Lesson 6 - iMovie

Now you are ready to start with iMovie in Lesson 6. Please open the iLife Textbook and start reviewing pages 164 to 185. Read the instructions carefully. Note: You have a newer version of iMovie, so some things are a little different – like the buttons at the bottom right (below the “Clip Pane”). Also, copy and paste in your "notes" all the information below about iMovie, iMovie vs. iPhoto and Similarities between the two programs.

iMovie is the video software. With iMovie you can easily create movie projects that include digital video, photos, and music; as well as narration and text. iMovie can be used to build sophisticated and dynamic slide shows (videos), without necessarily using a camcorder. You could create video science reports, your own short films or historical documentaries. You can access your iPhoto albums from within iMovie.

You can also create a movie in iMovie by using a video from a digital camcorder. Video is more real than still photos. To make a video you need to “shoot” and to “edit.” Video is a “process.” Unlike iPhoto, iMovie doesn’t automatically import your video when you plug in your camcorder.

You can also add narration and sound effects to a video in iMovie. With interviews instead of music, a product changes from a “music video” into a “documentary.”

iMovie vs. iPhoto:

• One of the important distinguishing features of iMovie as compared to iPhoto is the ability to add text and titles. Titles are elements that can be made to play over a black (or single-colored) screen, or over the moving video of your project.
• In iMovie you can link certain sounds to individual images. You can be more flexible with music; and add narration.
• In iMovie you can add text and titles and integrate them with the images and music.
• You can create a more dynamic and sophisticated slide show, compared to iPhoto.
• You can add special visual and sound effects.

Similarities:

• You can create slide shows with both iPhoto and iMovie.
• You can add motion to still photos using the Ken Burns Effect on both iPhoto and iMovie.
• You can have background music of your choice by accessing your iTunes playlists from both iPhoto and iMovie.

TEST: On October 18, 2007 (iLife notes, iPhoto - Lessons 3, 4 and 5,iMovie - Lesson 6, hand-out and notes, "What is Digital?" notes).

September 26, 2007

If you completed the iBook exercise in Lesson 5 ("Cool Pieces Book") you can start creating an iBook of your choice, selecting a "theme" of your choice. It should be double-sided and large (you can select these on the iBook window that pops-up when you need to select the theme.)

You have several options: you can select your own pictures from the Internet (REMEMBER: DO NOT OPEN INTERNET EXPLORER - USE ONLY SAFARI). If you open Internet Explorer in the Mac Computers these will most likely freeze; or you can connect to the Server > go to the iLife05 folder and select pictures from any of the folders there.

You should have at least 12 pages with pictures in your book (up to 20 pages with pictures). The cover should include an interesting Title and your name. If there's an inside front cover: add a title (it can be different from the cover) and information about your book. If you select a theme that allows you to enter titles, then enter titles - I don't want to see them blank (with the default titles provided).

When you are done creating your iBook. I need you to create a PDF File of your book. Please follow these steps: Go to File > Print > wait for the program to assemble your book (this may take a little while) > click PDF (bottom left) > Save as PDF.

Lesson 5 (iLife'05 Textbook)

If you haven't created slideshows for all the albums created on Lesson 4 (Company Press, Sgraffito and Ceramic Process), please do so. When completed, please show me so that I can mark them as done. As we did with the "Birthday Party" slideshow, you can select any music and transition of your choice. Also, make sure that you deselect the Repeat slideshow option of the "Settings" window. You can experiment with the slide duration by setting a higher number of seconds and with the speed of your transitions.

Goal: to make sure that you understand how to create slideshows in iPhoto, adding music from iTunes and transitions.

Note: The Settings window has an option "Show titles". This only refers to the title or name of your photos. To change these titles, you would go to the Information Pane. Then, if you select "Show titles" for your slideshow, they will show up.

Start reading pages 121 - 141 and follow the directions.

iPhoto is designed to create a good quality hardback book of photos. You have many options and formats. This software helps you put pictures on pages and then you can automatically access a Web site to order the book (or books) you designed. (Of course you would have to pay for these books)

You can select from many different book styles -predesigned formats that let you vary the size of images, the arrangement of photos on each page, and the position and font of notes and captions. With newer versions of iLife offer more "themes" and options in general.

