Changing the length of still image event

Javaholic wrote on 5/24/2006, 8:43 AM
Must be a super basic question...

How can I quickly and accurately view and change the length of an event for a still image (i.e., without dragging/trimming)?

Suppose I have a bunch of still images as part of a photo slide show and I want to set one to a fixed length. To see the length, right now, I double click the event and see the length of the selection in the status area in the lower right corner of timeline, but there must be a better way. I was thinking right click event properties but I don't see it there. I would also like to be able to type in a value for the length of the event, say 4.5 seconds. Can I do that? Thanks!

Comments

Javaholic wrote on 5/24/2006, 10:47 AM
I see from other postings on this and the vegas forum that there is no real way to change the length of an event other than dragging the edge of the event on the timeline. Am I mistaken?
autopilot wrote on 5/24/2006, 8:06 PM
Maybe this?

Options>Preferences>Editing>New Still Image Length (??)
rustier wrote on 5/24/2006, 8:08 PM
you are mistaken. . . I am not in front of my normal computer and dont have the program on this one, but I am sure you can alter the properties -duration- of a still photo with just a few clicks and entering a new time in a box that lists the default time. sounds like a winner to me auto
Lawson wrote on 5/25/2006, 7:06 AM
As far as I know, the "New Still Image Link" option has to be set before dragging the image onto the timeline. Once it is on there you have to can only do it manually by messing with the edges.
DPR wrote on 5/25/2006, 11:35 AM
If you do have a bunch of pictures already on the timeline and want to adjust their length as a group, you can do the following:

* Select the range of pictures to be adjusted (click first, then find last one, hold down shift key and click the last)
* GROUP these pictures together (hit the G key)
* Shrink down the main timeline slider until you have a reasonable amount of time between each between each timeline 'tick', like maybe 5 seconds. This is only to give you visual reference for the next step.
* Now either at the beginning or end of the selected pictures hold down CTRL and then stretch the edge of the first or last picture. You should see a small squiggly line under the cursor as you press CTRL. The CTRL key is a TIME STRETCH option. Notice that ALL of the selected pictures increase or decrease in length.

This is a great way to evenly spread out a bunch of pictures for a particular length of time - say, for example, the length of a song.

You might want to ungroup the pictures when you are done - use the U key when on a picture to ungroup it.

If you INCREASE the time of pictures AND you also have utilized panning you may need to adjust the last keyframes for your pan as you have just added more time and that extra time will just pause on whatever was on the last keyframe of your pan for each picture. (That happened to me and really made me scratch my head until I figured out what was happening.)

Jared wrote on 10/1/2020, 5:25 PM

I had this problem today, and DPR's post helped me a lot. Here's a summary of what I did, using Movie Studio 17:

To change the length of the event:

  • Right-click on the timeline ruler and select seconds for the units
  • Place the cursor on the start of the event. Then Right-click on the timeline ruler and "Set time" to zero.
  • Use the mouse scroll wheel to shrink or expand the timeline until each mark on the ruler represents one second.
  • Hover the cursor over the end of the event until the "Trim Event End" tooltip appears.
  • Click and drag to edit the end of the event.

If you want to "compress" the event instead of trimming it, hold the control key down before dragging. That would change the speed of a video to fit the new size?