I have a number of apps with which to make the moving images that I use to overlay or incorporate in my art work, and the ones I use most are PowerDirector for making videos, MotionLeap for its effects library that can be used to simulate motion, change skies, and add elements such as rain, Colour Director for colour adjustment and other photographic tweaks, and Paintshop Pro which is my old workhorse of an app that these days I mostly use to create greenscreen areas within an image even though I know there must be easier ways. But because I found my own way into them, I knew there must be a great deal that an expert would have at their fingertips and that would help to professionalise my own work. So I’ve invested time watching the tutorials for PowerDirector and MotionLeap.

The tutorials are free; I can go at my own pace, stop and start where I want to check on something, and take screenshots as reminders. Significantly, there is no new software to purchase; the tutors are experts in the ones I’m learning about, and although I have to slow down the delivery sometimes, they are all clear, articulate, and pitch their explanations at the learner viewer who has a bit of experience.

MotionLeap

This is an app for mobile devices that allows users to enhance/change/activate a static image on their phone with no other app required. Water can be made to ripple; hair, foliage, skies (and pretty much anything else) can be made to move; and it’s possible to adjust colours. I found several short videos but the first is the most comprehensive. I discovered I could use a mask to limit the scope of an effect such as dispersion where the software picks up an edge of something – a person, a tree, a particular part of the image – and has it dissolving away in a choice of small shapes.

HOW TO ANIMATE YOUR PICTURES WITH MOTIONLEAP | Lightricks motionleap app complete walkthrough

Here’s my video:

Along the bottom are the various tabs giving access to a range of effects, each of which has within it its own range of further possibilities. I have to remind myself periodically, and make clear to other people from time to time, that using an app requires some skill and an ability to manipulate visual material. For an artist, this is a digital studio where every tweak is up for grabs and you paint with pixels and algorithms rather than oils and canvas. The two are not the same any more than creating a fine abstract is the same as creating fine movements and lines in the ice as an ice dance champion, but they are both expressions of artistry.

MotionLeap is a little gem of an app, a flimsy pink backpack with a corner of the universe in it that deserves more attention than it gets.

PhotoLeap is a stablemate of MotionLeap but I haven’t used it much.

Create Studio

I had a look at this, wondering if it could tell one of my short stories, but found the 3D modelling could only accommodate cartoon figures. I’d had to pay up front (around £60.00) but the developers refunded me within minutes of my saying it wasn’t really what I’d thought it was and it didn’t fit with my work. We had a nice little goodbye chat.

Nevertheless, it looks very promising for creating greenscreen, removing text from an image, removing an object, and removing a background. But maybe not worth the outlay if that’s all you want it for.

PowerDirector

My notes. “Here are some basics – it discusses files, trimming, transitions, text and titles. There’s a section on cropping and resizing an image to fit the aspect ratio TS 5:58. [He can see a black border on a black background so that might be a challenge!] I’m puzzled by this – he puts titles in a lower track and subtitles in a higher one but doesn’t say why. (Note: Track order and content type seems to run through all the videos I’ve seen since so it’s next on my list to Google). Meanwhile, I’m currently obsessed with black borders and how to get rid of them so this will be helpful when I’ve got to grips with the trimming business.

I’m not familiar with CapCut so the comparision was immaterial. Nevertheless, discovering that PowerDirector could also do those things was gratifying. My notes, which I’ll translate into Human before I publish this say, “Make a still image move TS 1:01. Edit –> pan/zoom (fake camera move), panning across a waterfall TS 1:48, sky replacement – edit –> tools,  scroll right down to AI sky replacement TS 3:13, text behind object TS 5:32, text highlights – this is just putting a colourboard over the target text and reducing its opacity + fade in/out.” The numbers are timings so you/I know where these elements start.

This app is more of a heavyweight. Part of a suite of apps from Cyberlink that includes PhotoDirector, AudioDirector, and ColourDirector, it pulls together the products of its stablemates and renders them as, or in, a storytelling format.

There’s so much in this but here’s a highlight; from around 24:36, in the preview frame you can move the video around one frame at a time using Play (self evident), stop (ditto), the ‘Seek By’ button which looks like a back button. A keyboard Comma goes back one frame, Space goes forward one frame. ‘Seek By’ can also be changed to seconds, minutes, and other search items. Next is Fast Forward, Camera is a SNAPSHOT button which takes a freeze frame that you can put back into the timeline.

Split (near cut icon) lets you remove a section. Click on the clip you’re wanting to edit so it’s highlighted, this confines the cut/split to that one area, which means hyou don’t have to go through and lock all your other tracks, which is what I’ve been doing. You can trim in the middle of a clip. R click brings up a menu I never knew about! There’s a pattern of small boxes (the library menu button) next to the library search box and clicking that produces a ?menu for applying transitions to the video. Right click on a frame to copy key frame attributes then R click on a frame you want to apply them to. For eg, one frame is zoomed in , the next isn’t.

I want to say I would recommend this tutorial as a first stop because it covers all the basics, but I’m hesitant to do that because it really does cover all the basics and before you’ve really tried the app out, I suspect boredom arising from an inability to see the application at this stage, would lose people.

I’ve been using it for a while, finding my way around it enough to manage passable bits of video for coursework that isn’t judging that in its own right. I have OCA to thank for this because I’d never even made a video on my phone until I was a couple of years into the course (and please don’t remind me of that first excruciating ‘reflective account’. No really, don’t!) so picking my way through this and Filmora (another video making app) has run alongside my development as an artist.

My recommendation would be to get started, make some stuff, then come back here to do it better. And don’t be put off by the Workflow word which makes it sound like a boardroom powerpoint.

This next video is your knife, fork, spoon, plate, mug of tea, and if you’re lucky, your glass of fine red when you suddenly discover how to really manage transitions!

Still image to moving. My Media – scroll list to Image to Video AI. Requires credits.

How to remove black bars. See the cropping and trimming videos first.

Conclusions

I’ve watched, re-wound, watched again, and made notes and I can say with conviction that I know now what I didn’t know I didn’t know. The are possibilities too that I hadn’t imagined and there are experts here who generously demonstrate and explain them. They love what they do and they want us to be able to do it too. That they don’t charge for this when clearly they could is one of those moot points that all of us struggle with – the idea that no one should be expected to work without pay alongside the generosity that drives the desire of some to communicate with and empower others in the development of skills.

These and many other videos can be found under the heading, PowerDirector Essentials, on YouTube, along with a group headed PowerDirector University. I have YouTube Premium so it’s possible you get ads if you’re using the free version.

Three tips:

1. Some of these experts are fast talkers so you might want to slow their videos down using the cog bottom right under the timeline.

2. Make sure you’re watching a video that’s talking about the version of the software you’re using because some of the tabs and functions are in different places in other versions. At the time of writing (05/06/2025) the current version of PowerDirector is PowerDirector 365.

3. PowerDirector has a large library of fancy transition effects taking the viewer from one clip/scene to the next, but professional film makers rarely if ever use these devices. Instead they cut or even leave a black space on the timeline with no film element in it.

(c) SCH 2025