Okay that was a
bold headline. What I am trying to say is this...
My life needs to get a little simpler. Running 5
Blogs, plusFacebookandTwitterwas getting to be a little too
much.
I have merged my online blogs into one site:www.RichardHarringtonBlog.com.
You'll find virtually all of the content from
RasterVector, Photoshop For Video, Final Cut Help,
and VidPodcaster on one site. There are also new
features as well like aspeaking
calendar,consulting, andsocial mediaconnections.
Please consider following... I'll still keep
updating the individual blogs for now... but not as
often. My goal for theRHB siteis to get 7 updates a week.
Saturday, February 06, 2010 Filed in: Video| Apple
(February 5, 2010)
Canon's EOS E1 video plug-in for Apple's Final Cut
Pro was released today. This new plug-in allows
simple and easy transfer of video content from
Canon’s EOS DSLR cameras directly into Final
Cut Pro.
The EOS E1 video plug-in takes advantage of Final
Cut Pro’s powerful Log and Transfer feature,
which allows users to select and mark the video
directly while it is still on the camera, add
custom metadata and ingest the clips in the
background so the editing can begin immediately.
The EOS E1 video plug-in is a free download
available at http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/finalcutstudio/.
The plug-in is compatible with Final Cut Pro 6
or higher and currently supports Canon EOS 5D
Mark II, EOS 7D and EOS 1D Mark IV cameras.
Are you looking for an easy way to share
presentations online? Then check out SlideShare.net. With it you
can embed slideshows into your own blog or
website. You can also sync audio to your
slides and make shows public or private.
Here's how:
Uploading Your Presentation
– It can be a PowerPoint,
OpenOffice, Keynote, or PDF file. Your
presentation file should not be password
protected and be sure to remove any macros. Not
all fonts supported (but you can convert to PDF).
Be sure the file is less than 100MB.
Converting Your Presentation
– The second step is converting
the file to SlideShare’s sharing format.
Once uploaded, the file is placed in the
conversion queue (this might take a while). You
can leave the page and come back later... If
there was an error you will need to go to the
“My Slidespace/Edit All” to find the
files that were not successfully converted.
Creating a Slidecast–
Slidecasting is a multimedia format from
SlideShare. Any slide deck can be synced with an
audio file.
Put it all Together –
Use the synchronization tools to mix audio and
slides.
I found a great
series on YouTube... an old show called Horizon
from the BBC. This episode is entitled "How to Film
the Impossible" and features an in-depth look at
Industrial Light and Magic.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010 Filed in: Apple| Business
Adding video elements to a presentation is an easy
way to make a good presentation a great one. In
this video, we add a video to an Apple Keynote
presentation and go through all the options of
using video in it.
I recently
wrote a review for a new filter called Continuum
Cartoon Look for Layers Magazine.Here it is.
Everywhere you turn, you’ll spot the
“look”: video footage transformed to
look like a cartoon. In a traditional workflow, the
process involves rotoscoping. An artist literally
traces animation frame by frame over the original
source. The technique was invented by Max Fleischer
around 1915, and has been used by animators on
classic films such as Snow White and the Seven
Dwarves and Cinderella, as well as modern movies
such as Titan A.E. and Waking Life.
The process is very tedious, however, so many video
pros and motion graphics artists have been on a
quest for an easier solution. These days
you’ll find several products on the market to
transform your video footage to look like
it’s a cartoon. Early options such as Studio
Artist ($379;www.synthetik.com) and market leaders like
ToonIt ($399;www.redgiantsoftware.com)
have all seen heavy use.
While they’re not new to the plug-in market,
Boris FX has released their own take on cartoon
filters. The Boris Continuum Unit: Cartoon Look
breaks out four filters from the larger plug-in
package Continuum Complete. The set is only $199
(significantly less than competitors) and runs in
several host applications including Adobe After
Effects and Premiere Pro, as well as Apple Final
Cut Pro and Motion. The four filters for stylizing
your footage include:
There are lots
of reasons to use Premiere Pro (even if
you’re a Final Cut Pro editor). One of the
most compelling is to organize After Effects
projects.
Create a new
Premiere Pro project and match its settings to
your primary footage format.
2 Import a folder of QuickTime movies into a
Premiere Pro project. You can even import a Final
Cut Pro XML file to bring a sequence in without
needed to do anymore media
management.
Edit the clips
as needed into sequences.
After your
clips are edited, just select them and press
Command+C to copy them to your clipboard.
5 Switch to an open After Effects project and
press Command+V to paste the clips using Dynamic
Link. The clips (with handles) will move from
Premiere Pro to After Effects.
When digital cameras
became commercially available, the memory cards
used to store pictures were very expensive.
Photographers could not afford multiple or
high-capacity cards, so they wanted more images to
fit on a single, smaller card. Smaller file sizes
would also enable consumers who lacked an
understanding of digital imaging to attach photos
to email with minimum technical headaches.
With these two scenarios in place, manufacturers
turned to an Internet-friendly format, JPEG. It was
a proven technology, and one that was familiar to
many users. A JPEG file looks for areas where pixel
detail is repeated, such as the color white on
every key of your computer keyboard. The file then
discards repeated information and tells the
computer to repeat certain color values or data to
re-create the image. The drawback is that a JPEG
file is lossy, so every time you modify it and
re-save, additional compression is applied to the
image.
Newer digital cameras, generally the pro models,
offer newer formats, usually called raw. These raw
(or native) formats have several benefits over
shooting to JPEG. The images are usually captured
at a higher bit depth, which means that the pixels
contain more information about the color values in
the image. Most raw files have a depth of 10, 12,
or even 16-bits per channel instead of the 8 used
by JPEG. This raw format also has a greater tonal
range, resulting in better exposure for shadows and
highlights.
The image on the left is how the camera captured a
JPEG. Making adjustments to the image is possible,
but will lead to more degradation in image quality.
The image on the right is a properly developed raw
file. Working with raw files gives you access to
greater control over an image.
The raw file captures the
unprocessed data from the camera’s image
sensor. While your camera may contain settings for
sharpness, exposure, or lighting conditions, the
raw file stores that info as modifiable information
and captures the original (unmodified) data that
came through your camera’s sensors. Each
manufacturer treats the format differently, using a
proprietary format. Fortunately, Photoshop and
Aperture frequently update their raw technology to
support the newest cameras on the market.
Because the raw data is unprocessed, you must
essentially “develop” the image data
within Photoshop or Aperture. You can choose to
adjust several options related to the image, as
well as the lens and lighting conditions. You can
“tweak” the image after shooting it (as
opposed to JPEG, which is limited to the settings
you had when shooting).
Starting with
Photoshop CS2, Adobe introduced a new feature
called data sets. This allows you to create a set
of data that applies variable text, variable
visibility settings, or pixel replacement for art
layers. This is a great feature for use with
templates, especially those for lower-third titles.
By harnessing the power of data sets, you can
dramatically speed up the production of repetitive
graphics. In fact, by feeding in a text file,
hundreds of lower-third graphics can be generated
in a few clicks. The advantage of this method is
that a producer or production assistant can gather
all of the needed names and titles into a single
text file (easily created with any word processor).
This file can then be loaded to generate as many
graphics as needed. While the process is a little
tricky at first, it’s pretty easy to get the
hang of.
Read the complete article over at
Layer Magazine for
free...
Subscribe to the RSS Feed
