Graphic over video for Sunday!

[Mustangnaz]

I am about to pull my hair out trying to figure out how to overlay an image on a video. The image would cover the middle 60% or so of the screen with the video playing around it. Ideally they would be kind of faded together. I have WMM and Premiere but have not used either extensively. Please help!

[Gene]

Windows Movie Maker is definitely easier to learn, but I'm not sure it'll do what you want. If I recall, it's pretty much one video layer + audio + title.

Premiere will definitely do what you want. Do you have Elements or Pro? In either case, it's similar to Photoshop in that things get placed in layers, with the top ones obscuring the lower ones depending on opacity, etc.

So you can start with the video in the background, making it fill the screen as needed. Then in a new layer above the first place the image and resize it to 60% in the center. With a Photoshop image, you can have a mask with a soft edge to make the two fade together instead of having a sharp edge.

[bladeaudio]

This should be simple in Premiere. Just put your video on the first layer of video, and the graphic on the second layer. Then adjust the scale property for the graphic to the size you want and adjust the opacity to fade it to the level you want.