Managing all of the photos and videos that you take can get very daunting, very quickly. To compound that problem, the more of life and school that you capture, the bigger the problem can become. Today, we’ll take a look at how to use the tools that come along with your Mac and the incredible Flip Video cameras that you have and are using to tame this beast!
One of the most convenient things, and great features of the Flip Video cameras is that all of the software that you need to use it, either on a Mac or on the PC, is installed and lived right on the camera! You plug it in and it will do what it needs to work. On the Mac, there are a few things on the camera that need to be installed on your computer to get it running – the FlipShare Software, and the 3ivx Codec. Codec is a fancy-scmancy abbreviation for ‘COmpression-DECompression’ software to help make the enormous amount of data and storage space that video can gobble up more manageable. Without this software, the video simply won’t play.
FlipShare – Dance with the one that brought you!
- Save to computer (iPhoto will also ‘invite’ you to do this for you)
- Play/Preview the videos full screen
- Share your videos via email, greeting cards, or online with one of their sharing services via the ‘Online’ or ‘Flip Channel’ buttons
- Create Movies, and DVD’s straight from FlipShare (iMovie on the Mac is probably a better option for creating great movies from the videos you capture, and you might be able to create custom DVD’s with iDVD, but the DVD option is very nice if you just want a quick disk that will play in DVD players)
- Snapshot – use a frame of your video to make a still image just as if your Flip camera was a regular digital camera. (Note: The image quality of a Flip Snapshot might not be as good or as detailed as you would get with a normal digital camera, but the best camera you have is the one you have with you!)
- Learn more about what FlipShare can do or how it does it here.
- Additionally, here are some amazing ideas on how to use the Flip Video Camera in your instruction.
The included software that comes with the camera can be extremely valuable and useful. However, your Mac comes pre-installed with some additional amazing and easy to use tools for some of these options.
iPhoto – Your “Digital Shoebox” for organizing all of your photos and videos in one spot on your computer.
- Importing photos or video is as simple as connecting the camera to your computer – Just sit back, and follow the prompts.
- Each import becomes an ‘Event’ in iPhoto – organized around life
- Events can be split or merged
- You can create albums of photos to group or organize them
- Want to show your photos off? Create a quick slideshow complete with automatic transitions and soundtracks (from iTunes music)
- The Books, calendars, and cards that you can make from photos are simply amazing.
- Or, simply share photos via email – iPhoto will resize them to avoid the ‘enormous photo of death’ that you may have received from friends from time to time.
- iPhoto will help you with some simple and basic photo edits
- Rotate, crop, straighten, remove red eye, ‘enhance’, adjust colors, and even add special effects
- No need for Photoshop!
- Share photos with Facebook & Flickr
- recognize faces
- allow you to tag your photos with the location it was taken
iMovie –
- We might not get to spend a lot of time with iMovie today, but I’ll try to show you how you go from Flip Camera –> iPhoto –> iMovie in just a few steps.
- For a more complete guide to getting up to speed with the new iMovie, check this out.
BONUS TOPIC! I have recently heard about a new group photo sharing site called Yogile.com. If we have time today, let’s give it a try to see how it works.