Apr 10, 2018 Vimeo today announced the launch of a new Mac app that will give video creators using Final Cut Pro more control over their file formats and video codecs. The app expands upon the existing. Jun 18, 2020 Basecamp's Hansson had previously testified at a congressional hearing that app developers live in fear of an arbitrary Apple rejection. Apple takes 30% cut of paid apps and in-app. My Mac says that the software is from an unidentified developer, or that the app is damaged; Nothing happens when I try to install the software; My print then cut image is printing out too large; Design Space says printable image is too large; Image uploads: unsupported items; There is just a spinning circle on my Design Space canvas. Simply select the video or videos you want to edit on the Photos app. Click Edit and the iMovie app will automatically launch your already-imported videos. Once you have started creating your movie on the app, it will be uploaded on iCloud and you will be able to work across various Apple devices.
Apple iMovie (for Mac OS X)
Editor Rating: Excellent (4.5)
Pros
Beautifully simple interface
Color matching for consistent movie looks
Classy themes
Great chroma-keying tool
Lots of audio tools
Excellent movie templates
Cons
In the name of simplicity, some useful controls are missing
Does not support tagging
Lacks multicam or motion tracking capabilities
Limited to two video tracks
No 360-degree video editing
Bottom Line
Apple's entry-level desktop video editing application can turn your footage and photos into impressive productions.
The video editing software included with Apple's Mac computers hasn't changed much in the past several years, but it still beats what you get in Windows 10, which is just the (admittedly improving) video capabilities built into Windows' Photos app. Apple iMovie includes excellent tools for media organization, color grading, speed, green-screen effects, narration, and soundtrack in your digital movies. It's not always the first with new format support—there's still no 360-degree video support—but it does work with 4K and HEVC. iMovie also boasts some of the best storyboard-based movie making tools for novices—Trailers and Movies. It's a PCMag Editors' Choice for entry-level video editing. https://evertim176.weebly.com/logo-maker-software-for-mac.html.
Since we last updated our review of iMovie, Apple has introduced few major features, but the software can now take advantage of the mouse and touch pad support in iPadOS, as well as the MacBook's Touch Bar. If you need to get really serious with video editing or to work with many tracks, 360-degree footage, or multicam, consider moving to Final Cut Pro X, which will seem familiar to iMovie users, despite its vastly greater video editing power and feature set.
Apple's iMovie doesn't offer the 100-track timelines, multicam, customizable transitions, and motion-tracking options that PC consumer video editing software like Corel VideoStudio and CyberLink PowerDirector offer, but if you just want an easy way to put together some video clips and still images into a presentable movie, iMovie is hard to beat. It's particularly suited to iPhone video shooters who want to make something appealing from their clips and photos.
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Getting Started With iMovie
If you purchased a Mac on or after October 20, 2010, you can get iMovie for free from the Mac App Store. Essentially, that means the app is free on nearly all Macs in use. The latest version requires OS X 10.14.6 or later and weighs in at over 2GB. In testing for this review, I installed it on a 21.5-inch iMac with a 3.1GHz Core i7 CPU and 16GB RAM and on a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and a 3.1GHz Core i5 CPU and 8GB RAM.
iMovie's Interface
iMovie's interface only shows you the tools you need at the moment and doesn't clutter the screen with all available tools. The latest version has a dark interface (even if you aren't using the new Dark Mode in macOS Catalina) that starts out with two tabs at top center for Media and Projects. On the left side of the Projects view window is a single huge plus-sign button. When you click this, you get two choices: New Movie and New Trailer. You import content by tapping the down arrow icon.
The standard three-pane video-editing interface shows up in iMovie, with source content at the top left, preview top right, and the timeline spanning the bottom of the screen. But that's about all that's standard. There are no track divisions as in other editors; instead, you drag clips down to the timeline, where they'll extend to represent their running time. You only get two video tracks, which is a far cry from the 100-plus allowed by several enthusiast applications.
A neat interface touch is that you can scrub through any clip in the Media view simply by swiping the cursor across it. In an improvement from earlier versions of iMovie, when you click on a clip, the whole thing is selected rather than a range within the clip; the old way could make adding full clips to your timeline dicey. There's also a plus-sign button that let you send the clip to the timeline with no dragging required. Another helpful feature in the iMovie interface is that clips in the source panel show an orange line along the bottom to indicate that they've been used in your project.
I had no trouble importing any video content I threw at the program—GoPro, phone, and even 4K. HEVC videos and HEIC photos from my iPhone X displayed without a hitch, which is more than you can say for some PC video apps. You can even import 360-degree content, but the app can't edit the point of view; it simply shows their dual fisheye or equirectangular view. You can also import projects you've started in iMovie on iOS and finish them on the desktop.
For organization, you can mark clips or even clip sections as Favorites or Rejects, but there are no ratings, keyword tags, or face or geographical categorization like you get in Adobe Premiere Elements. Content that's used in your project will show up in the separate Project Media section of the source panel, however. The Projects page makes finding what you're working on a snap, and it's always accessible from a button at the top left. It's less fussy, though less powerful as an organizer than Premiere Elements' separate Organizer program.
Editing in iMovie
Dragging inserted clips around in the timeline is easy, and they automatically cling to the adjacent clips. This action also creates Clip Connection lines, which helpfully keep media together when you move one of the clips. You can trim them in the source panel before entering them into the project, or simply drag the end handles to change the in and out points. For more control when working with a transition between two clips, the Precision Editor expands the view to show you the parts of the clips before and after the edit. It also indicates how many seconds (but not frames) are in the clips and transitions.
In addition to trimming, you can crop and rotate video clips or photos. Photos automatically get the Ken Burns pan-and-zoom effect, which makes them engage the eye rather than being static.
The magic-wand Autocorrect button did a good job enhancing the lighting and color on many of my test clips, especially those shot on an iPhone. If the magic wand isn't enough, you can have the program match color between clips (a very pro-level tool, actually), set the white balance from a point in the frame, or enhance skin tones with a dropper tool.
If you want the program to make some informed artistic choices for you rather than going it completely on your own, you can apply a Theme. This option hides in the Settings panel that you open from a link below the movie preview. There are 14 to choose from, and they apply titles and transitions for a unified viewing experience. Newscast and Travel are two of the more engaging options. The latter actually shows your movie's location on a map.
The same is true for the wonderful Trailers feature, which boasts stirring orchestral background music. Software to record music on mac. But the real beauty of Trailers is that it teaches you real movie production processes by using an outline, storyboard, and shot list, telling you exactly what type of shots to include when, and how long they should last.
MacBook Touch Bar Support
Starting with version 10.1.3, iMovie gained support for the Apple laptop's Touch Bar. I'm somewhat disappointed with how limited the support is, compared with what you can do in Apple's own Final Cut Pro X. You can drop a selected clip into the timeline, split clips, and add overlays (including PiP, greenscreen, and cutaway). That's about it.
Unlike Final Cut, iMovie doesn't let you use the Touch Bar to adjust color properties, scrub playback, move clips on the timeline, or adjust title font sizes. It's kind of a shame, since the consumer users of iMovie may be more likely to adopt the Touch Bar than pro editors, who tend to be stuck in their ways, as evidenced by the outcry over Final Cut's major redesign several years ago.
iMovie Special Effects
The two video tracks are enough for one of iMovie's strongest features—its green-screen (aka chroma-key) tool, which is automatic and extremely effective. You get at this from the overlay button above the video preview window. That also accesses the picture-in-picture (PiP) feature, which is limited to one embedded picture. PC editors such as Cyberlink PowerDirector can include many PiP images and even animate them around the screen. iMovie also offers a split-screen effect, but it's only two exact halves, with no resizing possible.
Time effects are simple and powerful, too. Freeze-frame is applied with a simple click, and you can then adjust the time of the freeze. You can choose Fast or Slow, or you can enter a speed percent for slowdowns and speedups. Hitting Reverse doesn't stop you from using those timing changes, which is handy.
What other programs call 'effects,' iMovie calls Clip Filters, and you get at these not from the menu section that includes Transitions and Titles, but from the eighth button (out of nine) above the preview window. There are some nifty filters here, including X-ray, Duo-Tone, and Sci-Fi, along with several black-and-white and retro looks.
There aren't anywhere near as many transitions available as you get in Premiere Elements or the other consumer editors, but there are some fun ones, nevertheless, including page peel, cube spin, and mosaic.
