Have you tried Breeze transparent greenscreen? It’s a great way to make your GIFs stand out.
This tutorial assumes you can already shoot simple green screen photo booth images with DSLR Remote Pro, and explains how to add animated backgrounds and overlays to a slideshow GIF.
Usually when you shoot in greenscreen, each photo is saved with a single green screen background. Transparent greenscreen removes the background from an image and stores it as a png with a transparent background. This lets you add a variety of backgrounds later.
Selecting transparent greenscreen processing in Breeze DSLR Remote Pro 3.11.4
The original photo is shot against a greenscreen background
DLSR Remote Pro removes the green background and saves the photo on a transparent background
Breeze lets you combine these images into a slideshow GIF which has an animated background.
Add the GIF backgrounds
To make a slideshow GIF with an animated background, you need to add a series of GIF backgrounds to your PhotoBoothImages folder.
My GIF has 3 photos. Each of these photos will have 3 different background images.
9 GIF backgrounds in the PhotoBoothImages folder (Breeze DLSR Remote Pro 3.11.4)
The background images are named GIF_background_1.jpg through to GIF_background_9.jpg
Add the GIF overlays
My GIFs will have 9 overlays called GIF_overlay_1.png through to GIF_overlay_9.png
9 GIF overlays in the PhotoBoothImages folder (Breeze DLSR Remote Pro 3.11.4)
Add the on-screen background
To keep things simple I am using 1 still background image for the on screen preview. This is called greenscreen_background.jpg as usual.
Greenscreen background image in the PhotoBoothImages folder (Breeze DLSR Remote Pro 3.11.4)
There are 3 backgrounds and overlays for each photo
Each photo will be shown for one second
The GIF will be displayed for at least 3 seconds
Printing transparent greenscreen images
The photos are saved with transparent backgrounds, so you can print them against a white background, or on a single background image. The images can be a different color from the background.
This post explains how to add a custom attraction or standby screen to DSLR Remote Pro. Breeze calls this a welcome screen.
Use your welcome screen to attract people to your booth, as a quick method of branding, and to protect your camera*. The welcome screen can be a still image, animated GIF or video. You can add sound to attract people’s attention.
*Running live view for long periods drains battery power and can cause the camera’s sensor to heat up. If the photo booth is idle Breeze automatically cancels the live view and displays the welcome screen.
This post shows how to replace the standard welcome screen with a movie or your own still image. You can customize Webcam Photobooth in the same way.
Breeze Multi-Camera has a similar screen called standby.jpg which can be customized and animated in a similar way.
Note: This post was updated in September 2019 to make it clearer that you need to set the inactivity timeout value
Default screen set created by the photo booth setup wizard, showing the initial attraction screen welcome.jpg (DSLR Remote Pro 3.11.4)
Add a custom welcome screen
Rename the original welcome.jpg in case you want to use it again. (Mine is called welcome-old.jpg.)
Copy your new image into the same folder, and call it welcome.jpg To fill the screen, make the new image the same size in pixels as the image it replaces.
Paste a new welcome.jpg into your PhotoBoothImages folder. This should be the same size (in pixels) as the original (DSLR Remote Pro 3.11.4)
Inactivity timer
To control how long the booth waits before going into standby mode and displaying the welcome screen, adjust the inactivity timer. Go to Advanced Settings, and set the number of seconds you want to wait until the booth goes into standby mode:
Setting the inactivity time in DSLR Remote Pro 3.11.4
Run the booth, wait a while for it to go into idle mode and your welcome screen will be displayed.
Add a welcome screen with a movie
Add your movie to the PhotoBoothImages folder and name it welcome_loop.mp4 if you want the movie to loop, or welcome.mp4 to run it just once.
Note: You need both the background image ( welcome.jpg) as well as the animation in the PhotoboothImages folder. The background image is often plain black (mirror booths) or a copy of the first frame of your movie. It may appear briefly before the animation starts running.
Here a movie called welcome_loop.mp4 has been added to the PhotoBoothImages folder (DSLR Remote Pro 3.11.4)
That’s it! Start DSLR Remote Pro and check everything is working. You will need to wait for the inactivity timer to kick in before you see your video.
Finer details
What happens if my video is smaller than the screen?
If your video is smaller than your screen, it will be displayed in the center of the screen with your welcome.jpg behind it:
Here the attraction video is smaller than the screen (DSLR Remote Pro 3.11.4)
Yes, you can customize most other screens in the same way. Replace the original screen in your PhotoBoothImages folder with another still (.jpg), add a movie (.mp4 or .mov) or GIF file with the same name. For more details, see
Yes. To add animations and sound to magic mirrors include them in your PhotoBoothImages folder in the same way.
Where can I find animations for my booth/mirror?
There are lots of sources of animations on the web. These are some of the vendors who offer animations and complete Breeze themes for photo booths and mirrors
There are 80 shopping days until Christmas, but just over a week to the second Photo Booth Show. Have you got your tickets yet?
The 2018 show will be held in Leicester, England on 14th & 15th October. The trade show has expanded into two rooms, with vendors and speakers coming from across Europe, the US and Australia. This is a great opportunity to see what’s new, learn from the experts and other boothers.
Visit the Breeze stand
See the new iPad App, the latest features in DSLR Remote Pro and the new Multi-Camera photo booth mode.
Try out slow motion, add emoji & virtual props to prints, make GDPR compliance simpler. Experiment with 3D ‘bullet time’ activation, and have a sneak preview of the next Multi-Camera release.
Here’s just a taste of the changes to Breeze products since last year’s show.
DSLR Remote Pro
Virtual props and emoji
Slow motion
Video sharing
Faster, comprehensive branding
Generate sets of custom photo booth screen backgrounds from a single image.
Breeze themes – buy them from third party vendors, design your own, transfer between PCs with different screen size/aspect ratio
Custom caption sets in almost any language
Green screen improvements
Print counters
Information screens for GDPR privacy notices
Multi Camera
New photo booth mode
Simpler, faster camera calibration
add soundtrack to MP4 videos
support for new cameras
Who is flying in to speak at the show on Tuesday afternoon?
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