Blog Archives

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about, well, anything you want to ask. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains the differences between camera native, optimized and proxy media in Apple Final Cut Pro. This also includes a demo on how they are created and displayed.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about, well, anything you want to ask. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains what the different Browser clip line colors mean in Final Cut Pro.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about, well, anything you want to ask. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to animate an object (a toy car) to follow a complex path along a map using Apple Motion.

Audio Design Desk simplifies the process of finding, placing and experimenting with audio cues for video projects. While ADD handles the basics of sound design, the creative inspiration still comes from you. The good news is that version 1.7 makes this creative process faster and easier than ever.

With the July, 2021, update, Premiere Pro now supports text with multiple strokes and shadows. If you are creating commercials, action comics or anything where “eye-catching” is a job description, you’re gonna have fun with this!

Adobe adds speech-to-text and native M1 Mac support to the July, 2021, version of Premiere Pro. Here’s the full list of changes.

Here’s how to connect camera source files to proxy media in Adobe Premiere Pro, when the proxies were created outside of Premiere and the master files arrived after you started editing with the proxy files.

Here’s another technique that I use all the time – creating highly-flexible custom Final Cut Pro title templates in Motion that I use and modify in all my FCP projects. This is fast, easy and saves TONS of time formatting and positioning titles.

These three custom shortcuts simplify and speed several repetitive aspects of my edit and I want to share them to save you time in your edits as well.

Here is a variety of online techniques to get you and your Adobe Premiere Pro system back up and running quickly.

Your Mac system is acting flakey. Here are a variety of tests and trouble-shooting techniques you can use to get your system and running. (This includes a special section on trouble-shooting for media editors.)

On July 8th, Apple released bug fix updates for Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor. These updates included no new features. Here’s the list.

Seagate and Axle.ai partner to provide “Smarter Media” – edge-to-cloud mass storage with a media asset management front end. This new service, named “Lyve” is designed to provide cost effective smart media solutions for real world applications.

Smart Collections are flexible, easy to create and very, very deep. I use them for almost all my projects – except the very simplest. Here are illustrated examples of how these work.

Last week, Adobe released a new beta version of Premiere Pro showcasing new import and export features and, more importantly, point the direction Adobe plans to take the software. Here’s what’s new.

Apple updated Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor last week and both Final Cut and Compressor got a flurry of new features. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to find missing media, including proxies, using a new search feature in Apple Final Cut Pro.

Apple updated Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor last week and both Final Cut and Compressor got a flurry of new features. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to reduce the file size of an animated image sequence. We do this without losing any video quality, by using indexed color and Apple Compressor.

Apple updated Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor last week and both Final Cut and Compressor got a flurry of new features. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to control what metadata is embedded into your movies during compression using Apple Compressor. This is a very useful technique when security or privacy are important.

New with the 10.5.3 update to Apple Final Cut Pro is the ability to create custom Browser column layouts, save them, switch between them, even share them with other editors. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to use this.

New with the 10.5.3 update to Final Cut Pro is the ability to quickly find missing media in a library. You can also use this technique to find clips by type: optimize, proxy and missing. This illustrated tutorial explains how this works.

New with the 4.5.3 update to Compressor are compression settings which simplify cropping and compressing square and vertical media. These new settings simplify the conversion of, say, horizontal media to vertical making it easier to repurpose existing assets for new uses.

Last week, Apple released updates for Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor. Both Final Cut and Compressor added new features, while all three applications saw significant bug fixes. Here’s the full list of what’s new.

Fonts are the easiest way to telegraph an emotion – and they don’t require any design skills from us. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates the importance of readability – and other factors – when choosing fonts for a video project.

Fonts are the easiest way to telegraph an emotion – and they don’t require any design skills from us. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates several font design tips to help you choose which fonts to use in your next video project.

Fonts are the easiest way to telegraph an emotion – and they don’t require any design skills from us. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan demonstrates three font adjustment techniques that can make on-screen video text look better. While this uses Photoshop, we can actually do this in most applications on Windows or Mac.

We love the look of film, but the world has gone digital. In this guest blog, Drew Gula, from SoundStripe.com, explores the balance between digital media and creating a film look.

