How to Edit Video Frames

I was thinking about bacon the other day and how there's nothing like bacon to add flavor to life, and that made me think of the Bible verse "you are the salt of the earth." So I wanted to make a video to illustrate the point. I happened to have a short video of a robin in our front yard pulling up and slurping a worm from the ground, and I thought to change the worm into a piece of bacon, then have the whole world turn bright colors when the robin was done eating the bacon. You know, like it happens in real life.
But how to edit the video frame by frame? 
It took me a day to find all the right (mostly free) software to do so after installing a trial version of Photoshop Premiere Elements and discovering that the free version leaves a giant black watermark on your video so you can't actually use it. 
I've embedded the final video for you to see my handiwork. Given that it's my first try at editing a video frame by frame and then adding audio, I think it's a pretty good product. 
I'm betting you can do even better. But save yourself a lot of time and money by reading my instructions first.

What you will need:

Digital video camera
VirtualDub software
Image editing software
Windows Movie Maker software
Pen tablet (optional)

Step 1: Record video

Record a video on your digital camera and download the file to your computer.

Comments

[tcampbell parks]

Ok...next video will be the robin tugging on a lil ol pink squiggly thing and pulling the whole little pink piggy out of the ground..

[flyingpuppy]

And the piggy will be full of coins!
Thanks, Tracy!

[SHIFT!]

Very hilarious video! Great job with editing.

[Rednecknerd]

Also don't forget GIMP or Paint.net. Both free and capable image editors.

[lemonie]

Did you mean to enter this in the bacon-contest?
It needs a bit more. Using virtualdub and "edit in any photo editing software such as Photoshop or Corel Photopaint" are a bit vague.

L