Apple

Importing a Final Cut Pro Project into Premiere Pro

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Video editing is often a collaborative process. You may find that you need to work with someone else’s editing project that was started using Final Cut Pro. Fortunately, Adobe Premiere Pro is a very flexible editing solution. You can easily import projects and media started on other edit systems. For example, moving a project over from Apple Final Cut Pro is a snap.

  1. In Final Cut Pro, mark an In and Out point within a sequence for the range you’d like to export.
  2. Choose File > Export > XML. In the dialog that opens, choose Apple XML Interchange Format, version 4 (or newer) and click OK.
  3. Specify a location for the new XML file (such as your project folder) and click OK. The XML file is very small and references the original media on your drive. It will only take a few seconds to write.
  4. Switch to Adobe Premiere Pro and create a new project using a preset that most closely matches the video format you’ve been using.
  5. In Premiere Pro, choose File > Import. Navigate to the XML file you created and click Import. Premiere Pro creates a sequence and adds the media and a report to the project.
  6. Begin to update the edit or work with the imported project sources.


For more on DSLR video, check out From Still to Motion.

Find Special Typographic Characters on a Mac

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Need special characters (like å é î ø ü) but can’t remember where they live on the keyboard?

Mac OS X has a great feature for this—the Keyboard & Character Viewer.

  1. Go to System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources, and enable the Keyboard & Character Viewer.
  2. Check the box for Show Input menu in menu bar.
  3. Notice the new icon in your menu bar (likely a flag that matches the language). When needed, simply click it and choose Show or Hide Character Palette.
  4. The palette automatically floats above your active application.
  5. Be sure to check that you’re using the same font in the text generator or other application.
  6. Double-click or drag to use the special character.


This panel is really useful as you can search by category using the lefthand column. Be sure to also try searching using the bottom search field as well as you can search by name or keyword. Lastly the View menu offers additional filters, I find the All Characters and Glyph views most useful.

Three New Apple Video Training Titles about the iPad (Plus Free Copies)

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In these new online videos, author and trainer Rich Harrington provides a complete tour of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. Each complete video features more than 40 segments dedicated to performing a specific task. Apple Video Training: Pages for iPad – In this Apple-certified guide to Pages for iPad, master trainer Rich Harrington takes you on a comprehensive tour. You’ll learn everything from customizing existing templates by adding your own graphics, charts, and styles to creating documents from scratch. Featuring over 40 videos, each one is dedicated to a specific task in Pages. So it's easy to find exactly the information you want whether it's help with the basics, like touchscreen controls, or more advanced tasks like inserting graphics with wraparound text. You'll learn all you need to know to create dynamic personal and professional projects.

Apple Video Training: Keynote for iPad – In this Apple-certified guide to Keynote for iPad, master trainer Rich Harrington takes you on a comprehensive tour. Featuring over 40 videos each dedicated to performing a specific task in Keynote, you’ll learn how to create professional-looking presentations quickly. It's easy to find exactly the information you want, whether it's help with the basics, such as learning touchscreen controls, or more advanced techniques like creating tables and charts, or bringing your presentations to life with animated graphics and transitions.

Apple Video Training: Numbers for iPad – In this Apple-certified guide to Numbers for iPad, master trainer Rich Harrington takes you on a comprehensive tour. Featuring over 40 videos, each dedicated to performing a specific task in Numbers, you’ll learn how to transform your data into organized, professional-looking documents. You'll learn to customize existing templates or create documents from scratch, take control of tables and style charts. It's easy to find exactly the information you want, whether it's help with the basics, such as learning the touchscreen controls, or more advanced tasks like working with formulas and calculations.

FREE COPIES
Below are 15 digital voucher codes for use on Peachpit.com. Each code can be used once and will give a user access to the Keynote for iPad Online Video. First come, first serve.
Here are instructions for use:

  1. If you have a Peachpit.com account, go to www.peachpit.com/account and log in. If you do not have a Peachpit.com account, go to www.peachpit.com/join and create an account.
  2. On the Account page click the link for "Enter your code here" that appears under "Digital Product Voucher" in the right column.
  3. Click Submit.
  4. The video will be listed under Digital Purchases on your Account page; click the title to generate the download.


