New “De-Animation” Technique Makes Creating Cinemagraphs a Snap

Creating cinemagraphs — still photos in which one or another section is moves repetitively — can be a pretty tricky process, but a new technique developed by Adobe researcher Aseem Agarwala and his UC Berkley colleagues may make it quite a bit easier. Their technique involves “de-animating” a video by “drawing” two sets of “strokes” over the video: one set over the parts you want to move and another over the parts you’d like standing still.

Of course there are tutorials and even Microsoft’s Cliplets app if you’re really interested in making some cinemagraphs right away, but this new technique and the control it offers may just turn into a sought after feature in the next iteration of Photoshop or a future mobile app. Check out the project’s website for all of the detail-y details.

(via Adobe)