Top Special Effects Software Available for Non-Experts
While human creativity drives cinema, the special effects – or more specifically – the post production visual effects overlaid on raw footage give viewers that elusive “out of the ordinary” experience.
Sometimes Life is Just Not Exciting Enough:
You need the help of filters and some tech magic to make your home movies pop.
But who has the time to master a complicated video editing suite?
Photos are relatively simple. However, real life captured frame by frame poses a bigger challenge.
Not anymore.
Movavi is a complete video editing solution that is the top special effects software for non-experts.
How to Apply Special Effects in 5 Quick Steps:
1. Download and install a free version of the Movavi software on your Windows or Mac computer. The wizard will guide you through the process. It doesn’t take more than a minute. When the shortcut shows on the desktop, click it to go on the special effects adventure.
2. The interface is easy to grasp and master. The icons for all the key functions are arranged vertically to the left of the modal. To begin, you must import the clips you want to stitch together to create your home movie. Move your cursor to the first icon – the one resembling the YouTube play button – and click it.
Next, choose “My Files” from the menu followed by “Add Media Files”. This option will allow you to use the content stored locally in your hard disk. If you’re jittery, you can also go for “Sample Video” instead and experiment with the stock clips in Movavi’s default library.
You are allowed to choose multiple clips by holding down the Control or Command key. The videos show up on the editing timeline, one after the other.
Pro Tip: If your home video is shot as a single clip and you don’t want the entire footage to have the same visual filter, you should first break the clip up into smaller videos using the scissor icon above the timeline.
3. With the prep done, it’s play time! The magic wand icon is the Filters tab.
As you can see, there are multiple sub-categories divided into even more filter options.
- Flying Objects is by far the most popular. It overlays the selected portion of your video clip with cartoon bunnies, snowflakes, balloons, gifts, hearts or roses. A perfect filter for birthdays, holidays and occasions that call for over-the-top celebrations.
- Retro is another crowd favourite. This group of filters turns your home movie into a nostalgic compilation with sepia tints, dramatic old vignette effect, and grayscale.
- Don’t forget Adjustments. The name isn’t vividly descriptive but you’ll recognize most of the effects from your mobile phone galleries. Invert gives your clips an almost surreal, film negative look. Posterize picks up the variations in deep and subtle tones and accentuates them for a fantasyland result.
4. Pick the effects you wish to go with. Drag the filters and drop them on the timeline clips. You can apply multiple filters to a single clip. A video snippet that has a filter added to it is picked out with a green star. You can preview the effect on the Playback screen to the right.
Not happy with what you see? Simply click the green star for a menu of all the effects being used and remove the ones that don’t complement your footage.
5. Are you done?
Now click “Playback” in the top navigation menu and enjoy the fruits of your labour.
When you’re satisfied, use the green “Export” button and save the edited video as a MP4, AVI or MOV file. You can directly export the clip to YouTube as well.
Breath-taking doesn’t necessarily mean back-breaking.
Thanks to editing packages like Movavi, especially created for non-experts, even those who have never fiddled around with a video suite can put out professional quality content with the best in class special effects.
It is as easy as choose, drag, drop and play!