[MacDV] Best way to incorporate still photos to iMovie?

[Randy Wilson]

My mother-in-law recently did a slide show video for the family for
Christmas.  She just used a video camera on each picture.  On the plus
side, I'm sure this saved her several hours of scanning.  However, there
were several big minuses, too:

1. The quality of the photos on the video is noticably bad: It's hard
not to notice the snowy graininess; the contrast on many pictures is
quite poor (since lighting is much tougher when capturing on video than
when completely controlled within the scanner).  Some photos are a bit
out of focus (hard to tell on the video camera while filming).  On a few
pictures it's hard to tell what someone looked like because the quality
is bad enough.

2. All of those precious photos are not digitally archived as stills on
CD, but are only in the video.

I must point out that while the quality isn't as good, and they don't
have the digital photos archived for later use, the video is at least
fun to watch, and most people aren't as sensitive to image quality as I
am, so most probably just enjoyed seeing the pictures.  And another huge
consideration is that the project actually got done, which sometimes it
doesn't if "doing it right" takes too long.

However, given the amount of time she spent collecting the photos from
people, organizing the photos, filming them, and then having me try to
synchronize music to the video (using iMovie), I'll bet it wouldn't have
taken too much more time to "do it right": i.e., 

1. scan the photos and save them as high quality JPEG's, perhaps
putting them all in an iPhoto archive; 
2. import the photos into iMovie, using Ken Burns effect or something
else; perhaps stretching the transition times of a whole group of photos
to fit a particular song that went with each family group.
3. export the beautifully scanned & synchronized video for copying.
4. make a CD of all of the individual photos to give to everyone along
with the video.

--Randy Wilson

>>> Mac4Music at MusiCareOnline.org 02/06/03 02:14PM >>>
Forgive me if this topic has been discussed before - I do my best to
read
thru all the digests.

Having just received my new  G4 1GHZ DP Tower and 22" Cinematic Display
I'm
ready and raring to break into the iApps (and ease my way around OS X 
while
I'm there).

I have 2 subjects I want to throw out there....here's the first:

I have a huge box of old still photos that I want to use within my
iMovie
creations. Which is the better method of doing this -
1. Scanning each and every one?
2. Using the mini DV camera to briefly "film" each still and then I
just
have to capture the footage into iMovie or FCP for editing?

Any tips and procedures would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Kathy


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