GIMP Bible

Chapter 20. Working with Video-Specific Functions in GIMP

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Playing video with GIMP

• Creating video and movie files from within GIMP

• Pulling a range of frames from a video file for editing in GIMP

In Chapter 19, you were introduced to the GIMP Animation Package, or GAP, an extension that adds animation functionality to GIMP's already broad set of features. Because GAP can handle the multiple frames of animation, it's logical to assume that it can also handle some basic video functions as well. It wouldn't make much sense to use GIMP to create an animation if there's not a way to play back that animation to test timing and check the fluidity of a character's movement. Fortunately, GAP provides these basic video features as well.

Using GAP, you have the ability to play back the frames of your animation or video on the fly. For a more accurate sense of timing, you can also use GAP to encode the video to one of a variety of supported video formats via the incredibly powerful FFMPEG library. And because you can encode your still image sequences into video files, it makes sense that you can also take video files and extract individual frames from them. This gives you the ability to do everything from video cleanup to replacing your friend's head in a home movie with a picture of a paper bag (mean, I know, but your friend will laugh, I'm sure).

This chapter focuses on using the features of GIMP — and more specifically, the GAP plug-in — to give you the chance to create and modify ...