Do you have a video that captures an exciting moment—like sports footage, a breathtaking natural scene, a dance performance or other things that look spectacular in slo-mo? Turning it into slow motion adds extra impact and emotion. We’ll explain what to watch out for and how to create the perfect slow motion with Audials.
Important things you should know
Frame Rate (FPS): The Foundation of Smoothness
Think of video like a flipbook. The more pages you have, the smoother the animation looks when you flip through it slowly.
More is better: Shooting at a higher frame rate (like 60fps) gives you significantly more data to work with than the standard 24 or 30fps.
The Result: When you stretch 60fps out, the movement remains fluid and lifelike, whereas lower frame rates can quickly look like a slideshow. If you video does not have a high frame rate, you can increase it with the AI frame interpolation of Audials.
Speed Control: Finding the Sweet Spot
How slow can you go? It depends on your footage.
Natural look: Slowing footage down to 50–70% speed usually retains a natural, cinematic feel.
Extreme slow motion: If you push beyond these limits without high-speed footage, your software has to invent new images to fill the gaps, which requires advanced processing.
Optical Flow: The Digital Artist
To prevent stuttering when you don’t have enough frames, the Audials software uses “Frame Interpolation.”
How it works: The software calculates what should be happening between two frames and generates a new intermediate image.
The risk: While often magical, this can create visual artifacts—like “wobbling,” ghosting, or warped edges—especially if the movement in the video is very fast or unpredictable.
Shutter Speed: Crispness vs. Blur
Motion blur that looks fine at normal speed often looks “mushy” or smeared in slow motion.
The fix: When shooting for slow motion, use a faster shutter speed (shorter exposure time).
The benefit: This keeps each individual frame sharp and distinct, ensuring your final slow-motion clip looks crisp rather than muddy. Of course, if you have already created your video, it will be too late.
Lighting: The Invisible Flicker
Artificial lights aren’t always steady; they pulse at high frequencies (50Hz or 60Hz) that our eyes ignore but cameras capture.
The trap: When you slow down footage, this rapid pulsing can manifest as distracting flickering or horizontal bands across your video.
The solution: Be extra careful when shooting slow motion indoors or under streetlights.
Polishing the Image: Sharpness and Export
Slowing down footage and generating new frames can sometimes soften the image details.
Refining: A subtle sharpening effect or AI-enhancement step can bring back the “pop”—but be gentle to avoid creating unnatural halos around objects.
Exporting: Slow motion increases the complexity of your video file. Ensure you export using a high bitrate and a standard codec (like MP4 with H.264 or H.265) so your video plays smoothly on all devices.
The Danger Zones: Complex Textures
Not all scenes are created equal. Frame interpolation software struggles with chaotic, fine details.
Watch out for: Flowing water, swirling smoke, falling confetti, flying hair, or complex patterns (which cause Moiré effects).
Why: The unpredictable movement of thousands of tiny particles makes it nearly impossible for the software to accurately guess the “in-between” frames, leading to visual glitches.
Create a Slow Motion with Audials
Step 1: Start the software
Install Audials One on your PC and launch it.
Step 2: Load the video
Go to Enhance Media and drag a video into it with your mouse.
Step 3: Select “Insert Frames”
Here you can choose the AI model for frame interpolation, set the slow-motion speed, and select the output format. You can preview a clip of up to 8 seconds to see how the result will look.
Step 4: Start processing
Once everything looks right, start the process. After a while, you’ll have a new version of the video saved on your PC.
