How to make a cinemagraph

A cinemagraph is a still photograph with one small part left moving — a rising column of steam, a flickering sign, hair caught in the wind — looping so smoothly you can't tell where it restarts. Everything else is frozen. That contrast between the still frame and the one living detail is the whole effect.

Video guide

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What you need

• A tripod, or any way to keep the camera perfectly still. A locked-off shot is what makes the frozen part look frozen.
• Steady light. Avoid changing daylight, auto-exposure and auto-white-balance — anything that makes the "still" area shift between frames.
• 10–20 seconds of footage of a scene with one repeating or continuous motion. You only need a few usable seconds; the extra gives you room to find a clean loop.
• An editor that can mask — Photoshop, After Effects, Photopea, DaVinci Resolve, or a dedicated cinemagraph app. You need to paint which region moves and which stays still.

Step by step

1. Shoot locked off. Camera on the tripod, manual exposure and focus, no zoom or pan. Record the motion for longer than you think you need.
2. Pick a base still. Choose one frame where the frozen parts look their best and freeze it across the whole clip — this is the photograph underneath.
3. Mask the moving region. On top of the still, reveal the video only inside a mask painted over the part that should move. Keep edges along natural boundaries so the seam disappears.
4. Find the loop. Trim to a span where the motion starts and ends in nearly the same position, or crossfade / mirror the ends so the restart is invisible. Water, steam and smoke hide seams well; a swinging object is harder.
5. Export. Render an MP4 or WebM at the scene's native resolution. Keep it short — a few seconds is plenty once it loops.

Publishing here

• Upload an MP4 or WebM, any resolution, up to 30 MB.
• Every upload is converted to a silent, seamless loop automatically — you don't need to loop-pad the file yourself, but the cleaner your loop point, the better the result.
• If your work also exists as a version with music, you can link it via Coub on the post.