Note: the quality of your pictures is important. Pictures with a low number of pixels (which means low resolution pictures) will show a caution sign -small yellow triangle with an exclamation point.

The first step is deciding what the book will be for, what photos to include, and in what general order they should appear in the book (the iPhoto Album or iBook). You can modify the order later; but it's definitely better to organize you pictures in advance.

Read carefully "Choosing a Theme" on page 123 (first you'll practice with the textbook exercise and later you'll create your own with your own pictures), and continue creating the iBook, per the instructions given - selecting a theme, creating a cover, adding pictures, etc.

Type the notes on pages 150 (only the 3rd and 4th notes).

September 19, 2007

If you completed all the exercises in Lesson 4 and understand them well, you can proceed with the following:

Go to page 142 in Lesson 5 and read "Making a Quick Slide Show". You will create a slide show using the Birthday Party album. First you have to rearrange the order of the photos (page 143); secondly, you may want to enhance some of the images that are too dark or that have red-eye. You may also want to delete some photos that are repetitive or that have poor quality.

Then, you are ready to create your slide show. Add music of your choice from iTunes (remember: iPhoto connects you directly to this music program). Also, click the Settings Button and follow the instructions in pages 146 and 147. Play your slide show and put it in the Father Folder.

Copy the last two paragraphs in page 151 of "What You've Learned".

Once you've done this: please create slide shows of all the other albums you created yesterday - Ceramic Process, Sgraffito and Company Press. Select songs of your choice. You may also add songs that you can select from the iLife05 folder under "Music Folder" (after dragging them in iTunes).

Don't forget to study for tomorrow's Quiz (September 20, 2007 - "B" Schedule).

Lesson 4

For this Lesson you can start on page 80. You will connect to the server, go to iLife05 > Lesson 4 and find the following folders: L4.Biz roll 1, L4.Biz roll 2, L4.Biz roll 3, and L4.Dad roll 1 and drag them into your open iPhoto window.

So far you have learned the following: how to download (import) pictures into iPhoto, how to organize your pictures into film rolls (Go to View > Film Rolls), how to change the roll's title and date, how to delete photos, how to rotate photos and how to use the Size Slider (to enlarge your pictures).

Remember: You can select multiple pictures by clicking a photo, holding down the Shift Key and then clicking the last photo of the group you want to select (the whole group will be selected). You can select non-consecutive photos (photos not next to one another) by using Command-click - which means you select one photo, press the Command Key and then select the other ones you want.

In Lesson 4 you will learn to organize your photos into albums. Albums are the primary method for organizing photos in the iPhoto program. An album in iPhoto is like a playlist in iTunes. There are two ways of creating an album in iPhoto: 1) Click the Plus Sign Button at the bottom of the Source Column; 2) Go to File > New Album.

After you create your album, you can simply drag the photos you need from the Library onto the album. Follow the instructions carefully - READ! You will also learn in this lesson to re-order the pictures in an album, to add comments, keywords and ratings to images, to create "smart albums", to crop pictures, to enhance photos, to remove red-eye and to organize your Sources.

When you're done with the exercises in Lesson 4 (Pages 80 - 91), please type (your notes) the Summary in Page 115 "What You've Learned" and any other notes you deem necessary.

September 18, 2007

Yesterday (09/17/07) you downloaded 4 folders from Lesson 4 in iLife05 (in the Server): L4.Biz roll1, L4.Biz roll2, L4.Biz roll 3, and L4.Dad roll 1 into your open iPhoto window. You also learned how to create albums in iPhoto and how to download pictures from your "Library" into those albums (by dragging the specified photos). By now you should have the following albums in your "Source Column": Birthday Party, Company Press, Sgraffito and Ceramic Process.

Today you will learn about adding "Keywords" and "Ratings" to your photos. Please start on page 91 (bottom).

A keyword is a preset word or phrase that you can assign to any image. Assigning keywords makes it easy to find specific kinds of photos in your collection. You can select a keyword from a preset list or you can create your own keywords.

Continue on page 92. Read the instructions carefully. Remember: if you want to see the keywords you have used on your pictures, go to View > Keywords. You can assign more than one keyword to a photo.

To find all the photos with a given keyword, you can press the keyword button (it looks like a key) at the bottom of the source column.

