iMovie HD offers a number of fun visual effects that you can add to your clips and stills. These aren't the full-blown visual effects of the latest science-fiction blockbuster, but then again, your movie already stars Uncle Humphrey, and most people would consider him a special effect.
For example, to immediately change a clip (or your entire movie) into an old classic, you can choose the Aged Film or Sepia effect to add that antique look.
To view the effects, click the Editing button on the Tools palette, and then click the Video FX button at the top of the screen. Click an effect from the list in the pane (see Figure 1) to display the options you can customize for that particular effect. The settings you can change vary for each effect, but most include the Effect In and Effect Out sliders, which allow you to gradually add an effect over a certain amount of time from the beginning of the clip and then phase it out before the clip ends. When you make a change to the settings, you see the result in the monitor window.
To add an effect to a clip or still image in the timeline viewer, follow these steps:
1. Click the clip or image to select it.
The selection turns blue.
2. Click the desired effect.
3. Make any necessary adjustments to the settings for the effect.
4. When everything looks perfect, click Apply.
Like transitions, effects take a few seconds to render. The faster your laptop, the shorter the time.
