Motion Graphics

A Useful Article on Final Cut Pro X

in , ,

FCP_Hero_big

Over at Macworld.com, industry veteran (and personal friend) Gary Adcock has a detailed overview of the new Final Cut Pro X. The software was shown at NAB as a sneak peak.

"As a professional user, I was excited by a lot of what I saw Tuesday night—particularly magnetic tracks that keep audio and video from losing sync, auditioning that will more easily separate good takes from bad ones, and non-destructive color correction and filtering. All will be fantastic additions to my workflow. Additionally, metadata will now be harvested on import, allowing for better online/offline workflows, while the application's new content aware environment keeps everything in line for easy alternate versioning (similar to Photoshop's history palette).

As intriguing as the brief demonstration was, we weren't shown enough for me to make a critical judgement on whether this will be a home run for professional users, as Apple's presentation certainly implied, or something less spectacular."

Be sure to read the whole article here – http://www.macworld.com/article/159202/2011/04/final_cut_pro_x_blog.html

I'm reserving my own judgement until I get my hands on the software and try it out fully.

Image Stabilization & Rolling Shutter Reduction with After Effects CS5

in , , ,

With the release of After Effects 5.5, Adobe introduces an entirely new method for stabilizing footage that can also be useful to video editors. The Warp Stabilizer can remove jitter caused by camera movement. The effect is very useful as it can remove both unstable parallax type movements (where images appear to shift on planes). An extra benefit for those shooting with CMOS type sensors (such as those on DSLR cameras) is the ability to compensate for the rolling shutter which can lead to an optical bending of material that has strong vertical lines.

1. Select a clip in an After Effects composition. You can also send clips from Adobe Premiere Pro to After Effects via Dynamic Link.

2. Choose Animation > Stabilize Motion. The Warp Stabilizer effect is applied to the layer. The footage is immediately analyzed between its in and out-points. The analysis process takes two steps and you’ll see a banner across the footage as it’s analyzed. You can also see a progress update in the Effect Controls panel. While the analysis is in progress, you can keep working in the project.

stabilize1

3. You can enhance the effect with several useful options for the Stabilization Method:

  • Result – You can choose Smooth Motion to retain the general camera movement (albeit stabilized) or No Motion to attempt remove all camera movement.
  • Smoothness – This option specifies how much of the original camera movement should be retained for Smooth Motion. Use a higher value for maximum smoothness.
  • Method – There are four methods available. The two most powerful are Perspective and Subspace Warp. If either method creates too much distortion you can try switching to Position, Scale and Rotation or just Position.


If you want to see just how much the stabilizer is actually doing, set the Framing to Stabilize Only. This will show you black around the edges. If the motion looks unnatural, you can always adjust the Smoothness settings.

4. You can also control how the borders are drawn for the effect. With the Framing pop-up you can choose to simply stabilize the shot. You can also tell After Effects to automatically scale or even synthesize new edge content.

stabilize2

5. If you see vertical distortion or warping in the shot, enable the Rolling Shutter Ripple option under the Advanced category. In order to use these advanced options you need to use either the Subspace Warp or Perspective method for Stabilization. Be sure to experiment with both methods as the choice may vary based on the source footage.nIf you want maximum stabilization quality you can choose the Detailed Analysis option under the Advanced category. This makes the Analysis phase do extra work to find elements to track. This option is much slower, but produces superior results.

6. Use the RAM preview option to preview the effect as needed.

Photoshop Actions That Help the Video Pro

in ,
actions4

Entire Web sites and commercial products have been developed that significantly extend Photoshop’s ability as a video tool. Here are a few of my favorites.

  • ActionFX – One source that has both free and for-sale actions is the diverse Web site, ActionFX (http://www.actionfx.com) Members have access to thousands of Photoshop actions, as well as other add-ons.
  • PanosFX – A great site that is really becoming one to watch is PanosFX (http://www.panosfx.com). This site has some incredible free actions as well as some very affordable and powerful tools for sale.
  • Adobe Exchange – Adobe offers several user contributed actions on their website, check out http://tinyurl.com/adobexchange.


Be sure to check out the book Photoshop for Video.

Useful Videos About Documentary Editing

in , , ,

A colleague of mine, Steve Audette has posted some useful videos about the art and theory of documentary editing. Steve is a lead editor for WGBH public television and a very talented editor. Be sure to check some of these options out.

Here's one on After Effects:

Here are three more:

"Thoughts on Documentary Editing part one"
http://vimeo.com/13853751

"Thoughts on Documentary Editing part two"
http://vimeo.com/14002312

An Overview of After Effects for Documentary Editors
http://vimeo.com/18281019

Avid ScriptSync for Documentary Editors
http://vimeo.com/17502817

How to Repair and Retime Video Footge

in , , ,

figure-06_14
There are several reasons that footage might need repair. Archival sources (especially those that are tape-based) can wear with time or equipment failure. Rushed crews or poor preproduction can also impact the quality of a shot through inadequate lighting. Environmental conditions, such as a sunset or inconsistent cloud cover, can wreak havoc with footage as well.

Although the reasons may vary, you'll find a useful collection of tools in After Effects. The footage we'll show you is bad (in this case purposely so).

Check out the full book chapter here for free.

Photoshop's 21st Birthday

in , ,

cake
Today is Adobe Photoshop's 21st birthday... Since I'm in New Orleans with a few Adobe employees, I hope we can properly celebrate. I wanted to point out the many great Photoshop resources I have for you that are FREE. I hope you can enjoy the wonder of Photoshop.


And for the next week (until February 27). Our iOS apps are FREE (yes FREE).