iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

Installing More Effects

The effects that come with iMovie aren’t the only ones available. For $25 or $30, you can buy dozens of additional effects like Mosaic, Emboss, X-ray, and so on. A Google search for iMovie plug-ins will reveal an array of companies that sell these effects online, but here’s a sampler:

• GeeThree. This is the same company (http://www.geethree.com) that makes additional transitions, as described earlier in this chapter. Its eight packages of iMovie addons come with effects like film grain (attempts to make your video look more like film), various vignetting effects (which frame your footage inside the cutout shape of a heart, oval, star, and so on), and Rotate & Scale (which let you rotate your footage, say, 90 degrees, or resize it within the frame).

  Two of the most interesting volumes are Volume 4 (picture-in-picture and compositing effects, which let you create special effects using blue screen or green screen backgrounds, just like they do in Hollywood) and Volume 8, which offers a unique image-stabilization fixer, a more powerful Ken Burns effect for photos, morphing, warping, and 100 animated backgrounds.

• Stupendous Software. This company (http://www.stupendous-software.com) offers an enormous array of effects plug-ins, from color-adjustment to video overlays, smoke, glass refraction, scratches and dirt, time effects, and many more. The Web site offers a number of free plug-ins to whet your appetite, as well as demo movies that show what all the ...