What photos does iMovie use? The short answer is all the ones on your device. You can see them using the Photos app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.

But you don’t need to open Photos to pick images for your movie. iMovie can display pictures from your Camera Roll and then insert them straight into the timeline (another example of Apple programs that seamlessly talk to each other).

To do that, tap Add Media→Photos. iMovie groups the photos on your device by their source (Figure 22-1). The list includes your Camera Roll, your iCloud photo stream, and the names of any photo albums you created. (If you see a bunch of photo squares instead of album names, tap < to get to the album-listing screen.)

Figure 22-1. iMovie’s Photos screen lists every photo album you have. Through them, you can access every photo on your device.

Choose any album. iMovie displays thumbnails of the photos it contains (see Figure 22-2). Don’t worry, iMovie hasn’t cropped your photos to fit the grid; it displays them this way to save space.

To get a better look at a photo, tap it; iMovie presents a larger version in a pop-up window (Figure 22-2). That preview uses the photo’s real dimensions, too (unlike the standardized grid squares), so you can see its orientation before you add it to your project.

Figure 22-2. All the photos in an album show up as squares in the thumbnail grid, even if the real dimensions are different. Tap and hold on a square to preview the full photo. To add a photo to your project, tap it.

Once you find the photo you want, tap it to add it to your project. iMovie inserts it at the end of the clip under the playhead. (iMovie won’t split a clip to insert a photo.)

Once inserted, a photo plays for 3 to 6 seconds, depending on the length of the transition on either side of it (different transitions take different times to fade to and from a photo). In addition, iMovie automatically applies the Ken Burns effect to each photo. (To change that, see Duration.)

Of course, your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch comes with a built-in camera, and you can use it to take pictures and add them straight to your timeline.

To add photos directly into iMovie, open the Camera app and then slide the capture choice to Photo, as shown in Figure 22-3. You can’t use some advanced features like HDR and effects, but you can focus with a screen tap, shoot flash photography, and flip between the front and back cameras.

Figure 22-3. You can use the camera on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch to add pictures directly to your timeline.

After you snap a photo, tap Use Photo, and iMovie inserts it into your project at the playhead.

Sometimes the best photo is trapped in a video. To freeze a frame of a clip and save it as a photo for use in iMovie (see the Note that follows), position the playhead on the perfect moment. Tap the video clip to highlight it and then choose Freeze from the toolbar (Figure 22-4). When you do, iMovie splits the clip at the playhead and sticks in the still image.

Figure 22-4. iMovie’s Freeze features creates a still image from a frame in a video. Top: To “snap” the frame, position the playhead and then tap Freeze in the toolbar. Bottom: The frozen frame acts like any other photo in your timeline, except that you can’t apply the Ken Burns effect to it, and you can split it.

You can treat the captured image pretty much like any other photo in your timeline—move it around, change its duration, add a title, or duplicate it. Oddly enough, though, you can’t apply a Ken Burns effect to it, even though iMovie automatically applies that effect to other photos. And you can split the photo, which iMovie doesn’t allow with other photos. Go figure.

Odds are, a photo you dropped into your timeline won’t behave exactly the way you want it to. You may not like its timing, its rotation, or how iMovie automatically applied the Ken Burns effect to it. And you might want to add a title. Once a photo is in your timeline, you can change all these attributes.

Adjust the Zoom Level and Ken Burns Effect

iMovie on the Mac made the famous panning zoom effect created by documentarian Ken Burns even more famous. That’s when a movie gradually zooms in on and slides across a photo to make it appear more dynamic and interesting. What used to take special camera equipment, you can now do on your handheld Apple device.

iMovie automatically applies the Ken Burns effect to all the photos you add to your timeline. If you don’t like what iMovie did, you can always change it.

Tap a photo in your timeline to select it. When you do, the preview screen includes options to set the start and end points of the Ken Burns pan and zoom (see Figure 22-5). To “remove” the Ken Burns effect, position the start and end points to be exactly the same, showing all your photo. Your photo will stay still in the movie. (To zoom in on or out of a photo, pinch it; to reposition a photo, drag it.)

To show just part of a photo, zoom in on it until just the part you want people to see is visible, and then make sure the start and end points are the same.

To create your own Ken Burns effect, set the start and end points differently. iMovie automatically creates the pan and zoom effect that moves the shot from one position to the other. For example, if you want to zoom out during the effect, start with a zoomed-in point and end with a zoomed-out one. If you want to pan across a photo, zoom in the same amount for both points, but position the photo at one side for the start point and the other side for the end point.

Figure 22-5. To adjust the start of the Ken Burns effect, choose the top arrow, and then drag and zoom in on (pinch) the photo. To adjust the end, choose the bottom arrow and then position and zoom in on the photo again. Tap to preview your work.

Deleting a photo from your timeline couldn’t be easier. Tap to select the photo, and then tap . Poof. The photo is gone. (But not gone from your device, necessarily. Anything you added from a photo album is still in that album, safe and sound. Only photos you shot from within iMovie are gone forever.)