I would like to be able to take a full-screen image and shrink it to black. For example, if the screen is 16x9, and my slide is 16x9, I would like the slide to gradually shrink ( or zoom out) to zero, while filling the screen with black.
Below is how to use the Size & Position effect along with keyframing to zoom out. See the first image.
Go to the timeline mode and click on the object (photo) that you want to zoom out;
Set the playback marker at the beginning of the photo as shown in the first image below, or where you want the effect to start;
Click on the Effects tab at the top of the media window;
Open View & Animation and select Size & Position;
Look at all of the boxes and buttons. The Zoom slider is set to 100.
Look at the bottom of this window and you will see some left-right buttons, +, garbage, double-diamond and below this a time counter and below it and to the right, a timeline;
Click on the + to set a keyframe. The program calls it a travel point but the manual calls it a keyframe. This sets the parameters at the start of the effect at the location of the keyframe (diamond);
A line will be added with Image size/position at the left and a diamond on the timeline to the right. This sets the starting point of the effect.
See the second image.
Drag the cursor on the timeline to the right to move the playback bar to the end of the object (photo) or as close to the end as possible if this is where you want the end of the zoom to be. I placed mine a bit back from the end otherwise the cursor jumps to the next image. Note that the timeline cursor in the effects window also moves. The position can be changed later;
Drag the zoom slider button completely to the left. The box to the right will go from 100 to 1. 0 is not an option. The image will now be at its smallest;
Click again on the + to place a keyframe (a diamond) at the new playback point. This keyframe contains the information for the effect. You can drag the diamond left or right if desired as I mentioned above;
Play back the video from the beginning of the image and you will see that the photo zooms out to black;
Note that you can use any of the other effects - like moving to a new position and changing the size, rotating, distortion, image optimization, etc. in the same way. You can have additional keyframes for the same effect. A separate keyframe line will be created for each effect. What happens is that the program makes a transition from the settings at one keyframe to the settings at the following keyframe.
Note that just to the left of the first keyframe, there is a button with a diagonal line with a circle at each end. Hover over this to see what it does. It can smooth out the ending of the effect;
Experiment.
That's it. Take a look at the Effects chapter in the manual.