Can you sharpen video clips in iMovie 10?

Question

Can you sharpen video clips in iMovie 10?

Since I didn't find a sharpen tool, I have a feeling the direct answer is NO.

But perhaps there is a type of workaround? My situation is that I have a video where the camera was about 30 feet away from the action. The raw video is sharp, but several times I want to crop so a particular person in a group is close-up for a few seconds or so. Of course, when you zoom in you lose quality, so I want to see if I can do any sort of manipulating to make the cropped image not so fuzzy.

Thanks for your help!

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on May 2, 2016 7:35 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Jim Wanamaker

Level 5

6,311 points

May 2, 2016 8:08 PM in response to James Snedeker

Unfortunately you are correct. Their is no sharpening tool and since iMovie does not except plugins there is no third party solution. What I have found is that with some judicious adjustments to contrast and brightness you can make the clip appear sharper so you might try that and see if it will help.

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Answer 2

May 3, 2016 5:51 AM in response to Jim Wanamaker

Jim, thanks for the suggestion. I also read about someone who also had Final Cut, and he simply put his footage into FC and used its Sharpen tool.

If I had FC, could I take my footage that I've already worked on in iMovie and import it into FC and sharpen it there?

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Answer 3

May 3, 2016 3:08 PM in response to James Snedeker

You can send both Events and Projects from iMovie to FCPX. Select an Event in library list and under file menu select send Event to Final Cut Pro. For a project open the project tab, select the project and in file menu select send movie to Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Pro will open and create a new library with your project. The media used in your project will also transfer to a new event in FCP. For your situation I would complete editing in iMovie and then send the project to FCP. You can open it, apply the sharpening effect and share from FCP to your final format.

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Answer 4

May 3, 2016 6:38 PM in response to Jim Wanamaker

Thanks, Jim I just remembered that while I don't have FCP, I do have Adobe After Effects. I'm hoping I can find a sharpening agent in there.

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Answer 5

Nov 21, 2016 4:36 AM in response to James Snedeker

To use QT 7 is one solution with the sharpen export filter otherwise the best standalone desktop app is "Avidemux2.6.app" as free download , very fast way to sharpen video with good preview and result

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