This is
part two of our article on effectively
compressing video for the web and multimedia. Be
sure to read part one if you haven’t done
so.
Need to get
your video delivered to your audience? Then
there’s probably going to be some
compression involved. Don’t let hardware or
software get in your way. Let’s take a
common sense approach to getting your video out
there.
Pick Your Power
There are tons of compression
tools out there, but the pro apps offer important
features like batch processing, multiple
architecture support, and customizable presets.
The five most popular options are:
Read
More...
This is
part two of our article on effectively
compressing video for the web and multimedia. Be
sure to read part one if you haven’t done
so.
1.)
De-interlace your video: Most video files are
interlaced, which means that half of one image is
blended with half of the next. On a Television
this produces smoother motion, on a computer it
produces junk.
2.) Lower your audio standards: Most users are
listening to computer audio on tiny speakers.
Cutting your sample rate to 22 or 11 kHz and the
sample size to 8-bit will often produce
unnoticeable audio changes but huge space saving.
3.) Shrink the window: While you don’t need
to make video postage stamps sized. But reducing
the window to half size creates a file that is
25% the file size of the original. That’s a
BIG savings in space.
Read
More...
SubEthaEdit
- $35 [Mac]http://www.codingmonkeys.de Having
creative sessions and want to keep notes? This
application is the perfect note taker. It allows
you to collaborate on one open document across
your network. It’s also rendezvous enabled
so it’s easy for other Mac users to join
in. Nice features such as color-coding for each
user as well as time stamping make this a
flexible tool.
If you need some groupthink
without the use of a projector... then this is a
perfect tool.
It’s
very common to use Photoshop and Illustrator to
prepare content for import into Adobe After
Effects. Here are some practical tips to avoid
problems when merging the
software.
Import Tips
Double-Click
in the AE Project Window
Shift-Click
Multiple Items
Organize in
Folder and Option+Drag (Alt+Drag) from
Desktop
Keep file
names less than 27 characters long
Photoshop
Assign unique
names to each layer
Avoid using
layer sets unless you want the layers to come
in as a nested composition
If layers are
not needed, reduce your render burden by
importing as a flattened file such as a PICT,
TIFF or TARGA
If you have
applied an adjustment layer in Photoshop such
as Levels, consider applying the effect
directly to the individual layers in Photoshop
instead
Illustrator
Be sure to
use layers in Adobe Illustrator to split up
elements
Change AI
preferences to use AICB format (not PDF) for
proper Copy/Paste
Successfully
getting a video file delivered to your audience
usually means it will be compressed (heck
it’s often compressed just so we can work
with it in the first place). Making the video
file available to your target audience is your
goal, but the challenges of hardware, connection
speed, and even operating system can affect the
decisions you make. Let’s take a common
sense approach to getting your video out there.
Read
More...
Oftentimes you’ll need to create a form
letter to send to multiple clients (such as an
address change or a promotional letter). If
you’d like to personalize these letters,
Apple Pages makes it easy to insert data
you’ve defined for contacts in Address
Book. This can save you time because you can
reuse a letter, envelope, or other document for
multiple people. This feature is generally called
a mail merge.
Read More...
I don’t
live in the world of website creation every
day... but I’ve been putting up sites since
the launch of Mosaic back with PageMill 1.0. I
may be a little slow.. but here’s fourteen
questions I recommend getting answers to before
you build a site (feel free to comment and
I’ll expand the list).
Project Planning Sheet – Website
Objectives
1) What main points do you wish
to make with your website? (No more than five)
2) Who is the audience? (Please be specific)
3) What is the market’s current attitude
toward your company?
4) What objections to potential customers have to
your company?
5) What do you want the consumer to think after
they see your website?
6) What do you want the consumer to feel after
they see your website?
7) What do you want want the consumer to do after
they see your website?
8) What Five adjectives describe the look and
feel of your future website?
9) Are there any special features or design ideas
you have about your website?
Administrative
10) Who will be involved with
creating the content of the website?
11) Who has final website approval?
12) What are your deadlines?
13) Is your domain registered? If so, what is the
URL and where is it registered?
14) Have you selected a web hosting company?
NOTE: Please send any
relevant documents or promotional material that
will affect the content of your website
The following tip comes from
theApple Pro Training Series:
Aperture 2book published
by Peachpit Press.
Let’s look at two adjustment controls in
the RAW Fine Tuning controls group: Boost and Hue
Boost. Aperture includes a set ofcamera profiles
for all supported cameras.These profiles give
Aperture specific details about each
camera’s imaging characteristics,and are
used to determine what color and contrast
adjustments should be automatically applied to
the RAW file.These adjustments are done to apply
the optimal decode based on the manufacturer
ofthe camera.
The Boost slider lets you control the degree to
which this default adjustment is applied to your
image.By default,the Boost slider is set at full
strength,so your image appears with the full
level ofcorrection.As you drag the slider to the
left,the correction is reduced.The Boost slider
is handy for times when you feel your images have
too much contrast or are a little too saturated.
Read More...
Recharge Your Creativity and Craft •
January 28 - February 1 • Playa Del Carmen,
Mexico
Now in its third
year, theEditors Retreathas become an
annual gathering for the post-production
elite. Highly experienced editors from the
worlds of film, TV and video gather to
network, exchange ideas, share tips and of
course, have fun!
