What is the easiest, if not best, photo montage software?

MattinSTL

MattinSTL

Sound Modulator
I've been doing photo montages in Vegas for years and now my brother wants to do them. Vegas is pretty easy, but he will probably never get into editing video... ALL he needs is the ability to add photos, zoom, move, fade, pan... through the pictures... and be able to time it to music. It would be nice if the audio track showed up like it does in Vegas, but that may not even be necessary.

Any suggestions?
 
Either... both? My brother downloaded a Vegas demo and I think he's going to go with that... but I'm curious if there's something that's better for this? I guess the obvious answer would be AE... but I'm talking about a program your mom could use.
 
Then it wouldn't be AE. That's simple overkill. Vegas, as friendly as it is, would be the way to go. With Vegas, you can set up still duration as a default, and do cross disolves on a whim. Also, the still pic by default will automatically be scaled to fit the frame size, though you can go in under the Pan and Crop options and change that; and once changed, you can pan, zoom, and rotate easily.

Plus, Vegas is very audio friendly as well, so you have that at your disposal.

And, it's a hell of a lot less expensive than just about anything else, and comes bundled with DVD authoring software.

Lastly, you have effects like Levels, Curves, and Color Correction that you can apply on a global track type basis, or per clip/pic. Very, very handy

I'de go with Vegas, and I use them all.
 
Thanks Matt... you know, that's what I figured also... even before I posted this thread. My brother kept asking me if he'd have to spend $150 to be able to do this and some kid at Circuit City kept telling him to get Premiere or PS Elements or something... something that was supposedly $50 (brother says... and yes I know Premiere isn't cheap, I'm just relaying the story)... so anyway... I gave him the speech about Vegas also...

It's funny how the people that are close to you don't trust your advice, but they think some guy in a circuit city shirt knows what he's talking about... man... that's so freakin' stupid... :-)

Anyway... that's what I figured from the beginning, and that's what he's playing with now... I just wanted to confirm it just in case there was something really cool that came along after Vegas.
 
If he is on a mac he could do it with iMovie really cheap, but I believe then he is limited to just the duration of one song.

When I did these for wedding photography montages I used Vegas, it was mindless and there were some scripts from VASST that made the pans of the photographs really nice from zooming in to panning across... Just a really nice touch adding to the professionalism of the overall product.
 
Premiere also has the capabilities to set frame duration, fit to window, and automate to sequence with default transitions. You can even set a keyframe to one photo and copy and paste to all photos. Another benefit is that premiere pro can handle images up to 4k (your computer might not be able to handle it though.)
 
Jeremy... my brother is on PC only, so he's definitely stuck in Vegas. I've got both platforms so I can go either way.

Is this what you're talking about for Vegas?

STILL MOTION

This looks pretty good and man, the price is right. Does it greatly speed up the normal process of doing this in Vegas? I'm assuming so.
 
MattinSTL said:
STILL MOTION

This looks pretty good and man, the price is right. Does it greatly speed up the normal process of doing this in Vegas? I'm assuming so.
Click to expand...

That is exactly it!

It is mindless, in 10 seconds it applies all the moves and everything else and makes creating PROFESSIONAL TOP QUALITY montages mindless.

There is no way to f* it up, it is just really simple and brilliant.

Plus it is cheap and works great.

If you already have Vegas then it's the best solution.
 
Wow that is crazy. Wish Avid had something simple like that but I guess Avid isn't a simple tool for jobs like that. Although the option for something like that would be great!
 
I watched the demo using Ultimate S. Yuck.

Maybe it is just the demo, but it seems a demo should be the best-foot-forward. It certainly looked easy to use and the price is definitely down there, but I personally do not want some software engineer somewhere deciding for me, with some pet algorithm, just what the focus of a zoom is in a photo and again, just me perhaps, I can't stand photo montages that zoom in on one photo and back out on the next, etc. The zoom in's invariably miss the subject, cut off heads, maybe pushed in when a particular photo would have been better off pulling out. A friend of mine showed me something very similar on his Mac ... I don't know what program ... and it was the same thing. Yuck.

I use Premiere Pro but I suppose any editing software will do ... but what's wrong with a couple hours training and a weeks worth of practice to take the longer route with setting keyframes for scale and especially postition? The end result is orders of magnitude more esthetic. In today's software, setting keyframes couldn't be easier.

just my opinion ..

