You know all this effect of pan and scan on an image made famous by Ken Burns and who use his name today, the Ken Burns effect.

Possible in Final Cut Pro by using keyframes, the process remains nevertheless rather tiresome to apply to an image imported. Imagine with three, five or ten images. That quickly becomes a work of monk and gives desire for limiting, even give up the effect.

LQ Graphics make us happy with this affordable software (49,95$US) Photo to Movie.

No need to tear off what remains of your hair, LQ Graphics simplified us work for a professional result. Easy to use like for children, one clicks to creates squares (keyframes), scale them, moves them, and the that's it.

Let's go to discover this little jewel of simplicity and effectiveness.

The interface is very simple and easy to understand.

We start by importing our photographs in the timeline. Image by image, drag and drop since file, or, for people organized, selection of an album in iPhoto.

And here it is, It's done!

What? That's it!. Yes it is! If the default settings are appropriate to you, you just need to export. If not, let us continue our review.

Once your photographs imported, pass in single keyframe view in order to be able to work on the movement of your photograph. When you add a keyframe, represented by a square of color for each keyframe. The command in which the squares of color appear, directly affect the command of the movement of your image.

For example, if I reduce my first square of color and places it in top on the left of my image, then I increase my second square and that I place it in bottom on the right, there will be initially a zoom of the size of my first square, in top on the left of the image, then the movement will pass to a back zoom towards the corner in bottom on the right of my image.

It is very simple, but terribly powerful.

For the purists, there is the possibility of editing curves of Bézier and of refining the movement of the image.

The duration of each image is pre-established as well as a transition between two images. It is of course possible to regulate this image duration by image.

You can also insert a blank image to which one can allot a background of color and a duration of his choice.

Title

The text is not remains about it in Photo to movie. A familiar
pallet allows a rather precise work on the text, its color, its
alignment, and its leading out.

It is possible to overlap text on several images, or a number X of
seconds that an image lasts.

The option Title Safe enables us to be in the standards of the video
broadcasting.

Soundtrack

Our friend Georges Lucas said that the sound is 50% of the motion picture experience.

It is not a question here to make audio mixing, but simply to add
music on your assembly and of being able to synchronize it with your
images.

There is even the possibility of recording the voice directly to make
a narration of the image.

As Photo to movie uses Quicktime, it is possible to import all the
formats that Quicktime allows.

Motion

Full with grace and beauty, such a skater slipping on the ice (a little poetry, it is the time of the festivals) the beautiful curves (of Bézier, not of the skater) offer a quasi absolute control to you on your movement. Slip, turn, increase, a rotation on the left, a rotation on the right, and the figures are connected. I say it to you, a true ballet.

The key frame define the layouts, their durations, the swing angles. One can set by default the level of enlarging and the rotation of each image.

Export

Once you finished your editing, you can export it towards a variety of formats. Export for e-mail, Web, CD-Rom for the immediate use. Export it to DV Stream for iMovie. Export in full quality DV or a format for a direct use in Final Cut Pro, iDVD, or DVD Studio Pro.

Photo to movie also includes a revolutionary algorithm to optimize each keyframe film to almost completely eliminate the flickering effects of smoothing when the film looked on a TV.

You can also choose your format (the standard 4:3 or widescreen 16:9), and background color to use when the principal keyframes leave the limits of their photo. You can even put the background to transparency so that the film can be composite on another background.

Conclusion, I appreciated Photo to Movie very much. A small shade however, it is not possible to see the safe zones (broadcast and title safe) during the assembly and the edition of the key images. It was said to me that that would be fixed in the next version.

Adjust the audio volume of individual audio tracks.

Record voice narration for your movie.

Insert blank images into your movie.

Add titles to your movie.

Use a variety of new transitions between photos.

Inspector now displays original file location.

Inspector text turns red when key frames are below required resolution.

Stretch all photos at once for easy adjustment to audio duration.

Significant performance improvements, especially with hundreds of photos.

Brings the power of complex Hollywood effects to all users.

Create movies from your photos, ready to export to DVD.

Add a soundtrack by dragging in music.

Add titles with the full power of Mac OS X font technology.

Easy to use with built-in preview of rendered movie.

Focus audience attention on specific parts of a photo.

Smooth motion along Bézier paths with easing in and out.

Timeline editing to set motion durations and cross dissolve durations.

Frame by frame rendering optimization to avoid aliasing effects that cause flicker.

Motion at constant speed over curved, multi-segment paths, resulting in smooth movement.

Drag photos from the Finder or iPhoto into Photo to Movie or its dock icon.

Flip and rotate source photos by 90 degrees.

Automatically reads EXIF tags for proper photo orientation.

Use any QuickTime photo format, including JPEG and TIFF.

Use QuickTime VR movies too.

Handles large photos, non-standard d.p.i., and non-standard pixel formats with ease.

Insert blank images into your movie.

Preview any frame in the movie using the timeline.

Move to any key frame using the graphical key frame sequence list.

Zoom, pan, and rotate key frames directly using the mouse.

Enter specific values for zooming, panning, and rotation directly using the inspectors.

Make minor adjustments using arrow keys to nudge frames and paths.

Edit key frames by viewing them as they will export, or as frames on the source photo.

Optionally display title safe markers while editing.

Rearrange key frames by cutting and pasting.

Warning indicator (red text) in inspector when resolution too low.

Localized in English, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish.