Flixel Cinemagraph Pro makes making cinemagraphs easy!
Copyright Ron Martinsen © All Rights Reserved
If you are like me, you’ve probably been very intrigued by the cool cinemagraphs found on the web (especially on the bing.com home page), but many people like me also haven’t had the time to figure out how to do them! Most things in photography are time consuming enough, and video makes it even worse. As a result, I had little desire to find another way to consume my time.
Well I’m happy to report that after a little research I found out that it is not only easy it’s fun too! Here’s the main window of Flixel’s Cinemagraph Pro 1.5 back when I originally did this article in 2015 (page down for version 2.0):
Flixel Cinemagraph Pro Main Window
Basically you import a video, highlight what you want to move and pick start and end points. That’s in – in no time you can have one of these running and they’ll even host the cinemegraph on their web site – for free (size limitations and content restrictions apply).
It took me a bit to get the hang of it, but within a few minutes I had my first cinemgraph of my daughter below:
Yes, we think it is creepy too!
Not only did we think this was creepy, I quickly learned how you must keep things very still or else you get the shifty eyes problem featured here.
What was about this one is that I could export the still image portion and do a quick edit on it in Photoshop then send it back to Cinemagraph Pro. This allowed me to get rid of some unwanted skin blemishes caused by the fact that neither my daughter or I had planned to do this so no real life skin preparations were made!
Without any prep, I tried again:
Ok, cool but crooked as hell so let’s try again
As a second attempt the concept was good but the execution was bad, so I tried again:
Almost awesome
The ottoman was a little more stable this time as a tripod, but still not perfect. I also started noticing that my background was a bit dirty so I figured I needed another try where I actually prepared for a video (imagine that)!
My final attempt (the lead cinemagraph with cognac at the top of this article) included some preparations, but was done in one take. From start to finish I spent about 20 minutes, 16 minutes of which was preparation time getting “the set” ready.
Video Demos
Here's the best Flixels of 2017:
and here's a tutorial that shows how to use the latest 2.0 version for the Mac:
Conclusion
This is a fun and simple process that can be done on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad quickly and easily. While I’m disappointed that no Windows version exists, there is a product called Microsoft Blink (see below) that does cinemagraphs for free!
To learn more, visit https://flixel.com/products/mac/cinemagraph-pro.
Where to order
Click here to order and use the code FLIXELTEN to save 10%!
Other articles you may enjoy
If you enjoyed this article, you may also enjoy these:
- Turn your still images to life with Plotagraph Pro (discount)
- Discount Coupon Code Page
- Ron’s Recommendations
- More Reviews
- Printing Series
- Future of Photography: Synthetic Object Rendering Cinemagraph
Disclosure
If you make a purchase using links found in this article, I may make a commission. It doesn’t cost you a penny more, but it does help to support future articles like this.
2 comments:
When I click on the link it brings me to a page that shows the cost at $299 then $239 with 10% discount but why it is not linking to the $199 version like you show in your post? I'm confused.
Hi Barbara,
They had a price increase since this article was first written (and the time I took the screen shot). They did an introductory price when it was first released but that has since expired.
The discount still applies though - just on the current sales price.
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