Where is my opacity slider in imovie 10.1.6, and can I get it back? If not what's the workaround for creating video opacity for cutaways?

You can alter the clip as many times as you want. You probably just had a glitch in that one project. To check, try opening a new project and see if the slider appears.

To adjust the opacity of the upper clip, select it by clicking on it. Then click on the overlay button that appears (the one that looks like overlapping squares in the tool box at the top right of your screen). Select Cutaway from the selection box. The opacity slider should appear. Move the slider back and forth to adjust the opacity. Then click the blue reset button on the right hand side of your screen to apply the settings. You can do this before or after cropping.

As for changing the position of the upper clip you can move it by clicking on it to select it and then placing your cursor on it and, while pressing down, dragging the clip to the position that you want. You can change the size by selecting it and placing your cursor on the edge of the clip and dragging the edge.

Here's a link to an online Help menu with a good search feature that explain the various features of iMovie:

https://help.apple.com/imovie/mac/10.1/

-- Rich

Hi,

The opacity slider is still there, assuming that your iMovie app is functioning properly.

The opacity slider is located below and to the right of the overlay button. To make a cutaway clip you place it in the timeline just above the main clip, and then select it by clicking on it. Selecting it will make the overlay button appear in the tool bar at the upper right of your screen. It looks like overlapping squares. When you click on the overlay button and select Cutaway you will see the Opacity slider below and to the right.

-- Rich

That's odd. I'm running iMovie 10.1.10 (current version). The opacity slider is there as you can see from my screen shot. It doesn't show an Opacity box that can be checked.

Try unchecking the Opacity box that you see. Does the slider then appear?

Absence of an opacity slider would indicate that iMovie is not functioning correctly. Perhaps it is a corrupt preference. Try opening iMovie while holding down the Option and Command keys and selecting to delete preferences in the box that appears. iMovie will open in a new library. Reopen your old library to get back to your projects. Now see if the opacity box appears.

Failing that, try booting up in Safe Mode (see Help menu) and, after everything finishes loading, immediately shut down and reboot in normal mode. See if that cures it.

If still no luck, try redownloading iMovie. Drag your present iMovie app from the applications folder into the trash, but do not empty the trash. Then go to the app store and see if you can redownload your version of iMovie. If you can redownload successfully, then you can empty the trash. If for some reason a redownload is not available, drag your old iMovie out of the trash and replace it in the Applications folder.

Hopefully one of the above will solve the issue.

-- Rich