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.

    

Backing Up My Life

Blogging had become my way of life, in fact it had replaced the habit of writing diary. I would murder anyone who read my diary without my permission but now I dont even know who read my blog. Such irony right? I'm lazy and will only write what I want and when I feel like it, that's why my blog is still in bits and pieces. The major reason why I choose to blog about my life is so that I can keep a chronological record of things that happened. Right, like I'm in constant worry that I'm going to forget about these stuff when I grow old. Viewership is definitely the last thing on my mind. Blogging is an excellent way to put photos and videos together with some words of how I felt at the point in time. Some people like facebook or other social networks but I thought those are even more fragmented than the bit and pieces on my blog!

A few months back there were some technical issues with Blogger and some of my updates were lost. Luckily the damage is not huge for me but this reminded me on how important it is to backup my life. I had "dump" all my memories here and I thought I dont have to remember them anymore since they are here for me to read. But what if the system crashed and everything is lost?

Still, being the biggest procrastinator on Earth, I finally got down to doing this work today! I had to transfer all my documents to the new laptop and return the old one, might as well backup my blog at the same time.

I found that backup can be done this way with the new Blogger interface:

1. From your Blogger homepage, click on "Go to post list" for the blog that you want to backup.       
    

  

2. Under Settings > Other, you will find Blog Tools. Click on "Export blog". You will be asked to save your blog as a .xml file in your hard drive. Follow the prompt to save.

  

3. And you are done!

If for some reason, you are not able to save in the new Blogger interface, switch back to the old one and follow the old Blogger interface backup instructions from Small Small Baker.

My life is backed up for now. How about yours?

I'm a toy doctor

I can heal toys... I'm a toy doctor.

It happened when I was in primary 2 or 3... One day, Bini's little Bee plushy, 甜蜜 dropped on the floor while mum was mopping the floor. Guess what? My mum actually ripped out both 甜蜜's hands and 1 leg... right in front of us! She is such a toy bully! Luckily it didnt do any lasting damange to our mental development.

Anyway the point is, although I was rather young myself, I actually helped my sister to mend her toy while she sob and sob and sob (yes, she's a cry baby). Since then, whenever any toy is broken, I'm the 专用 toy doctor.

I specialised in aesthetics too. My recent work... to repair ET's lip

Before - Spoil 了!

After -  美美了!