Titles in iMovie
Titling and text in iMovie is nicely done. After choosing from a selection of well-designed title styles you can enter text and edit right in the preview window. Many of the title options animate in and out, and there's no problem with changing font, size, and alignment. You even get the good old Star Wars scrolling text effect if you want that.
Audio in iMovie
The iMovie editor ties in with iTunes and GarageBand for background music, and you can add from a decent selection of sound effects, including four levels of pitch up and down, cosmic, and robot. There are controls for equalizing, hum reduction, voice enhance, and bass and treble reduction, though these are one-click affairs that aren't adjustable as they are in VideoStudio. The Reduce Background Noise setting, however, is adjustable with a slider control.
iMovie Sharing
You can easily share your creation via email, to your iTunes Library, to YouTube, or Vimeo. You can no longer share directly to Facebook, but there's a Prepare for Facebook option that creates an output file formatted to work on the social network. (The Theater feature for sharing and viewing among Apple devices has been discontinued. What? You never heard of the Theater feature? That's why it was killed.) You can also just save it to a video file and even choose the resolution and bandwidth, but you can't choose the actual file type the way competing consumer video editors let you. The saved MP4 format is pretty universally supported, however.
As with everything Apple, iMovie ties in beautifully with the rest of the company's ecosystem: It closely mirrors iMovie on iOS (see below) and makes the path to the pro level Final Cut Pro X quite smooth.
iMovie on iOS
More people are likely to be using iMovie on an iPhone or iPad than on a Mac, simply because there are far more of those devices in use. Apple has gone to great pains to make the macOS and iOS versions of iMovie consistent. The timeline is brilliantly done for the small mobile screen. Software test vga on macos. Instead of moving the insertion point, you swipe on the clip thumbnail itself to move in the timeline.
Transitions are clearly indicated with arrows in small boxes between the clips. Clicking on these lets you change the transition type. You can add more media to your movie by tapping a Plus sign, and reordering content is a simple matter of tap-hold-drag-and-drop—like moving app icons around your iPhone home screen. You can also intuitively pinch-zoom the whole timeline. If any interface element is unclear, tapping the question mark icon reveals tooltips that tell you what each control does.
To start creating a movie on the mobile, you click the plus sign. Just as on the desktop, you then see a choice of Movie or Trailer. Both options offer templates, with Trailers going further in guiding you as to what type of scenes to include. The Movie option includes default transitions and titles, optional background music, and applies motion to any still images you've included.
When you tap on a clip, you can split it, detach its audio track, duplicate it, or delete it. There are also time-stretching options, including freeze-frame, speedup, and slowdown. Adobe Rush (which requires a Premiere Pro subscription), lets you do this, with an option to maintain audio pitch and other advanced options. Outputting movies on the iPhone or iPad is like sharing from any other iOS app.
Making Movies the Apple Way
If you're a video hobbyist in the Apple ecosystem, using iMovie is a no-brainer. The app's slick interface and powerful tools make it our top pick for entry-level video editing software. iMovie can also serve as a bridge to Apple's pro video editor, Final Cut Pro X, with which it shares many interface and functional characteristics. If you want to do some radical things with video that aren't possible in iMovie and you don't want to spend $300 on Final Cut, you might want to try out a couple of very powerful PC video editors that have won PCMag Editors' Choice, CyberLink PowerDirector and Corel VideoStudio. If you're sticking with a Mac but aren't ready for Final Cut, Adobe Premiere Elements offers a good compromise.
Apple iMovie Specs
Motion Tracking
No
Multicam Editing
No
3D Editing
No
Supports 360° VR Content
No
Keyword Tag Media
Yes
Supports 4K XAVC-S Format
Yes
Exports to H.265 (HEVC)
No
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Further Reading
iMovie is the video editing software for the average Joe. Well, any average Joe that uses an Apple device. This is the go-to program for those who want to start editing their own videos. Like all Apple products, it is simple and functions easily across connected Apple libraries and devices. Once your Apple devices are synced, iMovie can serve as a home movie portal. It conveniently stores and organizes all imported photo and video files. Even better, it takes advantage of iCloud and iMovie Theater program to give you a platform to debut videos, movies and trailers in 4K resolution in any Apple device and HDTV.
