Cinemagraph guide

Every control

Every control in the panel, top to bottom. The numbers beside the sliders show each value scaled, so an Amplitude slider at 40 reads 0.040.

Load and save

They stay at the top while the panel scrolls. Your pictures stay on this device for every lab tool until you press × on a tile. Reset puts the controls back: every setting goes back to how the page opened. The photo and the painted mask stay.

Image AButton: Your photo. Press it to open one from your device, or drop one on the frame; two at once fill A and B. It is kept on this device, never uploaded, and every lab tool that takes a picture opens with it until you press × on its corner. A new photo clears the mask. Big photos are shrunk to 1920 pixels on their long side, or 1280 on phones and touch screens.
SwapButton: Changes which tile Cinemagraph uses, so a picture you added as B in another tool can be used here. When the other tile is empty, the lake sample comes back.
Image BButton: A second kept picture. Cinemagraph moves one photo at a time: the tile it is not using is dimmed and says Not used here, and pressing it only says so.
Record videoButton: Records exactly one loop, Video length long, and saves it as a video whose end meets its start when it plays on repeat. See record video and seamless loop.
Save frameButton: Saves the frame on screen as cinemagraph-frame.png, without the Show mask tint. See save frame.
CopyButton: Copies the frame on screen to the clipboard as a PNG, without the Show mask tint. See clipboard.

Image

Here, one line gives the size the tool works at: Sample 800 × 600 for the sample, or Working size for your photo. For your own photo, a second line gives its original size.

Brush

The brush paints the motion mask. A ring under the pointer shows its size: blue while painting, red while erasing. Brush size, Softness and Opacity change the next strokes only.

Paint · ErasePick one: What a drag on the photo does.

Paint: Adds to the mask, so that part moves. B picks it too.

Erase: Removes from the mask, so that part stays still. E picks it too. See erase brush.
SizeSlider · 5 to 150 · starts at 40: How wide the brush is, in pixels of the working photo. [ and ] make it 5 smaller or larger.
SoftnessSlider · 0 to 100 · starts at 60: How gently each dab fades at its edge. At 0 the dab is solid almost to its rim; at 100 it fades from the centre out. See mask softness.
OpacitySlider · 10 to 100 · starts at 80: How strong each dab is. Lower builds the mask up slowly, for partial motion.
Show maskOn or off · starts on: Tints the painted part blue on screen, as a painting aid. Videos, saved frames and copies leave the tint out. M turns it on or off. See show mask.
Clear maskButton: Wipes the whole mask, so nothing moves. It cannot be undone.

Animation

Pick one effect. Only its sliders show under the effect buttons; the others keep their values for when you come back. Every effect acts only where the mask is painted.

Flow · Wave · Breathe · Shimmer · Sway · FlickerPick one: The kind of motion inside the mask.

Flow: Pushes pixels back and forth along one line, set by Direction, in a soft cloud-like pattern that drifts as time runs. It is built from stacked noise, a fractal Brownian motion. See flow.

Wave: Ripples pixels with crossing waves that travel across the photo. See wave and sine wave.

Breathe: Swells and settles the painted part, growing out from the middle of your paint: the centre of the painted area stays put and its edges move most. See breathe.

Shimmer: Jitters pixels in small patches, like heat haze or light on water. See shimmer.

Sway: Rocks pixels side to side, or up and down, stronger towards one edge of the frame. See sway.

Flicker: Moves nothing. It brightens and dims the painted part in quick, uneven pulses, like a flickering light, and Tint colours that light. See flicker.
DirectionSlider · 0 to 360 · starts at 0: Flow: the angle, in degrees, of the line the pixels are pushed along. 0 is across, 90 is up and down. See direction.
SpeedSlider · 10 to 300 · starts at 80: Flow: how fast the pattern drifts.
AmplitudeSlider · 1 to 100 · starts at 40: Flow: how far pixels are pushed. See amplitude.
ScaleSlider · 100 to 2000 · starts at 600: Flow: how fine the pattern is. Higher makes smaller, busier patches. See motion scale.
FrequencySlider · 5 to 50 · starts at 15: Wave: how many ripples fit across the photo. Higher makes more, smaller ripples. See frequency.
SpeedSlider · 50 to 500 · starts at 150: Wave: how fast the ripples travel.
AmplitudeSlider · 1 to 80 · starts at 30: Wave: how far the ripples push pixels. See amplitude.
SpeedSlider · 30 to 300 · starts at 100: Breathe: how quickly it swells and settles, rounded to a whole number of breaths in each loop, at least one. At 1.00, with Loop speed 1.0x and a Video length of 5s, one breath takes five seconds.
AmplitudeSlider · 5 to 100 · starts at 50: Breathe: how far it swells. See amplitude.
ScaleSlider · 300 to 3000 · starts at 1000: Shimmer: how small the patches are. Higher makes finer patches. See motion scale.
SpeedSlider · 50 to 400 · starts at 150: Shimmer: how fast the patches change.
AmplitudeSlider · 2 to 80 · starts at 25: Shimmer: how far pixels jitter. See amplitude.
FrequencySlider · 100 to 1000 · starts at 400: Sway: how many bends fit across the photo. Higher makes a wigglier sway.
SpeedSlider · 50 to 400 · starts at 150: Sway: how fast it rocks.
AmplitudeSlider · 5 to 100 · starts at 40: Sway: how far it rocks. See amplitude.
SwayPick one · Horizontal · Vertical: Which way Sway rocks.

Horizontal: Side to side, strongest at the bottom of the frame and still at the top, like cloth hanging from above.

Vertical: Up and down, strongest at the right edge of the frame and still at the left.
SpeedSlider · 50 to 800 · starts at 300: Flicker: about how many pulses a second, rounded to a whole number in each loop, with some randomness on top.
AmplitudeSlider · 5 to 80 · starts at 35: Flicker: how far the light swings above and below the photo's own brightness. Higher makes a deeper flicker.
TintColour · starts #ffffff: Flicker: the colour of the flickering light, strong enough to colour the painted part clearly. White leaves the colours as they are. See tint.

Playback

Pause and Loop speed change the motion on screen and in the video. Video length is how long one loop lasts: every effect repeats in that time, and Record video records exactly one loop.

PauseButton: Stops the motion where it is; the button then reads Play. Space does the same.
Loop speedSlider · 50 to 300 · starts at 100: Puts more or less motion into each loop, from half to three times, while the loop keeps its length. See loop.
Video lengthSlider · 2 to 10 · starts at 5: How long one loop lasts, from 2 to 10 seconds. Every effect repeats in that time, and Record video records one loop. See loop duration.

Export

While a video records or a frame saves, a line here says what is happening.

Reset

ResetButton: Puts every setting back to how the page opened, restarts the motion from its first moment, and plays it. The photo and the mask stay. A recording in progress stops, and nothing is saved.