Enable custom screen inside iMovie (from MacLife)

iMovie is a great piece of movie editing software for beginning to intermediate videographers, but did you know it can handle some advanced features like picture-in-picture? This simple trick can improve the professional look and feel of any iMovie project and we’ll show you how you can put a custom logo as a lower third in any of your videos.

What You Need:

>> Mac capable of running iMovie
>> iMovie ’09 (or later)
>> Transparent PNG logo

1. Create a Transparent PNG

The first step is using an application like Photoshop, Acorn, or Pixelmator, and then create a transparent PNG. Wherever there is full transparency in the image, you’ll be able to see the video through the logo. This makes for a cleaner effect than a single blog of color.

2. Enable iMovie’s Hidden Features

iMovie has a deep, dark secret. Okay, it’s not that secret, but there are a few hidden features in iMovie that you must enable to make this how to work properly. Head over to iMovie > Preferences > General and check the box labeled “Show Advanced Tools”.

This will enable various features, including a dual mode toolbar, keywork controls, cutaways, picture in picture, green screen, blue screen, replace modes, and chapter markers.

3. Drag and Drop Your Way to Picture-in-Picture Happiness

After enabling the hidden features, you can now drag and drop your transparent PNG overtop any video footage that you have in the project. When you drop the image on top of the video, a pop up menu will let you select “Picture in Picture.”

After doing this, your image will appear stacked on top of the video file, but it may not appear in the video preview the way you want. This is because we need to tweak the cropping.

To change the crop method, click the small gear icon on the image in the project viewer, then select “Cropping, Ken Burns & Rotation.”

The video preview pane will then change to let you select the cropping method, click the “Fit” option, then click Done.

After doing this, you’ll notice the image in the preview now has selection points on the four corners. You can drag this image around in the video preview window to the position you want. You can also resize the image by clicking and dragging on any of the four selection points. When you are finished, click Done.

You can repeat this process for any clip that you wish to add an image overlay to.