I can't seem to get a background behind a photo slideshow on iMovie! When I do the opacity deletes the background and if I slide it left it brings to opacity down on the photo too! It's driving me nuts! I get a lot of portrait photos so dont want the two black lied at the side, -this should be easy! Help!
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.6
Hi,
One way is to put a background in the lower timeline and drag its duration out to the length of the slide show. Then assemble your slide show photos in the upper timeline. There are slider handles in the upper corners of each slide for imparting a fade if one wishes.
Then go to the first slide and overlay it onto the background with the Picture in Picture feature. Set your overlay with the little blue arrow. Then do an Edit/Copy of the first photo. Select all of the other photos as a batch. Then do Edit/Paste Adjustments/Overlay Settings to impart the settings of your first slide to the entire batch.
One drawback to the above procedure is that you will not be able to add transitions other than the fade imposed by the fade handle.
A second way is to make your slideshow without an added background. Then export it and remove the black background by using the Command-Shift-5 procedure to do a screen recording using the record selected portion setting. In other words, do a screen recording with just the image portion selected, thus eliminating the black borders. Import the borderless video into an iMovie project and overlay it onto a background.
A third way is to use the New App Preview feature to create your slide show. Go to the projects browser view (where your projects are displayed as icons) and do File/New App Preview. A screen will open showing a project screen, except that it has fewer options than a normal project screen. Make your portrait image slideshow there and export it to your desktop using the "App Preview" export option. It will not have black boarders. Then import the borderless vid back into an iMovie project and overlay it onto a background. NOTE: This procedure will not eliminate the black borders unless the portrait images are vertical 9:16 images, such as taken with an iPhone. It does not appear to work with other vertical aspect ratios.
-- Rich
Hi,
One way is to put a background in the lower timeline and drag its duration out to the length of the slide show. Then assemble your slide show photos in the upper timeline. There are slider handles in the upper corners of each slide for imparting a fade if one wishes.
Then go to the first slide and overlay it onto the background with the Picture in Picture feature. Set your overlay with the little blue arrow. Then do an Edit/Copy of the first photo. Select all of the other photos as a batch. Then do Edit/Paste Adjustments/Overlay Settings to impart the settings of your first slide to the entire batch.
One drawback to the above procedure is that you will not be able to add transitions other than the fade imposed by the fade handle.
A second way is to make your slideshow without an added background. Then export it and remove the black background by using the Command-Shift-5 procedure to do a screen recording using the record selected portion setting. In other words, do a screen recording with just the image portion selected, thus eliminating the black borders. Import the borderless video into an iMovie project and overlay it onto a background.
A third way is to use the New App Preview feature to create your slide show. Go to the projects browser view (where your projects are displayed as icons) and do File/New App Preview. A screen will open showing a project screen, except that it has fewer options than a normal project screen. Make your portrait image slideshow there and export it to your desktop using the "App Preview" export option. It will not have black boarders. Then import the borderless vid back into an iMovie project and overlay it onto a background. NOTE: This procedure will not eliminate the black borders unless the portrait images are vertical 9:16 images, such as taken with an iPhone. It does not appear to work with other vertical aspect ratios.
-- Rich
Thank you, I’ll give them a try - I might just have to use Canva gah!! It’s so frustrating!
Good luck with your project.
-- Rich
IMovie background help, when making a picture slideshow.
