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Video Edit Magic v4.46
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Special Effects |
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Special effects have always been
about making the impossible
possible. They help us see the
unseen, visualize the
invisible, hide the overpowering,
and focus on the little object no
one ever bothered about. Whether
it’s about making a Hollywood
blockbuster, or simply making a home
video more exciting to watch, the
need for special effects borders on
the essential to an absolute must. |
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By using visual effects in your videos, you
send messages that would be
impossible otherwise, and enhance
the overall look and feel. |
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Video
Edit Magic comes with several
special effects that can be applied
with a only a few clicks mouse
clicks. These effects are listed
under the
Effects tab in the
Collections
window.
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Some of the often used effects are: |
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Fade In:
Starting from a black
screen, the video clip
gradually brightens into
view. This effect can
be used to show that time
has passed, or that the
characters are in a new
location.
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Fade Out:
Fade
Out is the opposite of Fade
In—the picture gradually
darkens to black.
Combining Fade Out with Fade
In can provide a graceful
way to change scenes, while
maintaining visual
continuity. |
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Rotate:
The
Rotate Effect is most often
used when the original video
is not oriented correctly.
For instance, Rotate can be
used to fix clips shot with
a tilted video camera.
You can rotate any amount
between 1 and 360 degrees. |
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Brightness/Contrast:
You can correct lighting
problems in your videos by
adjusting the brightness,
contrast and gamma using
this effect.
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Brightness:
How
light or dark an image
appears. If a video clip was
filmed with inadequate light
it may appear dark—this
effect can be used to
correct the problem. |
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Contrast:
Contrast is the difference between
the light and dark areas of an
image. The higher the
contrast, the more that people and
things stand out from the
background. Properly adjusting
contrast makes the video look sharp
and clear. |
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Gamma:
Gamma defines the color
balance of an image, by adjusting
the relative brightness of different
colors. The correct gamma
setting gives you a more "real"
looking picture. |
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Animated Transform :
The Animated
Transform causes the video
clip to spin, change size,
and change position.
You can use only one, two,
or all three of those
transformations, so this
effect could be used to
simply have the effect "zoom
out" or "iris in" (get
bigger, or get smaller), or
spin in place. |
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Emboss:
Embossed
video appears metallic and
"raised", as if embossed on
metal. This can give a
surreal feel to your movie,
and can be especially
effective when used on text. |
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Range of effects are present under
the
Effects tab of the software's
Collections
window. |
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Basically, there are two ways to use
Effects. You can either add
effects (like Color Balance or Image
Transform) through out the length of
a clip to improve the quality of the
video, or you can apply effects
(like Blur, Fade, or Pixelate) to a
certain portion of the video to make
a point. |
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Applying an Effect |
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To decide on the Effect to apply,
first select the Effect icon in the
Collections
window. Then
click on the Play control under the
Instant Preview screen.
To help you make a more informed
choice, a short description of the
selected Effect is also displayed in
the Collections Window. |
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To add
the
Rotate effect to the
Timeline: |
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1. |
Position the
Seek Slider
on the Timeline where you would
like the Effect to be added. |
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2. |
Select the
Effects
tab in
the
Collections
window. |
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3. |
Right-click on the
Rotate
effect icon
and select
Add to Timeline. The
Effect will be added to the
Effects track on the point where
the
Seek Slider
is positioned. (The
selected tracks will be
labeled in boldface on the
Timeline.) |
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4. |
In the
Timeline the
effect
would be represented by a horizontal
bar. The length of the bar represents
the time period during which
the Effect is applied. By
default, this value is 10 seconds. To change the duration, resize
the horizontal bar by using
the resizing handle present
on the top right corner of the
bar. |
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Configuring Effect Properties |
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The settings of the Rotate
Effect can be configured according to
your requirements. |
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To access the Properties window, right-click on the
Effect
in the Timeline and select
Effect Settings. |
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Zoom:
Setting Zoom here controls the image
size while it is rotated.
Zooming in (larger picture)
can make the image appear closer.
Zooming out makes the image smaller
and thus apparently more distant.
Use the four arrow controls to set
the zoom level, or select a level
directly from the drop-down list. |
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Do not confuse Zoom (a setting for
the Rotate Effect) with Pan and Zoom
(a different Effect). |
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Position:
Use the Position setting to control
where the rotated video appears in
the movie frame. This is
especially powerful in combination
with Zoom (making the image smaller
leaves more space in the frame to
position it). You can position
the video using the four arrows.
A drop-down list lets you pick how
far each mouse-click will move the
image. |
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Rotation:
The Rotation transform can be used to
change the orientation of the video. You can specify any angle from 0 to
360. |
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Background
Color: You can specify the background
color for the video by clicking on the
Choose button. This will launch a color
palette, from which you can select a
background color. |
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Reset:
The Reset button restores all the settings
to the default values. |
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There are similar settings
selections for many Effects.
Some Effects have no configurable
settings, and no Effect window can
be opened for them. |
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Applications of the Rotate Effect
in your videos |
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Now that you know how to apply and
configure the Rotation Transform
Effect, let us discuss some possible
applications for it in your videos. |
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1. Removing
letter boxes: Letter
boxes are the black bands you see
when you convert video from one
aspect ratio to another, for
instance converting wide screen
movies (16:9) to the aspect ratio of
normal TV sets and computer monitors
(4:3). To remove the black
bands while preserving the aspect
ratio, you can use the
Zoom
transform. For more on aspect
ratios, see
Video Dimension, Aspect Ratio and
DVD. |
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2. Zooming
into text: Another
application is Zooming in on a
region of interest. For
example, in a vacation video you can
zoom in on road signs, milestones,
and billboards to show the route you
took and the places you visited.
In a wedding video, you can zoom in
on invitation to show the audience
the date, time and venue of the
event. When editing the video
of your kid’s ball game, you can
zoom in on the scoreboard between
plays to give the video a sense of
drama. |
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3. Correcting
orientation: You can
use the Position transform in
combination with the Rotation
transform to correct or improve the
orientation of the video. You
can easily rotate your videos by 90
degrees or 180 degrees, but it is
especially useful for correcting
videos that are slightly
off-vertical.
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4. Cropping
unwanted portions: You can also
use the position transform to crop unwanted
portions of your video. For example,
you might have a vacation video showing
your family standing in front of a historical
building, but unfortunately tourists wander into the frames. By
zooming and
repositioning, you can remove the side of the
image. Then you can use the
Background
Color feature to insert color
in place of the bands that might crop
up due to repositioning. |
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Conclusion
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Do not try to fit a square peg in a
round hole. It is important that you
add a special effect only when they
are of value to your project. Do not
forget that the special effect is used
for making a point, and should blend
in with the main theme of the video. The best videos are the ones, where
special effects are used so subtly that
people don’t even know that an illusion
was created. If you are trying to create
a fun video, then you can include all
the fades, blurs, and pixelates that
you want! |
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