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My apologies if I'm intruding but can anyone tell me how to get rid of the black frame around screen shots I take and then use in iMovie? I'm using Yosemite on an iMac with iMovie 9.0.9. I also have the newer iMovie version but like the older one better. Thank you in advance.
 
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My apologies if I'm intruding but can anyone tell me how to get rid of the black frame around screen shots I take and then use in iMovie? I'm using Yosemite on an iMac with iMovie 9.0.9. I also have the newer iMovie version but like the older one better. Thank you in advance.

Hello and welcome to the forum! :)

Now, I do not use iMovie, but I do a lot of 'screen captures' using the OS X key combos, such as CMD-SHIFT-3 or CMD-SHIFT-4; when these are opened in Preview, I do not see any frames - so, please tell us how you are obtaining your captures and if possible post a pic or two to let us see what you are talking about. Dave
 

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Are you referring to the shadow effect on windows? If so, try the directions here.
 
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Thank you both for writing. vansmith I did try the solution in terminal but unless I did it wrong it did not have any effect.
Rad Dave I use the key commands you use and the screen shot looks great in preview when I do, however when I drag it into Movie the black frame around it appears. Here is a screen shot of one in iMovie, wait it won't let me drag and drop here from my desktop. How do I show you this image? The insert image icon above just put the file name on my Mac and the image is not at an http location.
 
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How do I show you this image? The insert image icon above
Make sure that you choose the "Go Advanced" option for your reply. In the top row of icons above the reply box is a paperclip. Click on that and then use the "Upload File from Your Computer" option.
 
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Thank you Mighty Gem. Here is a screen shot of the image from iMovie. Note the black frame around it.

Screen Shot 2015-02-14 at 12.10.44 AM.png
 
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That looks like you've put a square(ish) picture into a widescreen movie Project. You have that "Select Clip to Crop" box, because you have the playhead over the picture in the Timeline with the crop button pressed, but you haven't selected the picture. If you close that box, the black will disappear. However iMovie will zoom in on the picture to do that.

To get rid of the black without zooming in, you could either convert the Project to a 4:3 project(but you still might have a bit of black) or make your screenshots more of a widescreen size.
 
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I'm grateful you've taken the time to respond and help me. I opened a new project in 4.3 (I couldn't seem to convert it) and the original (Monroe County) pic looked ok. However when I screen shot a newspaper article then I can't seem to get around it. When I drop it into the viewer it goes in with the Ken Burns effect automatically and looks like the first image. The headline is missing so it's not usable. When I click crop it won't get the whole article and if I click "fit" I get the black borders as seen in the second image. Any solutions to just see the entire article without black borders? Thank you again.

Screen Shot 2015-02-15 at 12.44.15 AM.png

Screen Shot 2015-02-15 at 12.44.36 AM.png
 
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Well, I'm afraid that your are stuck w/ aspect ratios: 4:3 (1.33) is old standard TV & 16:9 (1.78) is the newer HDTV ratios used - old movies will fit perfectly on an old TV but will always have vertical bars on the sides w/ the newer HDTVs - now widescreen films (e.g. 1.85, 2.35, etc.) will have top/bottom horizontal bars on a newer TV. Your only choices are to crop your images to the aspect ratio desired and/or to distort the image to fit the screen. Dave :)
 
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When I click crop it won't get the whole article and if I click "fit" I get the black borders as seen in the second image.
This time, you are getting the black borders because your screenshot is too tall.

When I drop it into the viewer it goes in with the Ken Burns effect automatically
That's the default setting, and you can't change it AFAIK.

Any solutions to just see the entire article without black borders?
As RedDave says.
 
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It looks like I have to find a new program. Would these problems be alleviated with Final Cut? It's pricey but I would like to have this capability? I thank you all for replying with great ideas and advice.
 
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Would these problems be alleviated with Final Cut?
I don't know, but you can't see the whole of your last screen shot without the black border on either side. A lot of money to pay to find out you still have the same problem.
 
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I don't know, but you can't see the whole of your last screen shot without the black border on either side. A lot of money to pay to find out you still have the same problem.

@ Stick477 - regardless of what program(s) you use and at whatever cost, you will be stuck w/ the same issues, i.e. you'll need to frame and/or crop your images to the aspect ratio being used or you'll have to distort your images to fit the frame's aspect ratio - there is no way to do otherwise, sorry. Dave :)
 
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Ahh yes. It's in Project Properties. Forgot about that, cheers.
 
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Download and use Skitch it is free and is much better

https://evernote.com/skitch/

You don't have to have or use evernote, with skitch you can add text highlight or even hide stuff you don't want people to see and more:):):):)

Skitch is a great little program (it's on my MBPro & iPad) and does allow screen capturing, annotation, and much more. But that is not the OP's real problem - as well explained on the previous page, the issue is fitting a non-distorted image into a given aspect ratio (e.g. 4:3 or 16:9) w/o having 'black bars' at the sides or the top/bottom if the image does not perfectly match those ratios. Dave :)
 

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