Storybooks are powerful tools, but if you'd like the content within your storybook to have that much more of an impact on your audience, we've found there are a few tools that help you level-up and optimize all your content for your storybooks:
The Adobe suite of products contains software to edit all forms of media, the two that are the most beneficial for storybook content are Photoshop for editing your images and logos, and Premiere Pro for editing your videos.
Cinemagraph Pro allows you to take short videos, and add in a looping effect through a transition. Even better, you are able to use a simple marker tool to highlight the areas you want to see the motion in!
Plotaverse is a web service that creates cinemagraphs and short looped video from still images. You can move the space in the image to add the illusion of water & clouds moving, as well as add in simple FX overlays to the images for additional animation.
Pixaloop/Motionleap is a mobile app that allows you to create looped videos that can be used as cinemagraphs in our storybooks. You can use their tools to animate images on your own, or you can animate your images with their custom made animated skies, snow, light, animals and other effects as well. Best of all, its free to use, and you can use the images taken on your phone!
HandBrake is a simple video converter that can help get your videos under the 100MB and 200MB limits for Google Drive and DropBox, respectively. We often find using the web-optimized very-fast 1080p compression to have an under 100MB size, with the quality remaining clean and crisp.
Adapter, similar to HandBrake, is used to compress and optimize photo file sizes for your storybooks. Personally, the Very High .jpg, using the preset size of 2560 x 1600, allows for the photos to maintain visual quality while bringing them within the ideal photo file size range.
Letsenhance.io is a platform that can upscale your images, and it uses an A.I. driven method that can fill in the information as it scales up to ensure that its still hi-resolution and clear.
Asteroom is an app, service and hardware that allows a cost-effective solution for 3D tours without having to invest in expensive camera equipment. Using your phone and the simple hardware attachment, the service guides you through creating a 3D tour to walk through your property or area.