Newbie question: change still clip (JPEG) into something that fades out

[Gerben Wierda]

I've dragged JPEG to my clips and inserted it at the start of my sequence.

What I would like to do is have it fade to 20% opacity in the first 0.5 seconds and then show text/title information on top of it. But I am unable to find out how to do that fading in a simple way. E.g. I was looking to add key frames to the clip so I could set the opacity to 20% on the keyframe (assuming the start has a keyframe at 100%), but I see no way to add that keyframe for opacity. I guess I need to turn it into video first, but I'm afraid an action will 'render my entire sequence', which is not what I want. How do I change this JPEG clip into a video clip without changing anything else? Or do what I want to do in a better way?

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

That's what the Effects Control panel is for. And is a very basic tool of the application.

The stopwatch for opactity needs to be blue, that's the toggled-on state indicator. Then set a value, move the CTI/playhead to where you want a differenf value, set the type of keyframes (bezier whatever) ... all in the basic Help files.

[Gerben Wierda]

Thank you. I admit to being overwhelmed and not being able to remember to have to click the stopwatch to enable the effect over time.

[R Neil Haugen]

There's only like, what, a bazillion things to learn to use this app, right? 

That ain't so bad, is it? lol

After a decade, I still consider myself a noob in about 80% of this app ... sheesh.

[Gerben Wierda]

It is even more stupid of me because I had done it just a few days before on a video clip...