PhotoMirage Express Tips

PhotoMirage Express Tips

See the youtube video here:  PhotoMirage Tips

In this tutorial we're going to go over some tips for using PhotoMirage.  In general, I have a preference for making cinemagraphs that have some manner or realism to it (which is what my tips emphasize), but of course, you can experiment with it and use it how you like.

This is not a basic tutorial on how to use the program, but seeks to expose some of its behaviors and some techniques that I've found useful.

Fast Grid Image

As part of discovering how PhotoMirage works, I did some testing on a grid image.  So the first part of this tutorial is showing you how to quickly create a grid image.

1. In PaintShop Pro open a new image with a transparent background.  This should appear in Paintshop Pro as a grid.
2. Screen Capture or use the Windows Snip tool to save that image.

Now we have a simple grid we can test with.

Basic PhotoMirage Tips

The following are some basic insights into the way PhotoMirage works using our grid image.

Corner Anchors

When supplying only one arrow, the image is warped in this manner.  This indicates to us that at a minimum, each corner of the image is treated as having anchor points at them.  Also, the relationship of the motion is linear (indicated by the straight lines to the corners).

Arrow Length

Arrow length matters.  The longer the arrow the more the image will move in the same amount of time.  This means you can control how dramatic the effect is at different parts of the image.  One key use-case for this is if you have a deep perspective and you need the farther objects to move slower than the near objects.

Arrow Length and Path Geometry

In regards to arrow length, it is important to note that the geometry of your arrow path may restrict how large your arrows can be.  In this example, you cans see that I want to animate the water flow path, but because it bends sharply, I can't make very long arrows at the beginning.  This means my water animate can't be very fast.

This is worth keeping in mind, and it shows that selecting the right kind of image plays a significant factor in how the animation can and will turn out.

Image Selection

If you are looking for realism as I do, the key to make a convincing cinemagraph with PhotoMirage is to ensure that whatever you are animating can seamlessly fade back into its starting position (i call this the "recoil animation").  With this in mind certain elements are great candidates:

• Water with a homogeneous texture (ocean)
• Flowing water (i.e. water fountain)
• Turbulent waters (white wash)
• Clouds with a homogeneous texture
• Fire/Mist/Smoke

On the flip side, elements with hard contrast or well define lines will produce very obvious recoil animations and are less convincing.  Some examples:

• Any physical object (like a person)
• Water with a clear (high contrast) reflection
• Snowflakes /Rain drops

To show how convincing or not convince these are, it is best to refer to the youtube video to see it for yourself.

Selecting Points of Motion

Let's now assume we've picked a good starting image, it is now the focus to animate the best suited parts of the image.  One point to keep in mind here is that the animation is a warping type animation, and thus for materials that you can see through, for the animation to work, it needs to be the case that both the material (i.e. the water) and the rock behind can warp.

In this case of the water fountain, the refraction caused by the moving water makes it acceptable that the rock beneath it might appear to move along with the water.

Anchors vs Mask

On quick note on the differences between anchor points and masks.  

• Masks (the red paintbrush) will prevent those pixels from moving, but an arrow pointing at it will in effect go "underneath" it and the animation will continue on the other side.
• Anchors for anchors, they are like compression and expansion points.  So if you point an arrow at an anchor, the animation will look like it's smashing into a wall (rather than go underneath it).

Frame Motion

Finally, some points on having animations interact with the frame of your image.  These are fairly obvious, but I'll include them for completeness.

• Avoid Flow from Outside Frame - this has a very obviously odd effect that would only be beneficial if you were doing something unrealistically dramatic.  Keep the ends of the tails in the picture frame when flowing into your image.
• Flow to Outside Frame - conversely, if you're flowing objects out of your frame, drag the arrows beyond the edge.  This allows the animation to not compress at the edge since, like we saw earlier, by default there are anchor points at the corner.

How to Save Settings

This final tip is odd to me, but I found it useful.  There doesn't seem to be an intuitive way to save your edits in case you want to come back to them and modify the anchors and arrows.  The simplest way to do it that I've found is the following:

1. File > New or Open  and actually open a new image
2. Photomirage will then ask you if you want to save your *.cpm
3. Click [Yes]