Blog Archives

Codecs don’t last forever. This article details changes coming to apps and media in future versions of the macOS. This is important for anyone needed to access legacy media files.

A step-by-step tutorial on how to create a disk image to preserve and protect media files recorded to a camera card.

An in-depth Q&A answering questions about how to pick the right storage for video editing.

Adobe announces Project Rush: Integrated video editing across all devices, optimized for new users and social media.

A quick, illustrated tutorial on how to either select colors using numeric values or sliders using the Mac Color Picker, which works in all applications.

A step-by-step tutorial to extracting a shorter video clip from a longer one, using Adobe Media Encoder; along with the ability to either transcode the new clip or match the settings of the source file.

An illustrated tutorial on the new GPU monitoring window in Activity Monitor for the Mac.

A collection of new products for media creators announced at the 2018 NAB Show from companies you may not have heard about.

Adobe warns that older video codecs will not be supported in the future. Read what you NEED to know here.

Adobe announces and releases significant updates to Adobe Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Audition CC, Character Animator and Adobe Stock. Here are the details of the new features.

Instructions on how to turn off auto-updating in the macOS, why this can be a good idea and Larry Jordan’s thoughts on when to update after a new release.

An illustrated review of Luca Visual FX Light Kit 2, which runs in Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro X, and Motion.

A detailed explanation of the different configurations for the 2017 iMac Pro, with recommendations on what to buy to optimize your system.

The principle reason for using HEVC to compress video is to decrease the file size of the compressed file. But how does it look? In this First Look comparing HEVC to H.264 using Adobe Media Encoder, you’ll discover the answer.

It seems like a small thing, but the new font menu in Premiere 2018 makes using ALL your fonts a lot faster and easier. Here’s an illustrated tutorial that explains how this works.

Our goal is to tell stories – and the best stories touch our emotions. However, all too often, we overlook a powerful tool that can influence our emotions: fonts. In this short video excerpt, Larry Jordan showcases different fonts and illustrates how to choose the best one for your next project.

An in-depth look at a new application that allows creating custom keyboard shortcuts on an iPad which can control any application on an attached Mac.

Still images are at the heart of many video programs, especially documentaries. But, what if the images you are working with don’t look that good? In this short video excerpt, Larry Jordan illustrates how to use the Patch, Content-Aware and Levels tools to move and remove elements in an image.

Still images are at the heart of many video programs, especially documentaries. But, what if the images you are working with don’t look that good? In this short video excerpt, Larry Jordan illustrates how to straighten an image then improve the exposure using Levels.

For power, flexibility, and color effects, 3D LUT Creator is unequaled. Now, they need to turn their attention to showing the rest of us how to use it.

This is a short-term caution for media creators about upgrading too soon to the High Sierra version of macOS, including how to turn OFF automatic upgrading.

News on Adobe’s latest product updates for Fall, 2017, for Premiere, After Effects, Audition, Character Animator, and Adobe Stock; plus Adobe Sensei. All with links.

For multicam editing nothing beats an SSD RAID. Here is an in-depth, illustrated look at the OWC ThunderBay 4 mini SSD RAID – a top choice for editors who value maximum performance and/or portability.

Editing 4K media is no different than editing HD – except when it is really, REALLY different. In this tutorial, Larry Jordan looks at the differences when editing 4K media in Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Apple Final Cut Pro X.

Adobe updates all their Creative Cloud media applications in their Spring, 2017, release. This is an illustration description of what’s new.

An illustrated, step-by-step tutorial on how to move a project from Apple Final Cut Pro X to Adobe Audition for audio mixing, then back to FCP X for final output.

An illustrated first-look at Rampant Design Tools’ “Essentials for Premiere Pro CC.”

An in-depth, illustrated and measured test of the new MacBook Pro to see how fast it really is for video editing using real-world tests with Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

An illustrated tutorial on little-known tools in Adobe Audition that can simplify and speed-up audio mixing; especially for video projects.

A short, illustrated article explaining how to interpret the Amplitude Statistics window in Adobe Audition CC.

An explanation on what’s really happening when you convert audio files between different sample rates, featuring comments from Adobe.

Up-resing is the process of converting lower resolution video into higher resolution. For example, converting SD video into HD or HD into 4K. In this short video tutorial, you’ll learn what up-resing is, why it is so hard to make it look good, what bitmaps and interlacing are and how they relate to improving the look of your video.

A collection of more than 40 articles covering video editing, Adobe and Apple software, written over the summer of 2016 by Larry Jordan. Designed to make it easy to see any you may have missed.

A quick tip that can help dial out color problems during video editing, quickly and easily.

The Top Ten most common mistakes that affect video editing.

A variety of media creators explain how they archive their media and projects for the long-term.

In a discussion at the 2016 Creative Storage Conference, I discovered the answer to: “How long can we store flash media on a shelf without losing data.”

The Library panel allows you to add and share media and assets between the various Adobe applications. While currently designed to enable still artists working with Photoshop, libraries can still be useful to video editors. This illustrated tutorial explains how.

Blend modes allow us to add texture to text, change the look of clips, even create unusual and eye-catching effects. Blend modes exist in virtually every video and graphics editing application. In this short video Larry Jordan shows how to access, modify and use blend modes in Adobe Photoshop CC.

Why become a member of Larry Jordan’s Video Training Library? Because you can learn exactly what you need to know from our library more quickly and better than you can learn it on your own.

A list of, and links to, the Top 20 tutorials on Larry Jordan’s website for 2015.

An indexed and linked list of all technical blogs and articles written by Larry Jordan during August, 2015.

An illustrated explanation of how to measure free space on your hard disk – and why you need to do this – along with an explanation of how to improve performance by minimizing file “swapping.”

A detailed, illustrated article showing how to create a custom shape in Photoshop then import and animate it in Final Cut Pro X.

An illustrated, step-by-step tutorial on how to prepare digital images for video editing in either Premiere Pro CC or Final Cut Pro X.

Spectrum, from Luca Visual FX, provides endlessly fascinating visual backgrounds and transitions for Final Cut Pro X, as Larry Jordan writes in this article.

An illustrated tutorial on enabling burn-in Timecode in Adobe Media Encoder 2015 (or 2014).

A video compression speed test comparing Adobe Media Encoder 2015, with Adobe Media Encoder 2014 and Apple Compressor 4.2.

A detailed tutorial of the new Morph Cut in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015, along with a discussion of the ethical issues in using it and tips to make it look the best.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to optimize Adobe Media Encoder CC preferences for compression speed.