Elizabeth B. Thomsen

Archive for the ‘Photographs’ Category

Animoto is a service that makes it simple to turn a group of photographs into a music video. You can upload your pictures from your computer or pull them in from another photo site like Flickr, choose some music from Animoto’s collection or upload your own, and then let Animoto create your video. It takes about ten minutes for your video to be ready, and if you don’t like the results, you can run it through again and get a remix. It’s free to make 30 second videos, and you can make longer ones for $3.00 each or $30.00 a year.

Animoto just added a new feature which will be great for libraries — the ability to superimpose text across your pictures. This makes it easy to take a group of pictures from the Children’s Room and have words like “Come to story hour” and “Get help with homework” float across the screen. It’s really easy to use, and the video you make can be uploaded to YouTube or posted to your blog or website.

Here’s a quick example, just a remix of one of my first test videos I made several months ago, remixed with a few words added. It’s really easy to make these, and just another way to show off your library pictures!

And you also might want to use this as a library program. Kids and teens (or anyone, actually) will also enjoy playing around with this their own photographs with Animoto.

Flickr just introduced a new, improved version of their slideshow, with many new features including the ability to include video as well as photographs. But the most important new feature is that Flickr slideshows are now easier to share, and can easily be embedded in blogs and webpages, like this:

You can make slideshows from your own photographs, of course — this is a great way to post a set of pictures from a library event on your website. But you can also make slideshows from groups or even search results, and link to them or embed them on your website. Be sure to play around with the options!

There are a lot of third-party tools around that build different kinds of slideshows with Flickr photographs, but there’s nothing easier than using the new, improved slideshow built right into the system!

More on the New Slideshow — From the Flickr Blog

The Boston Public Library is sharing several collections of artistic and historic images to Flickr, including local brewery posters, rare books, manuscripts, postcards, photographs and much more.

Two collections are of particular interest for local interest to NOBLE libraries. The Tichnor Brothers postcards of New England includes over 1,800 Massachusetts images, including many from our area. These postcards are a good source of images of parks, bridges, statues, libraries, churches and other local landmarks.

The Leon Abdalian collection includes historic sites photographed in 1930 during the Massachusetts Tercentenary celebration, when the Boston Daily Record hired Abdalian as the “Photographer of Historic Shrines,” and it includes some sites in our area, including the Balch House in Beverly.

I did a presentation on this topic at the Massachusetts Library Association conference in Falmouth this morning, and posted the PowerPoint on Slideshare:

Read the rest of this entry »

Animoto is an online service that makes it easy to create professional-looking animated videos from your photographs. The process couldn’t be simpler — you just upload a group of photographs or choose them from your account on Flickr or other supported site, choose a music clip from their the Animoto collection or upload your own, and click on Create. Animoto’s software takes it from there, analyzing your images and customizing the movement and special effects to match the music. It takes several minutes before the video is ready, but you can get pretty impressive results with very little effort. The video can be viewed online, mailed to a friend, or uploaded directly to YouTube.

This could be a fun “craft program” for kids or teens, who might enjoy making their own videos like the sample below:

Thirty second videos are free. If you want to make longer ones, you can pay $3 per video or $30 a year.

Libraries and other organizations can use this site to make simple promotional videos to post on YouTube and their own sites. Here are some examples:

• Teen Music Video — From the Leesburg Library in Florida
• Sparta School District — This one uses a custom soundtrack with words as well as music
• Read in 2008 — From the South Carolina State Library

Of course, there isn’t much skill or creativity involved in making videos this way — the software is doing all the work. It can be fun, though, and users who tire of this and want more control have lots of options for making their own movies using other programs.

Give your online photographs a high-class look with an elegant mat and frame. This is a nice way to display photographs you’re using for a special online exhibit or display, and is especially nice for library photography contests.

There are several cool tools that make it simple to add these mats and frames. One of the easiest is Matte, on of several quick and handy tools at the Big Huge Labs website. You can upload a picture from your PC, Flickr or another website, adjust the width of the frame and mat, turn on the options for beveling and add a credit if you like, click Create, and then either download your framed masterpiece, or upload it directly to Flickr. If you’re looking for something a little different, there are other tools at the Big Huge Labs website that can do other kinds of frames and poster effects. Read the rest of this entry »