Creating Cinemagraphs with Photoshop After Effects Flixel and Cliplets

Learn how to use Photoshop, After Effects, and two dedicated tools—Flixel and Cliplets—to explore the possibilities of cinemagraphs: static photos that contain areas of motion.

Learn how to use Photoshop, After Effects, and two dedicated tools—Flixel and Cliplets—to explore the creative possibilities of cinemagraphs: static photos that contain areas of motion. Rich Harrington explores assembly techniques in each program and illustrates effective shooting and post-production techniques to improve the end results. The final cinemagraphs can be used in websites, banner ads, emails, presentations, or even digital signage.

Welcome

• What to expect in this course
• What you need to know before taking the course
• Using the exercise files

1. What Are Cinemagraphs?

• Core features of a cinemagraph image
• A look at the cinemagraph movement

2. Essential Shooting Techniques

• Planning a cinemagraph shot
• Stabilizing the camera
• When to shoot video for cinemagraphs
• When to shoot time lapse for cinemagraphs
• Combining stills with video or a time lapse
• Choosing a frame size and frame rate
• File-format considerations
• Shooting a demo (putting it all together)

3. Developing a Cinemagraph

• Delivery-format considerations
• Bandwidth considerations
• Artistic objectives of cinemagraphs

4. Creating Cinemagraphs with Photoshop

• Loading a movie into Photoshop
• Loading an image sequence into Photoshop
• Adjusting frames rates in Photoshop
• Compositing the image with motion
• Creating and refining masks in Photoshop
• Looping strategies with Photoshop
• Color correction and enhancement
• Exporting a movie-based animation from Photoshop
• Converting to a frame-based animation from Photoshop
• Saving a GIF-based animation from Photoshop

5. Creating Cinemagraphs with Flixel

• Loading an image sequence into Flixel
• Loading a video into Flixel
• Trimming media to a new duration
• Creating and refining masks in Flixel
• Creating a loop method with Flixel
• Color correction and enhancement
• Refining the image with effects
• Exporting a movie-based animation from Flixel
• Exporting a GIF-based animation from Flixel
• Posting to social media

6. Creating Cinemagraphs with After Effects

• Loading a movie into After Effects
• Loading an image sequence into After Effects
• Adjusting frames rates and retiming clips in After Effects
• Duplicating and reversing a clip to make a loop in After Effects
• Splitting a clip to make a loop in After Effects
• Compositing the frozen image with motion
• Creating and refining masks in After Effects: Part one
• Creating and refining masks in After Effects: Part two
• Color correction and enhancement
• Exporting a movie-based animation from After Effects
• Converting to a frame-based animation from After Effects
• Combining After Effects and Photoshop to create a GIF file

7. Creating Cinemagraphs with Cliplets

• Importing time-lapse files into Cliplets
• Choosing the background frame in Cliplets
• Trimming and refining in the cliplet
• Exporting GIF images from Cliplets

8. Optimizing the Images

• Recompressing GIF images with Photoshop
• Recompressing GIF images from Flixel
• Recompressing video with Adobe Media Encoder
• Recompressing video with Apple Compressor
• Sharing and display strategies

Conclusion

• Next steps