Cover Up The Critical Parts - Overlay An Image On To A Video

If you are a blogger parent like me, please do be very selective on the pictures or videos of your child that you post on the web. I know... we can get carried away at times, recording their every moment... of them laughing, running, eating, singing, crying or even bathing! Arhhh... my point is, please do remember to protect your child's modesty and cover up their critical parts. See, what if 60 years down the road, the child become one of the president candidate? They will hate us for posting naked pictures or videos of them!

With photo editing tools now so readily available, it is easy to blur up or overlap the critical parts but I did have some problems when it comes to videos. I spent some time researching and found some ways to overlay an image on to a video. These might not be the best way to do it, so please share with me if there is a better method to do this.

I'm using Windows 7 and the methods provided below are based on the available freeware.

Original Video: Pooh strolling without pants. (Geez! Help him cover up please)

Method 1: Microsoft Expression Encoder 4
If needed, click here to download the software.

This is quite easy to use, however I could only overlay 1 image on to the video. Perhaps more overlays could be added but I have not explored enough with this software yet. The output file format is .wmv whereas the original file format is .mov, somehow it had been converted and the HD was lost. See this tutorial for more guidance.


You can find "Visual Overlay" under the "Enhance" tab (Different from the tutorial)



From File menu, select "Encode" to save the video



System didnt let me specify where to save the output file and it took me a while to figure out where it was saved in...

Effect: Can only cover once...

Method 2: Windows Live Movie Maker

If needed, click here to download the software and find out more about this software.

This is also quite easy to use, however it has it's limitation. Strictly speaking, what I did was not overlaying image, I simply made used of the "add caption" function to achieve the effect that I wanted. I don't think this software can overlay a real image, at least I dont know how to do that. The + point about Windows Live Movie Maker is that you can upload to youtube directly.   



Use the "add Caption" function

    

Edit the text using using some "symbol" type of fonts, big font size and colours

    

Proceed to add as many "captions" as needed. I created 8 so that the "image" can "move" too as Pooh turned his body

  

For the font type that I used:

Star = shift + 8

Bell = shift + "

Shopping bag = b

Effect: All covered up! I'm happy with the end results

Method 3: Windows Movie Maker 2.6

If needed, click here to download the software and find out more about this software.

You will also need the AddOn .xml file from PapaJohn here.

This is the most complex method of the three and some amount of initial setup is needed to get the AddOn .xml file. The AddOn .xml enabled the "Make titles or credits" function to have the custom overlay.  Windows Movie Maker 2.6 cannot read the original file format .mov and I had to convert it first. It is also a lot of trial and error artworking to create the overlay image files in order to place the rubber duckie exactly where it was needed. (I used SnagIt 10 Editor to create the image with transparent background).  

Overlay image file: Need to create a transparent image with the rubber duckie placed exactly at the right spot.
(a lot of trial and error needed!)  I created 3 files as Pooh turned around 3 times.

  

Follow the steps...

      

Effect: All Covered up! But it is quite time consuming to get the rubber duckie to appear at the exact spot. As you can see at the last turn, it was kind of out of place (and I was too lazy to shift it already)

Summary

I think I will stick with Windows Live Movie Maker most of the time, due to it's ease of use and the video quality is best preserved. Though the overlay "images" are very limited but they are quick to create and the end results are satisfactory enough for me.