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iMovie Background colour for PHOTO'S only

Hi All, I'm doing a slideshow of photo's in iMovie and want to change background colour from black so the sidebars from portrait photo's show another colour. I can get this to work for any video I put in but all the photos go back to the black sidebar. Does iMovie not offer this for photos vs videos?

Posted on May 18, 2021 1:06 AM

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Posted on May 18, 2021 3:35 PM

Put your background into the lower timeline and stretch it out to the duration that you want. Then add all of your photos to the upper timeline above the background. Then select the first photo and click on the overlay icon (the one that looks like overlapping squares) in the toolbar at the upper right of your screen. In the selection box that appears choose Picture in Picture. In the preview screen, adjust the size and position of the photo. Then click on the blue reset button on the right of your project screen to set your changes. (That last step is important.) One you have your Picture in Picture overlay set, do an Edit/Copy of the photo number 1. Then select photo number 2 and the, while holding down the shift key, select the last photo. That will select all photos in the timeline following photo number 1. While the range of photos is selected go to Edit/Paste Adjustments/ Video Overlay Settings. That will apply your settings for photo number 1 to all of the photos in the range.


-- Rich

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 18, 2021 3:35 PM in response to sydneysean

Put your background into the lower timeline and stretch it out to the duration that you want. Then add all of your photos to the upper timeline above the background. Then select the first photo and click on the overlay icon (the one that looks like overlapping squares) in the toolbar at the upper right of your screen. In the selection box that appears choose Picture in Picture. In the preview screen, adjust the size and position of the photo. Then click on the blue reset button on the right of your project screen to set your changes. (That last step is important.) One you have your Picture in Picture overlay set, do an Edit/Copy of the photo number 1. Then select photo number 2 and the, while holding down the shift key, select the last photo. That will select all photos in the timeline following photo number 1. While the range of photos is selected go to Edit/Paste Adjustments/ Video Overlay Settings. That will apply your settings for photo number 1 to all of the photos in the range.


-- Rich

May 19, 2021 8:46 AM in response to sydneysean

What happened there was that your very first photo had fades applied, so when you copied it and pasted the PiP adjustments to the remaining clips you also pasted in the fades.


Click on the first clip again and remove the fades, apply and set your Picture in Picture, and then do the Edit/Copy, Edit/Paste Adjustments, procedure for the rest of the clips. That will remove all of the fades that you previously imparted.


-- Rich

May 18, 2021 8:14 AM in response to sydneysean

Insert a background color into the main timeline. Then place your slides above it in the upper timeline. Select the first picture and overlay it onto the background with the Picture in Picture feature. Then select the first photo and do Edit/Copy. Select the remaining photos as a batch and do an Edit/Paste Adjustments//Video Overlay Settings. That will overlay all of the photos onto the background. You cannot add transitions in the upper timeline. However, when you place your cursor on a photo, fade handles will appear in the upper corners that will allow you to impart a fade if you wish.


May 18, 2021 3:06 PM in response to Rich839

Thank you SO much for the response. Unfortunately i still can't get this to work. Could I possibly get more step by step details? I chose the colour and added the first photo and then chose edit/copy as you said. I then put the rest in all at once and chose paste adjustments and video overlay but then nothing changed. Really appreciate any help.

May 19, 2021 1:04 AM in response to Rich839

Rich, you are an absolute LEGEND! I can't thank you enough for helping me out. That worked perfectly! One more question...since the project has now included fade in/out for each picture, and while I can work out how to remove them one picture at a time, is there an easier way to remove all the fades at once for the whole project?

iMovie Background colour for PHOTO'S only

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