It used to be the case that photos would be taken sparingly, stored in albums and pored over during holidays and family gatherings. These days, thanks to digital cameras, most of us have way too many photos. We might have them neatly organised on Flickr or in some other collection, but we still rarely get a chance to look through them all because there are just so many. And if that’s how we feel about our own photos, what is the likelihood our friends will ever bother to look at them?

Enter Pummelvision. This is a service designed to grab your photos and pummel them into a short YouTube or Vimeo montage for you. Instead of watching a slow slideshow of your photos, you’re hammered with hundreds of them in a few short minutes. It’s quite a blast to see your pictures thrown back at you like this!

Watch Out For Private Photos!

Before you start, keep in mind that this is a public tool. When you make a Pummelvision clip of your photos, the video clip will be featured in the Pummelvision gallery and publicly on your YouTube/Vimeo channel. Don’t use private photos!

Pummelvision From Many Sources

You can make Pummelvision clips from all sorts of online photo collections including Flickr, Dropbox, Tumblr, DailyBooth or Facebook. All options except Tumblr use a form of secure authentication. Tumblr is simply brought in via URL. There are no extra security options, so private photos in these collections will be included. If unsure, don’t connect a service where you might have private photos.

If you work with Facebook, your choice is either photos you’ve tagged in Facebook or all of your photos. If you choose Flickr, you can choose to use a particular set of photos. You could use a Flickr set to ensure none of your private photos appear in the Pummelvision clip.

What Sort Of Montage?

Some people use Pummelvision to make a quick summary of their life or their awesome Tumblr. Others make it a little more focused “” if you use Flickr sets you could limit it to one particular holiday or photos of you and your partner.

You could use a Pummelvision clip to quickly update people on your life, as an introduction on your blog’s landing page, as an anniversary present, a gift to a friend, a holiday video or whatever else you might be able to think of.

Here’s an example Pummelvision from the gallery by I Still Shoot Film

How To Use Pummelvision

It’s really easy to make a Pummelvision clip. There are only a few options and they’re pretty simple to figure out. Choose where the photos will come from, authenticate and choose whether you’d prefer a YouTube clip or a Vimeo clip.

Pummelvision then authenticates your choice of video so it can post videos to your own YouTube/Vimeo account.

Pummelvision will automatically choose the photos which are used from your collection, so if you’re offering thousands of photos they’ll randomly pick a smaller selection. If you’re using a Flickr set perhaps all of them will be used, depending on the size of your set.

There is only one piece of music for the Pummelvision videos so far, but it’s a great number by Friendly Ghost. It’s perfect for most photo collections.

Opinions On Pummelvision

Most of the things which could drive people from Pummelvision to a competitor are things already being considered by the site. More music options would be great, especially something slower for moving photo collections. Being able to exclude private photos would be an important next step.

That said, there are no competitors at this stage. All the fun is happening right here!

Photo & Video Lovers

If you’re always uploading photos and video and need some new ideas, check out these posts:

• Montage ““ A Cool Social Online Visual Digital Scrapbook From Microsoft
• Top 5 Tools To Make A Home Movie Online For Free
• How To Make A Cool Collage Using Photoshop
• 3 Ways To Add Cool Video Features To Your Website

What have you made using Pummelvision? What great montages have you got in mind? Let us know in the comments!

Tagged: home videos • images • photos • social media • Youtube