Fade In and Fade out to transparent

[orbanten]

I have a nicely edited series of videos fading into each other in the video track, and would like to have a series of photographs fade in and out in the overlay track. Can anyone suggest a work around. Fade to Black or dissolve dont achieve the affect I want where we can see the underlying video between photos.
Thanks in advance.

[BrianCee]

which version of VideoStudio are you using.

is this the sort of thing you want to do - or do you have something different in mind :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAERRYSRxzc



.....

[orbanten]

I have x6, and yes that is exactly the kind of thing I am after.

[BrianCee]

OK - my method for achieving that effect in VideoStudio X6 :-

put your main/background video/images in the top track.

put the image/video you want to fade in and out in the overlay track - if you only want one image at a time onscreen you can put them all in one overlay track - but if you want more than one image over your background at one time you will need to open up additional overlays and put your images in them.

We work on the overlay images one at a time - so select the first one so that it has yellow lines all around it.

In the preview window use the yellow boxes on the overlay image to set it's required size - and put the cursor over the image in the preview screen so that the cursor changes to a four way arrow - then click and slide to put the image wherever you want it to appear.

Open the 'Options' panel (blue button above right hand end of the timeline)

the options panel has two tabs - one is 'Edit' the other is 'Attribute' - click on the attribute one.

just under the word attribute is a radio button labelled - 'Advanced Motion' - click on the button so that a 'blob' appears in it and the words 'Customize Motion' light up - that usually causes the customise Motion window to open - if it does not open then click on customise motion to open the window.

In the customise motion window you will see a preview window with some controls immediately under it - under that is a timeline with two 'Key frames' set - an orange one at the left end and a blue one at the right end.

you need to add two more key frames - the existing left hand one will be the start of the fade in - you need to add a keyframe where you want the fade in to end - then move along and set a key frame at the point you want the fade out to start. To add keyframes double click in the timeline where you want it to be - if you do not get it exactly where you want it use your mouse to click on it and slide left or right.

now move the inverted arrow over the timeline back to the very left hand (Start) key frame marker - under the timeline look for a control labelled 'Opacity' - set that control to 0 (zero).

now move the timeline marker to the second key frame - set the opacity to 100

move the marker to the third key frame - set opacity to 100

move the marker to the very right hand (end) keyframe and set opacity to 0 (zero)

Click OK at the bottom of the window to return to VS where you can check the effect by playing in "PROJECT" mode.

continue to click on each overlay image and repeat the procedure for each one.

you will note from it's name and the fact that you can see the controls in the 'customise motion' window that at each keyframe you can also set an onscreen position for the image - so if you want as well as fading in and out it can be moving around the screen.

[orbanten]

This works beautifully, thank you very much.
The Advanced Motion controls are very powerful. I am surprised my fruitless week of searching Corel manuals and the internet generally did not mention this.

[orbanten]

Additionally, once the fade in fade out effect has been created, the "path" can be saved as a path preset that can be applied to subsequent events/images etc.