FlipShare Titles Not Good Enough for You?

FlipShare's strength lies in its simplicity.  People will use it who wouldn't attempt Windows Movie Maker or iMovie. The cost of simplicity is -- sometimes -- a loss of power or flexibility.  This is the case with FlipShare's method of adding titles and/or credits to your movie.  You get white Arial text of a given size against a black background.  You have the options of 1) a title at the beginning of your movie, and/or 2) credits at the end of your movie.  You cannot insert any titles in between.

First, Get an Image Editor

This week's tip is a pretty simple way to build more attractive titles and credits right into your movie.  All you need is some kind of image editor.  Whether you're a Windows user or a Mac user, there are good, free tools available.

• For Windows, the one I use is called "Paint.net" and you can download it here.
• For the Mac, there is a good one called "Paintbrush", and you can download it here.

These editors are free, powerful, and yet easy to use.

Take Image Snapshots from your Video Clips in FlipShare

As you know if you watched this video, FlipShare has a nice capability to let you grab snapshots from your video clips. Use this to grab a frame representative of your movie (or even a particular section of your movie) and save it as a snapshot.  FlipShare will save this as a file ending in ".jpg".  You'll have to find it by hunting for it in your "FlipShare Data" folder (The 'Library' tab from the 'Edit->Preferences' dialog will show you where this is, and even allow you to move it.)  The easiest way to find the right one is by its date and time.

Add Text with your Image Editor

Open the file with your image editor and use its 'text tool' to add your text, as I did below with Paint.NET:

With this kind of tool you can determine the font, size, color, and location of your text. (Some tools give you even fancier capabilities, like adding a shadow or other effects.)  When you're happy, save your changes to the file.

Insert the Edited Image into your Movie

You can add your snapshots in the same way you add video clips to your movies.  Place your titles frames wherever you wish -- at the beginning, in the middle, or at end, as you would do with credits.  Your snapshots will fade in and out nicely.

Your snapshots will appear for about three seconds, which isn't all that long, and FlipShare prevents you from adding the same snapshot twice in the same move (go figure!).  This is a limitation for which I have no easy solution, but I think the solution is still preferable to FlipShare's titles.