Creating a Living Photo in Fixel’s Cinemagraph Pro. Advancement in camera and editing technology have helped create a new form of imaging: animated portraiture. Animated portraits (also called living portraits or flixels) are the mesmerizing combination of still and motion photography. Fashion, Lifestyle and Travel Cinemagraphs from the inventors of the medium, Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck.

• Cinemagraph Pro 1 5 – Create Living Photos 2017
• How To Create A Cinemagraph
• Cinemagraph Pro For Windows
• Cinemagraphs Free

Furthermore, Cinemagraph Pro is capable to export your hybrid photo to H.264, Apple ProRes 422, Apple ProRes 444 and animated GIF files at full resolution, half, one third or a quarter of the. Cinemagraph Pro is the only professional tool specifically designed for the creation of living photos. With its unique “live-masking” technology, artists can preview their living images in real time and output HD (1080) and UHD (4k) quality hybrid photographs.

How do you make your photos look like that? They look so cool!
That’s the kind of reaction you’re looking for when you post an edited photo online, right?
Well, you may be already aware of the cinemagraph as a great method for cool looking living photos.

But you also might be assuming that to get that sought after cinemagraph look, you’ll need to hire a photo editor. Or shell out a bunch of money on fancy software.

Nope!

In this post, we’ll go over the top 5 apps that will help you create free cinemagraphs.

Sound interesting? Keep reading to find out more!

Cinemagraph Pro for iOS

This app is free (with an option to upgrade to a subscription plan) for any device running on iOS. And there’s even a version for macOS devices as well!

It provides the user with a super simple way to make and tweak cinemagraphs.

First, you just import from your phone’s camera app or even shoot for up to 10 seconds within the app itself. Then you paint to create motion underneath the still photo. Then you loop it and crops it. Boom!

You can pick any of their many social media optimized export options as an MP4 video file. And you can also upload to your Flixel gallery as well. This makes it a snap to use the cinemagraph on websites, blogs, etc.

Loopsie

This one isn’t the most customizable, but it has some incredibly powerful tools for creating cinemagraphs.

With Loopsie, you can make cinemagraphs in full HD. Plus it has a stabilizer built right into the app. Which is always nice for those shaky video moments!

Cinemagraph Pro 1 5 – Create Living Photos 2017

One cool thing is it gives you the option to create in both bounce and repeat styles. Functionally, that means you can make it so that when the cinemagraph ends, it can either play backwards or start over from the beginning.

One thing to note is that Loopsie adds a watermark for the free version. You can get rid of it if you buy the $1.99 version.

How To Create A Cinemagraph

Zoetropic

This is a great Android app that sort of fakes a cinemagraph. You take certain areas of a still photo and blend them so the photo has an effect that looks like it’s in motion.

It takes a little practice to make the movements look natural, but after a bit, you’ll get used to the best techniques. Using Zoetropic is a great idea for people who want to practice a little on still photos before creating cinemagraphs with video.

Fotodanz

This is another app that’s intended to keep the cinemagraph creation process as simple as possible for the user.

With Fotodanz, you record a video within the app for 3-5 seconds. The app will take a photo simultaneously. So basically, you automatically have a photo and a video of the same moment.

There are limitations to the app, like only being able to use a few seconds at a time, but it’s great for learning the process.

Motion Stills

This is another basic app, created by Google. It’s great for creating both simple cinemagraphs and time-lapse videos.

Using the built-in stabilizer, Motion Stills lets you loop 3-second videos that look like photos.

It doesn’t have editing tools but you can join clips together to create a movie.

Free Cinemagraphs at Your Fingertips!

As you can see, there are a ton of great apps out there to create free cinemagraphs. Any of the ones we listed above will be a great start.

And if you want to learn more, or have questions, contact us today!

Have you ever encountered photos where part of the image is animated while the rest stays perfectly still? This new type of media that toes the line between photo and video is called a cinemagraph. Cinemagraphs are increasingly popular in marketing campaigns and social media as they boost click-through rates and draw your audiences attention to your content.

