Anyone familiar with iMovie? I am trying to make a slide show using pictures that I have worked on in Gimp. If I just follow the provided format and drop in the pics, all is fine, but I am finding it extremely difficult to try and change it up to my own liking. Seems like apple doesn't like anyone to think outside the box. So....I was wondering if there might be a free and simple video program that is recommended. Something easy that would allow me to add the effects I want to add, and then have it in a format that I can import into iMovie? I used to use windows movie maker, and it wasn't too difficult but it was an early version and didn't have a whole lot of interesting effects. What I am looking for is to be able to zoom in or out from small area to full photo size. In iMovie, you can zoom or move, but it won't let you end or begin from the full size, only a cropped size. Unless someone knows a handy little trick to get around that?

Not familiar with that particular program. What is your ultimate goal? A movie converted to flash for a website, a .mov or .wmv file? There's lots of ways to get where you want to go. I've used MS PowerPoint and set up all my voice-overs, transitions, background music, sized everything, added text effects and backgrounds done in gimp, then converted everything to a .swf file (flash) and uploaded to a website. If you just want a simple slide show type movie with a few transitions and background music, then Windows Movie Maker is very easy to use. Need more specific info.

Are you using a Mac or PC? Isn't iMovie for the Mac?
Picasa has a nice setup for sideshows, a Movie Maker, lots of options, including audio, pan and zoom.
http://picasa.google.com/

This one looks simple but contains some cool advanced options for custom re-sizing pan and zoom areas. A bit old but still works flawlessly, one of my favorites for slideshows.
Microsoft Photo Story 3

Another place to look.
Special Photo Tools, Presentation, Animation, Movies
http://www.photo-freeware.net/special-tools.php

thanks for the hints, I'll check into them. All I am doing is making a slide show, with title page that has effects for the title, interesting transitions, some pan and zoom (ie ken burns effect) for the slides, and a 'credits' title page at the end. I am also putting a song in as background music.
*edit...yes I am using a macbook

I forgot all about the Mac friendly, free Avidemux.

just my tuppenceworth

I use Avidemux a lot (in linux) and while it will cut & join videos it will not take a bunch of images and make a slideshow.
Only has one transition built-in, which is a fade.

I have never used Mac so resorting to what is available.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections ... ideo-tools

A fairly dismal showing. There is one there, DVDstyler that will take images and make into a DVD slideshow, but no transitions. It will output a .vob (mpeg) file which any half decent video editor (avidemux) can use.

If you can run a virtual machine, then there are all sorts of possibilities in any of the linux distros.

Another possibility is if you can install the Mac version of WINE
http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/

Then the granddaddy of slideshow makers 'DVDslideshowgui' might run
http://download.videohelp.com/tin2tin/
More effects and transitions than you will ever need.

2 ton have you tried putting your images into iPhoto and creating it from there.
Once you have created it I think you can export it to iMovie

here is one I did in iPhoto
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/16368106/Austr ... 0-ipad.m4v

very nice movie, I see you made great use of the ken burns. I can do a simple show like that, it's just that I had wanted to be able to do the ken burns utilizing the full photo, but the largest it will go is smaller than the full photo. Another thing I have trouble with is when I play it to see how it looks, it gets stuck... I can still drag the bar across the clip to see how it looks but it's not the same effect as seeing it real time. The hardest thing to try to do is my title page. I wanted some animated text, and made some in keynote and imported it using the picture in picture, but the timing would just not line up and it just wasn't working out right. So I gave up and just used the effects provided. As I say, it works fine if you just use their templates, but it seems about impossible to step outside the box and make it do something different. I would show you what I have so far, but I am not done so I don't want to export it yet. I don't know if I can go back in and work on it if I finalize it.
I will say, the 'movie trailers' in iMovie 11 are awesome, they are so fun to make!

but my point is you make it in iPhoto and then export it to iMovie

I do a lot of slideshows on a Mac. I use FotoMagico - it's not free though.

Looks like a nice program too.

Another vote for Fotomagico - very useful and user-friendly, but not cheap...

For a slide show with simple effects, you can use Irfanview (works great on Mac with Wine).

oh, I missed that point! I didn't know iphoto had effects and stuff for titles and photos.

how did you go with this 2 ton

Well, I gave up trying to do special effects the way I wanted, and just went with iMovie and made it the best that it would let me. I didn't have time to find another program that was free and then learn it.

I think Kvisoft Flash Photo Slideshow Maker may help you. You can use it to convert photos into movie. It is very useful.