Photoshop Disasters

One of my favorite sites that I like to check out on a regular basis is Photoshop Disasters. The site is a freakshow gallery of Photoshop gone wrong.  The site is driven by user submission and acts as both entertainment and education.  There mission:

“Have you seen a truly awful piece of Photoshop work? Clumsy manipulation, senseless comping, lazy cloning and thoughtless retouching are our bread and butter. And yes, deep down, we love Photoshop.”

Be sure to check the site out, it’ll make you look at things a little differently.

PSV#78 Making Selections: Alpha Channels

Instructor Richard Harrington explains how to use the color detail in an image to quickly make a great alpha channel.

Get Photos from Aperture to Final Cut Pro

Sometimes third-party plug-ins fill obvious holes… this is truly the case here.  Wouldn’t it make sense to be able to quickly send photos from Apple Aperture to Final Cut Pro? You’d think that sort of thing would be built right in (its not).  Fortunately the fine folks over at Connected Flow over an elegant (and free) solution.

“The Aperture to Final Cut Pro plugin lets you take your images stored in Apple’s professional photo management application and send them directly to a video sequence in Final Cut Pro. From within Aperture, you can select photos, set their order and duration and select transitions between frames.”

The Aperture to Final Cut Pro plugin is a free download and is provided on an as-is basis.  I find it works great.

Motion Templates in Final Cut Pro

For the past few years Apple has been pushing Motion as a tool that should be in every editor’s toolbox. The problem has been, not every editor has had the time or patience to learn Motion. In Final Cut Pro 6, Apple recognized this and has integrated Motion templates directly inside of FCP.

To launch a Motion template in Final Cut Pro you have three options:
1 Choose the Effects tab in the Browser > Master Templates.
2 Choose the Generators pulldown in the Viewer > Master Templates.
3 Choose the Sequence menu > Add Master Template.

Choose the template that you want and load it into the Viewer. Once the template has been loaded in the Viewer, clicking on the controls tab will let you change various parameters of the template. There is only one catch:

Not every parameter of a template is editable in Final Cut Pro. Text entry, size, tracking and populating drop zones with footage are the only parameters you can adjust inside Final Cut Pro.

If you need to edit a template to, for example, change the text color, or swap out a background, you need to edit the template in Motion. Here’s how.
1 Edit the template from the Viewer into your sequence.
2 Right-click on the template and notice at the top of the contextual menu you have two options: Open in Editor and Open Copy in Editor. Since the template is a prebuilt one from Apple, you can’t save over it (it’s locked) so you need to choose Open Copy in Editor.
3 Make your changes in Motion and save the file. Your changes will update in FCP.

Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.

PSV#77 Making Selections: Channels - Photoshop for Video

Instructor Richard Harrington shows you how to make great selections using channels in Photoshop.

Sweet Music Videos from Photos

Looking for something different? I discovered Animoto at this year’s SXSW conference… Load up your photos, pick a song, and within a few minutes you have a rocking music video. You can use their cleared music or load up your own. Thirty-second movies are free, full-length videos cost $3. You can get a full year’s access for $30. Here is a discount for $5 off.

The whole process is a piece of cake. Be sure to check them out – here. You can post the videos to a website, download them for an iPod, or even use YouTube to share. 

Here are a two more of mine that you can check out.

Spot Color Grading - Photoshop for Video

Instructor Richard Harrington explains how you can create a spot color effect by working with your video clips in Photoshop CS3.

Adobe TV At NAB 2008 – Photoshop CS3 Extended For Video

Want 30 minutes of free training on Adobe Photoshop CS3? Adobe had me in their theater at NAB giving lessons. Here’s a recording from one of the days so you can see what was taught.

Looking for more training?

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