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Topic: iStopMotion

I bought iStopMotion a few days ago (the $50 version) and I'm not very happy with it, for a few reasons. Firstly, the image displayed is lower quality than what the image actually is, making it harder to focus my webcam and adjust my lighting. Because of this I need to pull up the photo viewer option (I'm not sure what its actually called) and see if everything is okay there first - which takes longer.

Also, whenever I go to play back my photos as a 'video' to see how the animation is going, the lighting changes, creating a light flicker in the middle of my animation if I wish to add any more pictures. Does anyone else who uses iStopMotion experience this problem?

Finally, when I go to export the video to my desktop (at HD) the file size is huge! or at least much larger than the videos I exported to my desktop on windows, which were also HD. I have a video that only goes for a few seconds, but is over 900 megabites. If anyone knows a way to fix this, please comment below, or take a screenshot/ list of your export settings.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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CheekiGhost's Website

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  • Joined: April 10, 2012

Re: iStopMotion

I personally don't experience the 'lower quality image issue', so I can't help you there, but I have encountered the highly annoying lighting change when you play back the clip. My solution currently is to go to the Menubar, then click Movie > Present. This seems to avoid the problem.

As for the video size, I suggest you, of course, fiddle with the settings. I export my clips from iStopmotion straight to Final Cut and then export the final product as a highly compressed h.264 or whatnot. That seems to bypass the huger file size.

Carousel's Website

  • Joined: April 6, 2011

Re: iStopMotion

CheekiGhost wrote:

I bought iStopMotion a few days ago (the $50 version) and I'm not very happy with it, for a few reasons. Firstly, the image displayed is lower quality than what the image actually is, making it harder to focus my webcam and adjust my lighting. Because of this I need to pull up the photo viewer option (I'm not sure what its actually called) and see if everything is okay there first - which takes longer.

Also, whenever I go to play back my photos as a 'video' to see how the animation is going, the lighting changes, creating a light flicker in the middle of my animation if I wish to add any more pictures. Does anyone else who uses iStopMotion experience this problem?

Finally, when I go to export the video to my desktop (at HD) the file size is huge! or at least much larger than the videos I exported to my desktop on windows, which were also HD. I have a video that only goes for a few seconds, but is over 900 megabites. If anyone knows a way to fix this, please comment below, or take a screenshot/ list of your export settings.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!


I own istopmotion express version 2, and I must say I'm quite happy with it, yes I've had a few issues with it in the past but compared to old take pictures in camera and then import them into windows movie maker or imovie
its been a life saver. When you export try googling around or playing with custom exports... In the past I and many other have had issues with the exporting along with uploading to youtube but with minor changes this can be fixed easy. The size all depends on the quality of what your exporting and the export settings.

My suggestion to fix this is to take some time and export it in almost every format you can create/think up and maybe even google for some export settings and see what works best for you. I export in 720p and I've had issues with the aspect in imovie screwing it over causing me to add black bars on the side. long story short just play around with it and get to know the program more.

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  • Location: Lost in the Australian bush
  • Joined: September 7, 2012

Re: iStopMotion

Thanks for the advice! I'll continue to play around with the settings and find what's suits me best mini/smile

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CheekiGhost's Website

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Re: iStopMotion

Using iStopMotion 3, I haven't had any of these problems. However, there are several options I think you could use to export it so the file size won't be so big.

First of all, when creating a new movie, use the best option for your webcam. If you use a DSLR, you can go up to 1080p, but if you have a webcam, 720p is probably too much for the webcam. iStopMotion has to resize the image to fit the video. Find the dimensions of your webcam and use that as the dimensions of the movie. Don't try to go too HD with it.

Second of all, when exporting, also don't try to make the movie too HD.

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TwoGuysBrickfilms Youtube Channel
  • Location: Lost in the Australian bush
  • Joined: September 7, 2012

Re: iStopMotion

Okay, thanks tenny1028!

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Re: iStopMotion

I have a piggy back question. What is so different about iStopmotion 3 that it is 10x cheaper than 2? Now that it is more affordable, I'm wondering what the drawbacks are compared to previous version.

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