I had the task of creating a video combining photos and video footage from the Costa Rica service trip.  This is completely possible with iMovie,  but it can be tedious if you want transitions between your photos and video clips and you have numerous pictures. I could have simply dumped them in and exported it as is, but it simply is not the same with some transitions between the images.

iPhoto 6.0 will import video clips from your digital camera and includes them in the thumbnails and you can preview the videos. However, it will not include them in slideshows. iPhoto will automatically add transitions between images, but I wanted to include videos, too. Like I said I can do this in iMovie, but it is a manual process to add the transitions and it takes a while to render the transitions between the images on my Mac G4 PowerBook. 

I looked for another application to do this and discovered PulpMotion for only $29.95. I usually try the open source or freeware routes first, but could not find anything that fit the bill. However, for $29.95 this software is a bargain and I'll be using it many times, since I create the photo DVD's for each of the Alumnae Association Travel programs and videos for Reunion and other events.

It uses a wide variety of creative and professional quality templates that you can drag and drop your media into. Templates are constantly being added and it is easy to add new templates to the PulpMotion. The program is completely integrated with the iLife suite, so you have easy access to iPhoto, iTunes and your movie files. Each template has various options for customizing the final output.

As for exporting your video, numerous sizes and formats are supported. Unfortnately, Flash is not one of them. To convert to Flash format I used VisualHub. Here are the two videos I have done so far:

It is a well thought out program which cannot be said for many version 1.0 programs these days. It functioned flawlessly, but it will not play the entire entire video clip before moving on to the next image or video. The entire video needs to be slowed down or the video cliips need to be edited to be shorter, which can be done with the program by sliding the start and end points. You need OS X 10.4 Tiger in order to use PulpMotion. It will not work with previous versions of OS X.

If you want a unique and creative and easy way to share your photos, check out PulpMotion. As for your Windows users, sorry, but I do not know of a comparable application for you.