How to Use Image to Video in PowerDirector
Give a still photo a few seconds of movement, from a preset or from your own description.
Updated Sep. 4, 2026 · 4 min read
In a hurry? Use the Image to Video quick guide instead.
A still photo holds one moment. Image to Video takes that photo and gives it a few seconds of movement, either by applying a ready-made motion or by doing what you describe in a sentence. The photo stays the subject: nothing is generated from scratch.
- In PowerDirector, open the GenAI menu and choose Image to Video under Video.
- Pick a route: Template for a ready-made motion, Image + Text to describe your own.
- Import the photo, and crop it if it is not the shape you are exporting.
- In Describe your story, say what should move.
- Set Duration and Aspect Ratio, then click Generate.
Steps to Use Image to Video
Prefer to watch? Here's a video covering this and its text-only sibling, or read on for the written steps.
Step 1: Open Image to Video
Open the GenAI menu. Its entries are grouped by what they produce, and this one sits under Video, between Video Edit by Chat and Text to Video.
Step 2: Pick a Route
The window opens on four tabs. The first two are two ways of doing this job, and the choice changes what you are asked for.
You want a look you can see first
A grid of named motions, each shown as a thumbnail. Filter them by category, pick one, add your photo. No writing.
You have something specific in mind
Import the photo and describe the movement yourself. Slower to set up, and the only route when the motion you want is not in the grid.
The other two tabs are different features. Character Motion Swap copies a performance from a reference clip, and AI Cinematic Shorts builds a sequence rather than one shot. They share this window because they all start from a picture, and each has its own tutorial.
Step 3: Bring In the Photo
Import Image takes one off your drive; Create Image with AI makes one first if you do not have it yet. Once a photo is in, hovering it reveals a small toolbar down its right edge: replace it, adjust it, crop it, or remove it.
The crop button opens Crop / Rotate, and this is the step worth not skipping. A 4:3 photo going into a 16:9 clip has to lose something, and cropping it here means you choose what, rather than finding out afterwards.
Step 4: Describe the Movement
On the Image + Text route, Describe your story is where the motion comes from. The window's own example asks for the subject and the movement, and short works: Let this batter hit a home run is the whole brief behind the clip at the top of this page.
Describe what should happen, not what the picture already shows. The photo is already there; the sentence is only for what changes.
Step 5: Set Length, Shape and Sound
Duration is a slider from 2 to 30 seconds. Aspect Ratio offers 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1, and wants to agree with the crop you set in Step 3.
Generate sound with AI under Audio setting decides whether the clip arrives silent or with audio of its own. Then Generate.
Haven't got PowerDirector yet? One photo already on your drive is the whole input, and the clip lands in the same project as the rest of your footage.
Download PowerDirector Free →FAQ About Image to Video
Template when you would recognize the motion you want if you saw it, since the grid is previewed and named. Image + Text when the movement is specific to your photo and no preset covers it.
Because its shape and the export ratio disagree. Use the crop button on the photo's hover toolbar to set the crop yourself before generating, rather than letting it be decided for you.
The Duration slider runs from 2 to 30 seconds on the Image + Text route. The Template route offers fixed lengths instead, since the motion is prebuilt.
Only if Generate sound with AI is ticked under Audio setting. Leave it off and the clip arrives silent, which is what you want if you are scoring the edit yourself.