The Photopia Blog
Tips, tutorials & inspiration for making slideshows
JULY 22 By Photopia
Effect Timing
Image Layers and Captions can have effects attached to their first and last keyframes, animating how they come on screen and how they go off screen.
In today’s blog, you’ll learn how to control the timing of those effects.
There are three ways to add an effect to an image or caption layer in the Layers List:
- With the layer selected, click the Add Effect icon located at the top of the Layers List.
2. With the layer selected, click the Effects tab in the Options panel.
3. With the layer selected, select the Animations tab in the Options panel, then click the effect icon under the first or last keyframe.
Fly-ins are linked to the first keyframe and control how the layer appears, while fly-outs are linked to the last keyframe and control how it exits
In this example, we will use the Fade Fold effect for a caption layer. (Image layers and caption layers each have their own unique effects that can be applied.)
Some caption effects allow you to control the Overlap and Order of the text as the animation plays. In today’s blog, we will only focus on timing.
Each effect will have a Duration number box and slider. The default duration is usually set to 1 second. This duration indicates how long the animation lasts from start to finish, but it doesn’t control when the animation starts; that depends on the position of the first keyframe.
In addition to the Duration number box in the Effects tab, there is a visual representation of the duration in the Animations tab. This is attached to the keyframe to which the effect was applied. You will see a line and a small thumbnail of the effect chosen. Click and drag this line to adjust the effect’s length.
To control when a layer appears or leaves the screen, adjust the position of the keyframe to which it is applied.
For example, in order for a caption to start appearing on screen 3 seconds into the slide time and take about 2 seconds to complete, move the first keyframe to 3 seconds and extend the duration to 2 seconds.
The same can be done for a fly-out effect. To make the caption disappear before the slide ends, add a fly-out effect to the last keyframe, adjust its duration, and move this keyframe earlier on the timeline.
In summary, both captions and layers use these two methods to adjust effects: the duration indicates how long the effect lasts, while the keyframe placement determines when the effect starts or ends.
