One way to show your photos to an audience is a brave PowerPoint-presentation. It does have a few effects in house, but all in all it remains quite static. Not with FlipFlip, a free tool that allows you to combine all kinds of photo and video material, including audio tracks and text overlays, into a dazzling show. If you want to make video collages, then you’ve come to the right place.
The name FlipFlip may sound a bit strange, but it does refer nicely to a ‘flipbook’: an interactive online publication (usually in HTML5) with the look and feel of a book to flip through. In short, a publication with the necessary gimmicks. We can already tell you: the tool takes some getting used to, but once you have it in your fingers, you will quickly achieve sparkling results.
New scene
You can find the free and portable FlipFlip on www.github.com/ififfy/flipflip. Right, at releases, then click Latest to get the latest version; in our case that is version 3.2.0. At the bottom of the page you can go to the desired download, for Linux, macOS and Windows. We retrieved the file FlipFlip-Windows.zip for Windows 64 bit. If you work with Windows 32 bit, then you logically have FlipFlipWindows-32bit.zip necessary.
Extract the zip file to an empty folder and double click FlipFlip.exe to start the app. At the first start-up, FlipFlip suggests following a few video tutorials right away and we certainly don’t recommend them. Are you ready for it? Then click on the arrow button at the top left. To create a first scene (slide) or video show, press the blue plus button at the bottom right, followed by the button Add Scene. Click on the name at the top New scene and change it to your own name.
Sources
The intention is, of course, that you fill the scene with media material. You do that again with the blue plus button, at the bottom right. There are various possibilities: From Library, Local Video/Playlist, Local Directory and URL. These options really speak for themselves. For URL you must enter a web address that refers to, for example, a photo album from services such as Imgur, Reddit, Twitter or Instagram. Feel free to select multiple sources for the same scene and drag them up or down with the mouse.
You can also check the result at any time via the built-in player. All you have to do is click on the red arrow button at the top right to view the images of your scene. FlipFlip therefore offers no saving or export options, for example to a video file. The built-in player only reads your script and then plays the original sources.
You can pause the show at any time, skip to the previous or next image, or view the images full screen. Furthermore, there are a lot of control options for the player or the scenes available: just hold your mouse pointer against the left side of the player. Press the arrow button at the top left to return to the sources of your scene.
Time and display
Your first presentation may have been a bit disappointing: alternately you get to see each image or video scene for a second and that’s about it. Pretty boring, but FlipFlip knows how to handle that. Click the wrench icon in the left pane. Make the program window big enough so that you can see the two windows side by side. You immediately notice that there is a lot to adjust here. So much so that we can’t discuss all options (in detail) here, but don’t let that stop you from experimenting with all options: viewing the interim result is just a mouse click away.
This is how you notice that the timing default is set to constant, where each picture is displayed for the same number of seconds. Although there are other possibilities, such as random (a random interval between the set minimum and maximum) and BPM (according to the beats of the first audio file – see further section ‘Audio’; you can adjust the tempo via the multiplier).
Bee Image Sizing you will find several options to adjust the aspect ratio and size of your images, such as Fit Best (No Clipping), stretch, Center and Fit Width. You can also get a background provided. It can be blurry (blurred) or consist of one or more solid colors chosen randomly or not.
Additional scenes and overlays
If you have created several scenes, you can also have them played back automatically. You determine exactly how that should be done at Next Scene. In the drop-down menu you refer to the desired scene – or you let it via random left to chance – and you specify after how many seconds from the start of the show that should happen. Whether you choose Play After All Images, if you’d rather wait for the first scene to finish. You can also indicate whether any audio and text overlays should simply continue to the next scene.
You can also show other scenes semi-transparent over another scene. To do this, switch the option Overlays in, press the plus button and refer to the target scene. With the slider Overlay Opacity determine the degree of transparency.
Image options and order
In the second window at Options it mainly revolves around the way in which the images themselves are displayed. Bee Image Filter for example, you can set that you only want to see videos or images and which orientation you want for images and videos. You can also set how long you want to play animated gifs and videos. For example, that could be something like Play Part (Random) between 2000 ms and 6000 ms or Play At Least 4000 ms.
With videos it is also possible to set the playback speed; you can choose here Random Speed. By default, videos start with the first frame, but via Start at Random Time it can also be a randomly chosen frame. at the bottom, at Image Ordering, determine the order of the displayed image and, in case your scene consists of several sources, of the sources (for Source Ordering).
Effects
FlipFlip offers through the section Effects also six effects: Zoom, Cross Fade, slide, Strobe, Fade In/Out and panning. The options only become visible when you enable an effect. Most of the effects and options are self-explanatory, except strobe and panning.
Strobe gives the light effect of a stroboscopic lamp on your images. You determine the light color yourself; this can also be a color set or a randomly chosen color. You also determine when that effect should occur and how long it may last. Bee panning the camera lens appears to pass over a still photo, suggesting movement. You indicate in which direction(s) the movement should take place and how long it should last.
audio
In the section audio/text you can add both audio tracks and text overlays to your scenes. Let’s start with audio. Before you can use a track, you first add it to your audio library. To do this, go to the FlipFlip home screen and open Audio Library. Then click the plus button at the bottom right to add audio tracks, either locally or via a URL.
Then select a scene and open the section audio/text. Activate the option audio track, press the plus button Add Tracks, check the track(s) and click the blue arrow button at the bottom right Import. Optionally, click on the wrench icon next to the added track to use the button Detect BMP determine the rhythm or have the track repeat at a specified interval (for tick). Record your changes with Save. You can now add other audio tracks if you wish.
Text Overlays
Adding titles and other text to scenes is done in the same way (although unfortunately it is slightly more complex). In the start screen you first open the section Script Library and via the plus button you add scripts – so scripts and not just some text. The easiest way to create such a script is via the Caption Scripter, on the left side of the home screen. The first time here is a short but useful tutorial. You immediately notice that you can provide your text with all kinds of glitzy effects. You can save the script – for further study – as a txt file via the diskette icon.
Once such a script is added to your library, you can retrieve it from a scene from the rubric audio/text, where you Text Overlay turns on. Click here on the plus button Add Tracks, place a checkmark next to the intended script and press the arrow button again. You can also adjust the various font types and colors of your script text via the wrench icon. Confirm with Save.
Grids
We have already seen how you can play several scenes one after the other, but you can also do this side by side. First make sure you have a few scenes ready. Then click on the grid icon on the left of the FlipFlip home screen. Press on the button New Grid and indicate at the top right how many rows (height) and columns (width) you want in the grid. Click on the title New Grid and give it a meaningful description.
Are you done with this? Then press the arrow at the top left to return to the grid overview. Click on the desired grid and click – a few times if necessary, because it can be a bit grumpy – in each box and then select the desired scene from a drop-down menu. You can view the result as usual, with the play button at the top right. Enjoy watching!
