Enhancing Clips

Adding transitions, or effects, is as simple as it is in the Timeline. In many cases, you simply click a button to display the right palette, drag your enhancement onto the Clip Viewer, and you're there!

Task: Adding a Transition

It's easy to add a transition in the Clip Viewer:

1. Open an iMovie project with clips that have been dragged into either the Timeline or the Clip Viewer.

2. Click the film frame icon to select the Clip Viewer.

3. Click the Trans button in the main iMovie window to display the Transitions palette.

4. Click a transition and drag it to a spot in the Clip Viewer. (Try clicking Fade Out and dragging it into position after the last clip in your iMovie.)

After you drag the transition into place, iMovie attaches a small indicator to show you how the processing is going, with a small red line that moves to the right (see Figure 13.10). When it gets all the way to the right, the transition is officially processed and you can preview the clip.

Figure 13.10. The new Fade Out transition is processing, making a preview of what the fade out will look like.

Task: Adding an Effect

Effects have a few more options, as you'll learn in Chapter 15, "Adding Transitions, Effects, and Titles in iMovie," but adding them to a clip is as easy as any other enhancement.

Let's say we shoot some video in a dimly lit location, and then came home and decide that we want to brighten things up a bit. No problem!

1. Open an iMovie project and click the film frame icon to look at the Clip Viewer.

2. Click the Effects button to display the Effects palette.

3. Choose a clip and click it to select it.

4. With the clip selected, go into the Effects palette and click the Brightness & Contrast Effect to select it.

5. Drag the Brightness slider, shown in Figure 13.11, a bit to the right. Then play with the Contrast setting until the subject is easier to see.

   Figure 13.11. The controls in the Effects palette change with the effect you have selected.

   

6. You will see the changes, a little bit rough, in the preview window at the top of the Effects palette. (You could also click the Preview button in the Effects palette to view your settings in the Monitor window before applying them, but in some versions of iMovie this feature is disabled.)

7. If you liked what you saw in the preview window, click the Apply button in the Effects palette to tell iMovie that you've decided you want to use this effect. (iMovie will then process the effect, and mark the clip with a checkerboard icon to show that an effect has been applied.)

If you don't like your settings, you can choose Edit, Undo (or hold down the Command key on your keyboard and then press the Z keyanother handy way to undo).

Task: Rearranging Clips

One thing that the Clip Viewer comes in particularly handy for is rearranging clips if you want to reposition one clip after another or easily try different combinations of scenes. Open an iMovie project with a few clips in it, and before looking at the Clip Viewer, try the Timeline view (click the clock icon). Notice how things look. For comparison, you might want to try clicking on a clip to try moving it around, as shown in Figure 13.12.

Figure 13.12. You can't rearrange clips in the Timeline viewthey stretch, but won't move!

Now you're ready to reposition:

1. Open an iMovie project with at least three clips in it, and click on the film frame icon at the lower left to see the Clip Viewer.

2. Click the first clip, and holding the mouse button down, drag the clip to the right, until a space opens up between the second and third clips (see Figure 13.13).

   Figure 13.13. The Clip Viewer is a bit more convenient ; rearranging is as easy as dragging back and forth.

   

3. Let go of the mouse button to drop the clip in place.

Besides repositioning clips, the Clip Viewer is also good for putting clips back on the shelf if you've decided not to use them for the time being. Simply click on the clip to select it, and drag it back into an empty square in the Clips palette.