Want to make cinemagraphs on mobile devices? Check our other blog post that focusses on the best apps for making cinemagraphs on iOS and Android.

Cinemagraphs animate only part of an image while the rest remains still. They tend to loop seamlessly to create the illusion of living scene.

Originally reserved for movie stills, cinemagraphs are making their way onto everyday people’s newsfeeds to stunning effect.

How it works

Many apps use the same technique to achieve this effect:

1. Start with a video
2. Trim and crop the part of the video you want to repeat
3. Highlight the areas you wish to animate by painting over them
4. Export the cinemagraph as a video or as a GIF to use anywhere

Apps to create cinemagraphs for Mac OSX & Windows PCs

Verdict: The best value for money on Mac and feature packed. Highly recommended for making cinemagraphs on Mac OS X

Cinemask Pro gives full control over cinemagraph creation, after importing your source video you trim to length, choose a freeze frame, and use the brush options to draw in the animated mask.

It has the most important features a cinemagraph app needs – seamless loop creation, ping-pong bouncing loops or cross-fade transitions (with the ability to fade duration), opacity settings for advanced blending, and export as GIF or Video files with different quality settings applied.

• The best value for money on OSX
• Packed with all the features you need for making cinemagraphs

2. Cinemagraph Pro by Flixel

Verdict: Expensive – but one of the most fully featured options available for Mac desktop editing of Cinemagraphs

Cinemagraph Pro allows you to draw and erase with multiple brush options, as well as control the looping (bouncing or repeating) with options for controlling the speed and more.

It also includes options to crop, change video levels, plus a bunch of video filter presets.

• The most popular Cinemagraph creator for OSX
• Free trial available, but requires signing up for an account and will put a watermark on your creation
• Expensive ($200+ a year)

3. Graphitii

Verdict: One-time fee, nice interface. A great option for creating cinemagraphs (so long as you’re connected to the internet)

Cinemagraph Pro For Windows

Graphitii is a relatively new kid on the block, but it brings a stylish interface and all the tools you need to create cinemagraphs on any device.

Cinemagraphs Free

• Cloud based, so you will require an active internet connection (this could be a plus or minus depending on how you see it!)
• Works on any device
• Relatively low price ($47 – $67) considering it’s a one-time fee
  • NOTE: This one-time fee appears to be a limited time launch deal, likely it will become monthly/annual cost after this

4. Gifzign

Verdict: Fully featured animated gif editor, decent cinemagraph editor

Gifzign appears to be an animated gif editor, letting you import videos and add text and edit to suit. Editing capabilities are somewhat limited, as you can only add text above/below an area, there is no drag and drop interface or complex editing capability here. The cinemagraph option seems to work well, though it is missing a few options (like brush hardness). Overall it does the trick for a reasonable price.

• Free trial available (14 days, then $14.99 per month)
• Available for both Mac & PC

Verdict: Cheap, not particularly pretty but mostly does the job.

Clipgraph (previously Flickgraph) has been around for a while. The interface is a no-frills affair, but it has most of the options you would expect at this point. One major downside is it is really difficult to tell where you’ve drawn a mask making it difficult to use.

Tips for great cinemagraphs

• When filming video for a cinemagraph, put your phone/camera on a stand or tripod rather than holding it. You need the camera to be perfectly still or you will ruin the illusion.
• Don’t try and animate too much! If you animate everything in the scene, it’s just another boring video.
• Try turning the hardness on the brush right down to fade between animated and non-animated sections. Without a fade, you might see some harsh edges between the animated and still sections of the image.

Cinemagraph inspiration

The possibilities for creativity are endless:

• Animate rainfall while the rest of the photo remains motionless
• Crashing waves on a beach give life to an otherwise still image
• Animate blinking eyes or hair blowing in the wind on a portrait
• Move just the steam coming off a hot meal

Cinemagraphs.com has some great examples of cinemagraphs for your inspiration.

Happy cinemagraphing!