Tag Archives: cut-out

fixed : Green Screen button not showing in iMovie 10

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Question :

I have made a video recording of myself in front of a green screen, and now I want to make the green transparent and put a video behind it in iMovie. I have iMovie 10.3.5 and the option for Green Screen should be in there, but when I import the video into iMovie and select it, there should be a Green Screen button at the left of the editing buttons above the clip preview, but the button just isn’t there, it isn’t greyed out or something, it just isn’t showing up… I searched in iMovie menus to find an option to switch the Green Screen button on, but there isn’t any…

What am I doing wrong ?

Answer :

Yes, it would have been better if Apple had included the button permanently in the row of editing buttons above the clip preview, then it could have been greyed out and instructions of what to do could be shown when you would try to click it.

So… yes… there is a modus operandi that isn’t obvious to everyone, but causes the Green Screen / Blue Screen button (the icon depicts ‘two overlaying squares’ and appears on the left of the row of editing buttons above the clip preview) to stay invisible :

the green screen video should always be an additional layer, but not the main layer !

so, do this to fix this problem and get the Green Screen / Blue Screen button to appear :

  • open iMovie
  • create a new Project
  • in the new project’s time line, import the video (or picture) that you want to show in the background first (so make the background video/picture the main clip in the time line)
  • then import the green screen video on top of the main (background) clip (so drag it in the row / layer above the main clip in the time line)
  • then select the green screen video in the time line (a yellow outline will appear around the clip) ; now the Green Screen / Blue Screen button will show up in the row of editing buttons above the clip preview on the upper right section of the screen
  • then click the Green Screen / Blue Screen button ; now the options needed to make the cut-out of the green screen will appear

That’s it !

enjoy 😉

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tip : quickly cut-out part of a picture in OSX

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Question :

I have a nice picture I want to use in a presentation, but I don’t want the entire picture, just part of it.

Is there an easy way to cut the desired piece out ?

…even if I don’t have Photoshop ?

Answer :

Even if you don’t have Photoshop, cutting out part of a picture for (re)use in PowerPoint, Keynote, Word, Pages, your website, LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc. is very easy on your Mac :

1- open the picture in Preview app (usually that would only require you to double-click on the picture’s icon)

2- click on the Image-button (Edit button)

3- in the Editing-toolbar that appears, click on the Image-button (Selection button)

4- now the + (Plus sign) appears, so : click on one corner of the part of the picture you want to select and drag to the opposite corner [ you can do this rather ‘roughly’ ]

5- then the selection area appears [ normally a rectangle with dots in the corners and on the middle of the side ] ; drag the dots so, that the selection area exactly fits the part of the picture that you want to take out

6- then press the ‘Copy key-combo’ (CMD + C)

7- now choose “New From Clipboard” from the “File”-menu, or press the ‘New key-combo’ (CMD + N), and you will get a new window with only your ‘cut-out part’ in it

8- if that looks as you envisioned it, choose “Save” from the “File”-menu, or press the ‘Save key-combo’ (CMD + S), and save the cut-out picture as a JPEG or PNG (or TIFF)

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