Larry
 
alwayslearning said:
I watched the demo using Ultimate S. Yuck.

Maybe it is just the demo, but it seems a demo should be the best-foot-forward. It certainly looked easy to use and the price is definitely down there, but I personally do not want some software engineer somewhere deciding for me, with some pet algorithm, just what the focus of a zoom is in a photo and again, just me perhaps, I can't stand photo montages that zoom in on one photo and back out on the next, etc. The zoom in's invariably miss the subject, cut off heads, maybe pushed in when a particular photo would have been better off pulling out. A friend of mine showed me something very similar on his Mac ... I don't know what program ... and it was the same thing. Yuck.

I use Premiere Pro but I suppose any editing software will do ... but what's wrong with a couple hours training and a weeks worth of practice to take the longer route with setting keyframes for scale and especially postition? The end result is orders of magnitude more esthetic. In today's software, setting keyframes couldn't be easier.

just my opinion ..

Larry
Click to expand...

What's wrong with keyframing is when you are processing 2000 images from a wedding shoot you are not going to spend 100 hours keyframing every single pan or zoom. The ultimate S works great, is fast, and enables those of us who make money from these shoots to be as proficient with our time as possible.

It is like using a custom action in Photoshop to batch process thousands of images... it may not give each image the individual attention but it does 90% of the job fast.

If you are making something for yourself then fine, keyframe everything, but when it is paid work and you need it done... then this is the best solution.
 
Good point Jeremy.

I do do this for income. I've never done anything like 2000 photos, but I have done 200-400. Takes a couple days from loading photos to DVD ...

It all depends on time and what a client wants I suppose.

Larry
 
I guarantee you that if you use an automated keyframing software you are going to have complaints from your clients and It will take more time redoing that if you did it right in the first place. There is no way that every photo you have will keyframe over the areas that you want for a long enough time (such as faces). I have had complaints from clients when I would pan from the bottom of a picture to the the subjects head. People want to see the people in the picture most. What I do on premiere is automate the photos to the sequence and set a default keyframe on one of them and copy that keyframe to all of them. It takes two seconds and now I just have to go into each photo and adjust the already made keyframes. It is worth it for a professional look. In my opinion any automated keyframe program (unless it had face detection) is going to look unpro.

People hire me to do actual photo montages that are shown at events but if you are just doing something simple that you include with you still photo shoots that actually has 2000 photos, than you can either charge a real price of upwards of $1.50 and do it right (scanning, adjusting, resizing and keyframing) or use an automated process and do it virtually free because that's really what taking digital pictures to an automated process is worth.
 
Doesn't Picasa have a slideshow feature that burns right to DVD? That would be the easiest and cheapest solution. Not nearly as much control but definitely something your mother could use.
 
egproductions said:
... that actually has 2000 photos, ...
Click to expand...
I don't know if Jeremy actually meant 2000 photos to video or 2000 to sort through and maybe a couple or few hundred to video. Sorting though has to be done regardless of any software, obviously. 2000 photos to video at say ... 5 seconds per, would result in a 3+ hour movie.

I do like your "copy keyframes - adjust accordingly idea though. :) I've gotten pretty efficient at doing them in Premiere but that will make it even more so. At least, I think it will. I'll have to play with that and see. Curious; do you spend much time organizing photos before doing the automate-to-timeline thing?

Larry
 
Hey the other thing about that script is that you can make it as personal as you like... or not. There's nothing that says you can't randomize zooms with a center focus, and then simply pull pictures quickly with only start and stop keyframes, so that the picture either starts or ends on the desired focal point.

Follow me? Rather then put it 100% in the "action script" you could automate whatever percentage of the process you choose.

Really... it comes down to the budget and taste of your client.


I operate in two different schools of thought... but the bottom line is what are you getting paid? Time is money. If somebody doesn't want to pay fair money then they get the commensurate time invested.

You can criticize this if you want to, but all that matters is that you are making your client happy and not killing yourself in the process.

I'm not thrilled with Still Motion, but I am going to pay for the download... what do you guys get for one of these montages anyway? Gimme' a ballpark guess.
 
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