Here are the codes:
C480B2D1B339
5117A9666C22
B55F3EDC865C
9B04F9EE176D
E5F1DA0B86DE
084EAD80FCF5
94854B88CCC3
1C53E2BD2A99
BD13454A71B8
22549F722643
DF2828603F4F
1173EB1BF840
C68323582AB3
9403997FEA3E
A3C1B42746A1

Easy Path to P2 Software

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I was on a shoot last week and I was trying to remember where to find the latest P2 and AVC Intra drivers from Panasonic. Seems like these keep getting updated and moved around, meaning its not always easy to find where this software lives.  Sure you can bookmark the page, but seems like I always need it when I’m in an edit suite or trying to help someone else out through their problems. So, I have solved the problem once and for all (I hope).

I used the URL shortening service TinyURL.com to trim the long URL.
While the software is available at https://eww.pavc.panasonic.co.jp/pro-av/support/desk/e/download.htm that is just too hard to remember. We used the TinyURL service to shorten it to http://tinyurl.com/p2swdl. Just think P2 Software Download and you’ll remember it.

Check it out – http://tinyurl.com/p2swdl

Adding a Vignette in Aperture

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The term vignette is used to describe an image whose brightness fades to its periphery from the center. This produces a darkening at the edges of the image. In some cases, vignettes are desirable and they’re applied or enhanced for artistic effect after the image is shot. Fortunately, Aperture provides flexible controls for both removing and adding vignettes to your photos in a nondestructive fashion.

Aperture offers the Vignette adjustment controls to apply an artistic vignette to an image. With these controls you can add vignettes to a photo after it’s shot. This is often done to simulate old-style photographic techniques, such as those used on portraits.

vignette

Aperture offers two styles of vignettes: Exposure and Gamma. The Exposure vignette is intended to simulate a lens-created vignette. The other method, the Gamma vignette, intensifies the pixels in the affected area and creates a more pronounced effect.

  1. Select an image in the Browser.
  2. Click the Add Adjustments pop-up menu and choose the Vignette controls. A Gamma vignette with default values is applied.
  3. Choose Exposure from the Type pop-up menu.
  4. Drag the Amount slider all the way to the right. The slider stops at a value of 1.0, but this isn’t the limit for the effect.
  5. Click the right arrow next to the Amount value slider and set the amount of dark shading to 1.7.
  6. Drag the Size slider to the right to set the distance in pixels that will be affected by the darkening vignette. Choose a value of 1.5.


Note:
You can use the Lift and Stamp tools to take the vignette from one image and easily apply it to others.

Keep Your Mac Calendars and Address Book Clean

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At RHED Pixel, we use the Mac’s built-in calendar and address book to keep the office organizer. Technically, this is a no-no as they’re not really designed for 20 different devices to be syncing at once. But hey... we’re risk takers. I did find two great apps on the new Mac App store today (they are also on the web too).

calendar-cleaner-icon-large


Here are the official descriptions:

If you're like us, your calendar is how you manage your life. And that means that bad data can mean a really bad day—or worse. Calendar Cleaner removes duplicates, finds subtle problems with your events, and keeps everything clean as a whistle.

contacts-cleaner-icon-large

Your contacts are the center of your personal social network, and as such are often synchronized among your Mac, your iPhone, and many other apps, services, and devices. Contacts Cleaner finds and fixes the little problems that can creep in while you're not looking.


Pages for iPad, Online Video - 10 Free Copies

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In this Apple-certified guide to Pages for iPad, master trainer Rich Harrington takes you on a comprehensive tour. You’ll learn everything from customizing existing templates by adding your own graphics, charts, and styles to creating documents from scratch. Featuring over 40 videos, each one is dedicated to a specific task in Pages. So it's easy to find exactly the information you want whether it's help with the basics, like touchscreen controls, or more advanced tasks like inserting graphics with wraparound text. You'll learn all you need to know to create dynamic personal and professional projects.

Below are 10 digital voucher codes for use on Peachpit.com. Each code can be used once and will give a user access to the Pages for iPad Online Video. First come, first serve.
Here are instructions for use:

  1. If you have a Peachpit.com account, go to www.peachpit.com/account and log in. If you do not have a Peachpit.com account, go to www.peachpit.com/join and create an account.
  2. On the Account page click the link for "Enter your code here." that appears under "Digital Product Voucher" in the right column.
  3. Click Submit.
  4. The video will be listed under Digital Purchases on your Account page; click the title to generate the download.

C08FD2586C11
4C69D96447F1
91BD21E9A2FC
2C8E806BF6EA
095D14475FB3
6BD5584BD067
269EAAA0B8F4
0E0F9364593A
977F680BA58E
43A28CC6F430

If you don't win a copy, you can get one here. http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321765141