The ProCo Power Mute CPMD mic switch is a ruggedly-built, easy to use and reasonably quiet mic mute, well-suited for live events or recording. Here’s Larry Jordan’s detailed product review.

DPI (Dots per Inch) is a measure of image resolution. It also confuses a lot of people. Here’s an illustrated guide to where DPI matters, where it does not, and why images look bad when you scale them larger.

New Pfieffer Report testing confirms Adobe software, running natively on M1 Macs, is far, FAR faster than the same software running on Intel Macs. Speeds are almost double. Read the details here.

With the May, 2021, update, Adobe improved captioning in Premiere Pro. New features include improved colors and more flexible trimming. This tutorial illustrates these.

Recent versions of Final Cut Pro have a feature called: “Consolidate Library Media.” This tutorial looks at what this feature does, when to use it and how it can aid archiving and collaboration.

Still images are at the heart of many video programs. But, what do you do if the images you are using don’t look that good? In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan showcases how to use a variety of tools to clean up an older image using Adobe Photoshop. These include straightening, cropping, adjusting grayscale levels, removing spots, and cleaning up damaged portions of an image.

Still images are at the heart of many video programs. But, what do you do if the images you are using don’t look that good? In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates how to use masks to repair an older image, add a vignette to highlight a face and use the clone tool to remove an unsightly line – all in Adobe Photoshop.

Still images are at the heart of many video programs. But, what do you do if the images you are using don’t look that good? In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates several simple ways to clean up a still image; including crop, scale, content-aware fill and straightening an image – all in Adobe Photoshop.

Library Properties determine fundamental media handling settings for all the media, events and projects in a Library. When you need to make changes, here’s what you need to know.

Project settings, which Apple calls “Project Properties” determine the technical specs of your project. In this illustrated tutorial, I explain what they are, how to set them and how to change them.

Voice Changer, from Accusonus, is a plug-in for most popular NLEs that creates voice effects from robot to dragon. It is fast, easy to use and a fascinating sound design tool to bring the sounds in your imagination to life.

Atomos today announced the big brother to their 5″ Shinobi camera monitor: the Shinobi 7. Available in June for $699, here are the details – and a link.

Changing the speed of a portion of a video clip during playback is called a “variable speed change.” There’s a wide variety of reasons to change the speed of a clip, so, let me show you how to create different versions in Apple Final Cut Pro.

A fit-to-fill edit combines an overwrite edit with a playback speed change. It takes a marked clip in the Source monitor, then changes its speed to fit a specified duration in the timeline. Here’s how to create it in Premiere Pro.

A fit-to-fill edit combines a replace edit with a playback speed change. It takes a marked clip in the Browser, then changes its speed to match the duration of a clip in the timeline. Here’s how to create it in Apple Final Cut Pro.

Changing the playback speed of a clip is all the rage in video today. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates two visual effects using speed effects in Final Cut Pro that can bring a special sparkle to your next project; including instant replay.

Changing the playback speed of a clip is all the rage in video today. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to create a fit-to-fill edit, where the speed of the inserted clip is altered to match the duration you need it to fill in the Final Cut Pro timeline.

Changing the playback speed of a clip is all the rage in video today. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to create glossy slow motion by conforming a high-frame-rate clip to match the project speed in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Changing the playback speed of a clip is all the rage in video today. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to create a fit-to-fill edit, where the speed of the inserted clip is altered to match the duration you need it to fill in the Timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro.

New with the May, 2021, update to both Premiere Pro and Audition is the Loudness Meter. The Loudness Meter displays average audio levels on an instant-by-instant basis and complements the Loudness Radar. Here’s how to use it.

New with the May, 2021, update to Adobe Premiere Pro, is the ability to add gradients to text. Here’s how this technique works.

New with Adobe Premiere Pro is the ability replace media in a motion graphics template. Here’s how to add media to a template, then change where that media starts playback.

Business for media professionals seems to be coming out of the pandemic – but stresses such as lower budgets and insufficient work are significant obstacles for many. Here are the results of my survey, taken May, 2021.

Adobe updated both Audition and Premiere Pro in their May, 2021, release. Here’s what’s new.