You can also add ratings to your photos. iPhoto provides a scale of 1 to 5 stars (five stars being the best) that you can assign to any image. Using keywords and rating your pictures is important when you want to create "Smart Albums". Read the bottom of page 95 carefully.

All you have to do to add ratings is select the picture, go to the Information Pane and click and drag accross the rating line (this will add the stars). If you want to see the ratings you gave to your photos go to View > My Rating.

Once you complete adding keywords and ratings to the Customer Pieces (finished pieces) you can continue at the bottom of page 97, to learn how to create "Smart Albums".

The advantage of creating a "Smart Album" is that iPhoto will automatically select the shots according to the date, keywords and/or the ratings of your pictures and very quickly create an album according to your specifications. This particular "Smart Album" will contain the best photos of the customer pieces - like a show-off album.

If you follow the exercise up to page 101 and clearly understand how to create a smart album, you can continue learning how to crop and enhance pictures.

Tip: you can always undo the last thing you did by pressing Command-Z or going to Edit > Undo.

You can continue learning how to enhance pictures in iPhoto (page 108), how to remove red-eye (page 109) and how to straighten crooked pictures (page 111). You will finish the chapter learning how to organize your sources into folders.

Digital Applications Classes 2007-2008

Welcome Class! First you will learn generalities about Digital Technology and the iLife Suite of products: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand. What is Digital? What are pixels? What are file formats? What are the iLife applications? How are they important in manipulating digital media? What can we do with these programs? Be patient! You have to learn the essentials. The faster you learn the faster we can work on interesting projects and fun hands-on activities.

Then, you will start working with each iLife application more extensively, following exercises and learning how each one works and how we can integrate all of them when we are creating digital media projects.

The first program that you will learn is iPhoto. You will learn to download, organize, edit, and share digital photos; you will be able to create your own albums, books, slide shows, web pages and movies. You can also store and organize photos for use in your digital movies (using iMovie). You will also learn to select music from iTunes to accompany a slide show and to create special sound and visual effects.

We will start using the iLife 05 Textbook, pages 67 - 77 (Lesson 3). Most of the computers in the Mac Lab have the 2006 Version (or higher versions) of the iLife products. I will guide you through all of the exercises and teach you the differences between the different versions. We will learn mostly by putting in practice what the textbooks, my presentations and my explanations teach you. The more we practice, the faster we will learn...

Read pages 64 - 77 very carefully and follow the first exercise (L3 Student roll1 - which will be called "Student roll 1" later on). You have to work individually to complete this one. Do not hesitate to ask me any questions. The important thing is to follow the instructions carefully and to fully understand the exercises before continuing with the next ones. DO NOT RUSH, work on each exercise slowly and attentively; it is important that you understand the different steps - like how to download the pictures, how to organize them, etc.

Class Homework: Copy or type the last three paragraphs on page 77, the Note on page 71 (note that the Command key is the "apple" key on the Mac Keyboard), and the Tip on page 75.

Also, answer the following questions - you can work in groups of two to answer these:

1. Where are the “Sources” in the iPhoto Window? What’s in there? Check page 67.

2. What’s an “album”? – page 67.

3. How are iTunes and iPhoto similar? (Mention at least three similarities)

4. What happens to the photos when you import them in iPhoto (where do they end up)? - answer on page 69.

5. When you are importing pictures from a digital camera, how do you know iPhoto is ready to import them?

6. How are the Library photos organized in iPhoto?
7. What is the default view of your photos?
8. How do you open and close a roll?
9. Where is the roll label?
10. How can you change the roll name?
11. How do you delete unwanted pictures?
12. How do you rotate or reorient your photos?
13. How do you change the default direction in which the Rotate Button rotates your photos?
14. How do you select consecutive multiple shots at once?
15. How do you select shots that aren't next to one another (non-consecutive)?

You will have to study these notes and questions for your First Quiz - September 20.

* If you complete the exercise and the class homework before other students, you can do the following practice: download pictures of your choice (one theme, ie. flowers) - from the Internet or from your digital camera (you can also connect to the Server and download photos from the iLife 05 folder - ask me for more directions). Organize them all in one film roll. Change the name of the roll to the "theme name". Delete unwanted photos, rotate the ones that are not right side up. (This will count as Extra-Credit)