Past keynotes and attendees have included such
names as Alan Heim, Sally Menke, Stuart Bass,
Chris Franklin and David Helfand as well as
Apple, Adobe and Avid experts and industry power
users. Attendees have included representatives
from HBO, FRONTLINE, MTV, Lockheed Martin, Harpo
Productions and Telemundo.
Running for 5 days and 4 nights, the Retreat
offers advanced sessions on post visual and audio
techniques and features valuable insight into
emerging trends and technologies. An equal amount
of time will be devoted to discussing the
creativity, craft and business practices of
successful editors.
To ensure that only the best of the best attend,
participation is subject to an application and
screening process. Visitwww.EditorsRetreat.comfor the full
schedule and more details.
I've got a new book
that's going to press this week. It's a short
one, but is designed to help teacher's use
Apple's iLife and iWork in the classroom. I come
from a family of teachers (having 5 elementary
teachers and 2 college instructors in my
immediate clan). I really hope this book inspires
teachers to fully integrate digital media into
their lessons.
Apple
Training Series:
A Teacher's Guide to Digital Media in the
Classroom by Richard Harrington with Ted
Lai
Price:
$19.99
Release Date: August 8, 2008
Product
Description
In
this Apple-certified guide, Richard Harrington
shows teachers how to integrate digital media
arts into their existing curriculum using iLife
’08, iWork ’08, and practical,
step-by-step projects. Developed in collaboration
with the Pearson Education Foundation in
accordance with the National Educational
Technology Standards council, the book includes
class-room tested guidelines from the
Foundation's Digital Media Arts program, as well
as inspirational profiles of successful digital
media classroom projects around the world.
Designed to be used with Apple Training Series:
iLife ’08 and Apple Training Series: iWork
08, this guide covers everything from designing a
photo essay to creating polished video projects,
and will have teachers and students producing
websites, podcasts, video blogs, and DVDs in no
time. Students learn to:
• Express a Feeling: Create a photo-essay
slideshow, add sound, and publish it on the web
• Make a Factual Case: Track data in a
spreadsheet, organize it into charts, then
deliver it as a Keynote presentation
• Make a Persuasive Case: Research an
issue, develop an argument, and create a PSA in
iMovie and burn it to DVD
• Solve a Problem: Reconcile income and
expenses in a household budget and chart
financial scenarios
• Tell a Story: Document the personal
history of a community leader in a short,
sophisticated movie
To order the book,click
here.
Noted author
and podcaster Scott Kelby has a great interview
on copyright, photographers’ rights, and
release forms. This is truly great and
worthchecking
out.
“If you’ve
been reading this blog for the past month or so,
you’ve read my posts about photographers
being harassed when shooting in public, and a lot
of readers have chimed in with comments about
what we can and can’t shoot, what our
rights as photographers are and aren’t, our
interpretations of copyright law, and so on.
There’s just one problem; we’re not
attorneys.
So, I contacted
New York-based Intellectual Property
Attorney
Ed Greenberg,who’s a
published author on the topic, and who has been
dealing with photography copyright, contract, and
creative rights issues for over 30 years, to
finally get the straight no-nonsense scoop on all
this.”
You can watch the interviewhere. Enjoy!
Learn how to use the Shape Tools to create
dynamic motion graphics elements. This tutorial
was recorded as part of a session at the 2007 NY
Post Production Conference (www.nypostconference.com).
I was over at YouTube
posting a new tutorial.... came across a great
clip that mixes multiple animation styles…
this is VERY cool. It’s nice to hear
the man so off-the-cuff… yet wise.
“In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic
named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel
tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel
room in Toronto and convinced John to do an
interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has
produced a film about it. Using the original
interview recording as the soundtrack, director
Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which
tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a
cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin
marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James
Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration
by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding
vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and
timeless message.”
Learn more about ithere(and yes… I
missed this one somehow).
I was
interviewed by MacEditionRadio.com about
Photoshop and creating a portfolio.Here it
is.. enjoy.
“At
the 2007 Photoshop World in Las Vegas, I sat down
with Peachpit Press and Focal Press author
Richard Harrington, and we discussed the issues
involved in creating DVDs that make your
photographs look their best. If you have ever
been confused about the proper resolution to
prepare files for DVD, television, or video
projection, then Richard’s Tips and Tricks
will fill in the blanks! Rich is the author of
“Photoshop for
Video”,
and “Understanding Adobe Photoshop:
Digital Image Concepts and
Techniques.”
and if you are working with digital
photography, Photoshop, or Lightroom, and need
to show others your photos then listen in to
this interview! Recorded at the National
Association of Photoshop Professionals
Photoshop World Conference, in Las Vegas, in
September 2007 by Harris Fogel. Posted 6/28/08
(24:09)”
Well... color me
surprised.... my new book on Aperture Hit #1 on
Amazon across several categories.
I’m not sure about the Digital Music
category... but it also took top spot as the best
selling Mac book as well.
You can check the book out here... if you’ve
gotten the book and enjoyed it, can you
please post a review as well.
What
would happen if you locked Bill Gates and Steve
Jobs in the same apartment (like Big Brother)?
Well you get the risque comic strip
–The Silicon
Apartment(PG-13). The strip
is really quite good and skewers both sides.
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