Personalize your videos
iMovie’s feature improves your video’s appearance and audio.
Ever taken a video on the fly? It's unpredictable. Once videos and photos have been imported, you can trim clips, add close-ups, enhance audio, and even remove sound, and comes handy when you want to make changes, but don't know where to begin. Preview with Trailers: you can make any video look like a blockbuster when you use iMovie’s Hollywood-inspired movie trailers. Each template has its own original score, graphics, and animated transitions. The transitions are predetermined visual breaks created by the photos and videos you import. To add a more personal touch, you can add their own movie title, end credits, and even a customized studio logo.
Create Movies: iMovie is one of the easiest video editing tools to use, letting editors click and drag imported clips into the timeline, as well as automatically lock on adjacent videos. An important tool is the Precision Editor. It controls when a video fades in or out by showing an exact timestamp before and after the transition. Another important feature is Clip Connection, which holds all media together when you move a clip.
In addition to trimming, you can even crop and rotate videos. Yup. That's right. Both photos and videos. The difference between the two media sources is the Ken Burns pan-and-zoom effect that photos automatically get. The effect is more engaging than ever before.
Then there's the Autocorrect button—the cherry on top. Like a magic wand, it enhances the lighting and color on all kinds of videos. It’s a huge help in videos shot on the spot where little thought was given to lighting and color. Other common video enhancing tools are color matching for a seamless filter on every frame, white balance from a specific area in each frame, and the dropper tool to enhance colors and skin tones.
Edit anywhere, anytime
Apple sets iMovie apart from other entry-level video editors by making it compatible with Apple desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablet devices. Of course, the iPhone and iPad versions do not have all the features of the desktop version. Yet, it is incredibly useful for anyone who has an idea for a video and wants to conceptualize it. To put it simply, it is a lifesaver for creative ideas, especially in the eyes of professional video editors. Simply select the video or videos you want to edit on the Photos app. Click Edit and the iMovie app will automatically launch your already-imported videos. Once you have started creating your movie on the app, it will be uploaded on iCloud and you will be able to work across various Apple devices.
Another perk of having the app version in your iPhone or iPad is that you can create productions like daily video diaries and vlogs in a snap. When you’re finished, you can send the final product thru iMessage, Facebook, email, and other social media platforms.
Full support
Apple Inc. offers a well-organized and detailed customer support website. You can find a solution for every Apple product. In Apple’s customer support website, you will find user guides, tutorials, and support communities. You can also schedule a phone, live chat, email and have one-to-one support if you need a more detailed guide. It is important to know that Apple does not have an email address published online, so all inquiries should be made on Apple’s official customer support website or their hotlines.
Where can you run this program?
Because iMovie exclusively runs on Apple devices, Windows users will have to run on over to the Apple store if they want to get their hands on the video editing software app. Not only is it free for all new macOS and iOS devices, it's pre-installed! This latter feature exceeds expectations and offers a bit more value. Users who are looking to take the plunge can feel free to try out Apple devices on display or ask for assistance.
Current Apple users are in luck. iMovie for macOS requires only 2GB of RAM and an OS X Mavericks to edit videos. Editors who want to make the most of the program are recommended to have a 2011 iMac or Macbook Pro with at least 4GB of RAM. These devices can export videos with 4K resolution. The latest version of iMovie, version 10.1.11 requires OS X 10.11.2 or later.
Is there a better alternative?
In general, other entry-level video editing tools don’t hold up to iMovie’s sleek and intuitive interface and its vast array of features. Wondershare Filmora, however, is a strong competitor. The video editing software is an established name amongst Apple and Windows users. Both its free and paid versions offer standard trimming, transitions, overlays, and effects. You can even put together one hundred layers of media—a feature that iMovie lacks.
App To Cut Videos Machine
Our take
Apps To Cut Videos
iMovie is the user-friendly video editing application that turns your footage into stunning productions.The final output is not as sleek and professional as that of Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere or other professional editing tools, but that's all right. This software app is for dabblers, tinkerers and enthusiasts wanting to get those creative juices flowing without feeling overwhelmed.
App To Cut Videos Mac Online
Should you download it?
Yes. It’s a powerful yet simple tool that you can use to impress your friends, family, and colleagues.