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Mar 20, 2017. Falkon Digital goes through what Cinemagraphs are and how you can incorporate them into your digital marketing strategy. What is a cinemagraph? A cinemagraph is a living image - a still photograph that contains an element of movement lopped seamlessly to create a never ending.
A Cinemagraph is a still image in GIF format in which small movements are repeated in a loop to give the viewer the perception that they are watching a video. Confused? You’re not alone.
A simpler way to describe a Cinemagraph is a perfectly looping video that you can’t tell when it starts or stops. In essence, a Cinemagraph is a photo that you can select a small part of to have movement that repeats. While the concept has been around for roughly 5 years or so, it is still not a widely used technique. With more and more business being gained through social media, mastering new styles of image creation and especially one that moves is a strong way to stand out in that vast sea of hashtags.
Ready to try your hand at Cinemagraphs and a whole slew of other After Effects? Join Chad Perkins for Adobe After Effects CC.
With a rudimentary knowledge of Photoshop and no clue as to how a Cinemagraph is made, I set about seeing what I could create. Camera in hand I looked around me and what did I see first? My little 4-month-old baby. Okay, Babies don’t move that much right?
They are, however, unpredictable… and sometimes gross.
Okay, so scrap that. I needed directions on not just what I’m doing wrong, but what I need to do right.
In Aaron Nace‘s class, The Magic Of Cinemagraphs, he goes over with easy instruction exactly how to combine images together to create beautiful moving photographs. In this class, he also gives fantastic tips and tricks for shooting a cinemagraph, common animation techniques, and how to mask layers to isolate movement to one part of an image all within photoshop.
After watching his class I decided to rev up Photoshop and give it another go.
Here are 5 things I learned when creating Cinemagraphs.
1) Use a tripod. You need rock solid footage and a tripod is a sure fire bet to getting steady footage.
2) Try to get your subject to stay as still as possible outside of the small movement that is happening. This will help a ton when you’re layer masking but also will assist in maintaining that stationary illusion.
3) Record footage longer than you think and try it a few times. You only really need about 2 seconds of footage to work from, but it’s easier to ask your subject to stay still a littler longer than it is to ask them to get back into that same perfect position.
4) Don’t forget your background. When you’re setting up for your video, make sure to compose the shot as if it were a photograph. Having the title of being a Cinemagraph will not make it be interesting on its own.
5) Get your white balance right. Don’t forget we’re not working with RAW images here, so treat it like it’s a JPG and get the footage as perfect as possible in-camera.
Ready to try your hand at Cinemagraphs and a whole slew of other After Effects? Join Chad Perkins for Adobe After Effects CC.
So while it is not the easiest and the process takes a while (this image took about 15 minutes or so), the results are stunning. The ability to take a moving portrait is a great way to get noticed by your social audience be it on facebook or otherwise. Make sure check out Aaron Naces‘s class for the step by step workflow on how to create a Cinemagraph of your own.
A cinemagraph; the grass in the foreground is moving slightly.
Cinemagraphs are still photographs in which a minor and repeated movement occurs, forming a video clip. They are published as an animated GIF or in other video formats, and can give the illusion that the viewer is watching an animation. A variation is a video snapshot (clip composed like a still photo, but instead of a shutter release it is captured using the video recording function with its audio track and perhaps showing minor movement such as the subject's eye blinks). Another variation is an audio snapshot (still photo linked to an audio file created at the moment of photo capture by certain cameras that offer this proprietary function).
Cinemagraphs are made by taking a series of photographs or a video recording, and, using image editing software, compositing the photographs or the video frames into a seamless loop of sequential frames. This is done in such a way that motion in part of the subject between exposures (for example, a person's dangling leg) is perceived as a repeating or continued motion, in contrast with the stillness of the rest of the image.
The term 'cinemagraph' was coined by U.S. photographers Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck, who used the technique to animate their fashion and news photographs beginning in early 2011.[1][2]
See also[edit]
![What are cinemagraphs What are cinemagraphs](https://cache2casino2.ladbrokes.com/library/images/Cinemagraph04.gif)
References[edit]
- ^Flock, Elisabeth (12 July 2011). 'Cinemagraphs: What it looks like when a photo moves'. Washington Post BlogPost. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
- ^Cohen, Joshua (10 July 2011). 'Cinemagraphs are Animated Gifs for Adults'. Tubefilter News. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cinemagraphs. |
- Cinemagraphs.com, showing the work of Burg and Beck
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cinemagraph&oldid=886369673'
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