


Thanks,

Marc


Sep 20, 2020 9:34 AM in response to Rich839

Rich, Thanks very much for the clear explanation about what is going on and for providing a suggested workaround. I think I will abandon using the Scale Bottom title. I’ll use another program to create separate frames with scaled and unscaled images, and add titles to the frames with scaled images, and then use a cross dissolve transition in iMovie to go from one frame to the next. I don’t really need the drop shadow effect. I just liked the scaling animation, but using a cross dissolve animation would be fine too. Again thanks for your help with this issue.


Marc


iMovie drop shadow incorrect when using Scale Bottom title

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