Thursday, June 12, 2008

Distressing Text Edges - Photoshop for Video

Instructor Richard Harrington shows you how to use a patterned image to degrade the edges of your text for a unique text effect in Photoshop. 

Motion Graphics •
Post Production •
Training • (0) Comments • • Permalink

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Photoshop Disasters

Laugh & Learn

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.

Motion Graphics •
Post Production • (1) Comments • Most recent comments by: Chris Meyer, • Permalink

Sunday, June 01, 2008

PSV#78 Making Selections: Alpha Channels

Photoshop for Video training podcast

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

Motion Graphics •
Post Production • (0) Comments • • Permalink

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Get Photos from Aperture to Final Cut Pro

Free Plug-in Saves Time and Effort

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 Graphics •
Post Production • (0) Comments • • Permalink

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Motion Templates in Final Cut Pro

How to make your own Motion templates to use in FCP

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.

Motion Graphics •
Post Production • (0) Comments • • Permalink

Monday, May 19, 2008

PSV#77 Making Selections: Channels - Photoshop for Video

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

Motion Graphics •
Post Production • (0) Comments • • Permalink

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Sweet Music Videos from Photos

Turn a folder of images into a music video

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.

Editing •
Motion Graphics • (0) Comments • • Permalink

Thursday, May 08, 2008

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.

Motion Graphics •
Post Production • (0) Comments • • Permalink

Page 1 of 2 pages  1 2 >