Cinemagraphs: A beginner's Guide to Creating Living Photography
Why Create Cinemagraphs?
Cinemagraphs are a mix of still image and video that continuously loop without any breaks and are used to emphasise a brand message, enhance details or to simply create a unique and memorable visual effect.
My work usually focuses around the graphic design elements in business branding but I decided to try a create a cinemagraph (or two) for myself this week and this is a beginner's guide on the do's and don'ts.
Moving Photographs
Before attempting to use rolling footage in my cinemagraphs, I decided to see if I could animate some of my previous photography using the same method on Adobe Photoshop.
The photographs I chose were high quality, landscapes that featured a focal point in the forefront on the image like this one:
Using Adobe Photoshop, I loaded my image and using the pen tool I cut out the foreground object (or background, depending on the photograph) and created a new layer with this object. On the background layer, I used the content-aware tool to fill in the space and the clone tool to fix the edges for a seamless transition.
After transforming my layers into smart objects, I then opened the timeline tool and overlapped the layers. I created a keyframe using the transform option at the beginning and then adjusted the background (or foreground layer) - by moving it to a different place within my canvas or changing the size from bigger to smaller. Once I made these changes, I dragged the timeline slider to the end of the frames and created another key frame.
After creating a continual loop and rendering it to .mp4 format, it created this effect:
It was a very simple method that achieved a pretty dynamic visual effect, which I repeated a few more times using different photographs:
Rolling Footage
After success animating the still photography, I wanted to try using the same method except with moving footage this time. So I went out and about around the city (with a very handsome and willing model) and shot some footage in locations that I thought could make for a great animation.
To create a successful cinemagraph, the first thing I should mention is trying to find a setting with motion that naturally loops, for example waves or a fountain etc. This will make editing easier and ensure a believable end result.
Not bringing a tripod for my camera was an issue I had. I shot a lot of footage, but was not able to use it all because my videos were not stabilised. It's a problem I encountered during the editing process, some of my frames can be seen jumping slightly in areas of the cinemagraph and this is because the camera was not steady and my model was moving slightly as well - as you can see below:
I realised while editing that they were not going to be very successful, but if executed properly, you can see the potential for what they could be. If I had my tripod with me they could have been perfect. However, I did mange to create two cinemagraphs that did not jump because of my shaky hands.
In order to do this, I adopted the same approach that I did with my moving photographs. I used Adobe Photoshop and the timeline tool, except this time I used my video. I duplicated the video layers and created a loop using the opacity option - fading the end of the footage out on the second layer.
I then created a still from the top layer and using the mask tool, I blacked out the area in the frame that I wanted to see moving (aka the looped video footage underneath) and Voilà - a successful cinemagraph.
In order to save the cinemagraph on photoshop, I used the 'save for web' option in the file drop down menu and hit the .gif preset with the highest quality as well as 'diffusion'. I had some difficulty initially trying to save as a .gif because it did appear as if the video was fully rendered and at the highest quality it should be. I realised that this was because I had too many frames in my video and limiting these allowed for a better resolution .gif file.
Overall, I am very happy with the results from my first attempt at making cinemagraphs. I think with a bit of practice and refining this will be something I would be delighted to offer clients in the as part of their business branding.
If this is something that you would like to try yourself, below are a few useful links and articles that I found helpful when editing my own cinemagraphs.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/create-cinemagraph-photoshop/
Comments