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11.4. Fun with QuickTimeThe free version of QuickTime Player is, well, just a player. If you're willing to pay $30, however, you can turn it into QuickTime Player Pro, which offers a few special features relevant to iPhoto movie fans.
If you decide that the upgrade is worthwhile, visit www.apple.com and click the QuickTime tab. There you'll find the links that let you upgrade your free QuickTime player to the Pro version. In exchange for $30, you'll be given a registration number that "unlocks" QuickTime's advanced features. (To input the serial number in QuickTime Player, choose QuickTime Player Preferences Registration, and then click the Registration button.) Then you'll be ready for the following tricks. 11.4.1. Play Movies at Full ScreenIf you've upgraded to QuickTime Player Pro, here's how to create a full-screen cinematic experience. First, use a black background when you export your movie from iPhoto. That way, there will be no frame marks or distracting colors to detract from your images. Furthermore, the black bars on the sides of vertically oriented photos will blend in seamlessly with the rest of the darkened monitor, so that nobody is even aware that the photo has been rotated . Those black bars will also fill in the gap between the standard monitor shape and the nonstandard ones preferred by Apple these days (such as the screens on the extra-wide Cinema Display, 17-inch iMac, or 15-inch PowerBook). Second, export your movie in as large a size as will fit on your screen. That means dimensions of 1024 x 768, or whatever matches your monitor's current setting. (To find out, choose System Preferences and click the Display icon.) Your images will occupy more of your Macs display area, imparting greater impact. Once you've exported your movie, presenting it in "theater mode" is as simple as choosing Movie Present Movie. Then set up the dialog box as shown in Figure 11-6.
Once you've created a slideshow movie, keep in mind that nothing's etched in stoneat least not if you have QuickTime Player Pro. Suppose you don't care for the empty frames of background color (or background picture) that iPhoto adds automatically at the beginning and end of your movie? Or what if, thanks to an unforeseen downsizing, a graduation, or a romantic breakup, you want to delete a photo or two from an existing movie? Using QuickTime Player Pro, you can snip unwanted photos or frames right out. 11.4.1.1 Selecting footageBefore you can cut, copy, or paste footage, QuickTime Player needs to provide a way for you to specify what footage you want to manipulate. Its solution: the two tiny black triangles that sprout out of the left end of the horizontal scroll bar, as shown in Figure 11-7. These are the "in" and "out" points; by dragging these triangles , you can enclose the scene you want to cut or copy. Tip: You can gain more precise control over the selection procedure shown in Figure 11-7 by clicking one of the black triangles and then pressing the right or left arrow key to adjust the selection a frame at a time.Or try Shift-clicking the Play button. As long as you hold down the Shift key, you continue to select footage. When you release Shift, you stop the playback; the selected passage then appears in gray on the scroll bar.
Once you've highlighted a passage of footage, you can proceed as follows :
11.4.2. Exporting Edited MoviesAfter you've finished working on a sound or movie, you can send it back out into the world by choosing File Save As. At this point, you can specify a new name for your edited masterpiece. You must also choose one of these two options:
11.4.3. Advanced Audio and Video ControlsOne of the difficulties of creating multimedia productions is that there's no standard calibration for all the various computers that might play them. For example, a slideshow that your friend creates on his Dell computer might look washed-out on your Mac. Should you inherit movies with poor audio and video, QuickTime Player Pro gives you some useful audio and video controls to compensate. To summon these controls, open a movie in QuickTime and choose Movie Show Sound Controls (or Movie Show Video Controls). See Figure 11-8.
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