Blog Archives

In this illustrated tutorial, learn how to animate multiple elements in the same graphic using Adobe Premiere Pro.

Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to animate multiple elements in a bar graph to illustrate a scientific concept. While this will work with most video editing software, I use Apple Final Cut Pro in this example.

Apple Keynote, like Apple Pages, supports text styles. However, these are more limited than you might at first think. Here’s a tutorial that explains more about how to create and modify them.

August is vacation time. Still, over these five weeks, we published 19 tutorials and product reviews. Here’s a summary of everything we released this month. Something to look through during the holiday weekend.

In this illustrated tutorial are three interesting, but little-used, effects in Apple Final Cut Pro that create interesting backgrounds or change the mood of a scene.

There are seven Stylize effects in Apple Final Cut Pro that create illegal video levels. This tutorial shows what they are, the problems they cause and how to fix them before final export.

In this highly-illustrated tutorial, I showcase what the “Light” effects do in Final Cut Pro, along with the settings used.

The reason we use effects is to help us tell our story more effectively. While creating effects can take more time than we expect, the results, when effects are chosen wisely, can be amazing. Here are a baker’s dozen of little-known effects in Apple Final Cut Pro.

Particle Illusion is a free, powerful particle generator that runs on both Macs and Windows with hundreds of presets for 2D or 3D particles. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to get started using it.

BorisFX Continuum is the “Swiss Army Knife for visual effects for video editors and motion graphics creatives. In this short video tutorial Larry Jordan shows how to create a complex effect using blurs, color effects and multiple masks, plus Mocha mask tracking in BorisFX Continuum 2022.5 and Final Cut Pro.

BorisFX Continuum is the “Swiss Army Knife for visual effects for video editors and motion graphics creatives. In this short video tutorial Larry Jordan shows how to create a simple blur effect using masks and Mocha mask tracking in BorisFX Continuum 2022.5 in Final Cut Pro.

BorisFX Continuum is the “Swiss Army Knife for visual effects for video editors and motion graphics creatives. In this short video tutorial Larry Jordan shows how to create a simple “Day-for-Night” color effect using Continuum in Final Cut Pro.

Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to slow a video clip from full-speed to a standing stop, then back up to full-speed, while inserting a freeze frame in the middle that can be any duration you want using Apple Final Cut Pro.

This illustrated tutorial on creating retro film effects using Final Cut Pro was written by Burkhard Berger.

This tutorial creates a 3D text template in Apple Motion that allows Apple Final Cut Pro to put moving video inside adjustable, textured 3D text. There are many creative variations on this idea.

Multicam recording captures an event using multiple cameras. Multicam editing displays all those angles during the edit. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to add visual effects and color grading to a multicam clip in Final Cut Pro.

How many CPU cores do you need for video editing? This illustrated tutorial looks at how many CPU cores Apple Final Cut Pro uses during import, edit, render, export and multicam. The answer is surprising!

Almost all digital video cameras shoot video levels with excessive levels for any project destined for broadcast, cable, streaming or digital cinema. The highlights are too bright and the shadows are too dark. Here are two ways to control them.

Recently, Apple updated Final Cut Pro to version 10.6.2. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use the new Voice Isolation feature to remove hum and reduce background noise.

The new “sliced scale” effect in Apple Motion 5.6.1 scales an image while preserving key visual elements. This is similar to Content-Aware scaling in Adobe Photoshop. Here’s an example of how this works.

I was not expecting to be impressed with Voice Isolation, but if you are shooting in noisy environments, enabling this one checkbox can create a major improvement in your audio. This is a very helpful audio tool!

Apple Motion is powerful software that can be used to create motion graphics for any video editor, not just Final Cut Pro. For example, you can use Motion to create animated text and graphics on a Mac, then export it …

Adobe morphed Auto Tone into Auto Color with the 22.3 update to Premiere Pro. The new Auto Color works, but it doesn’t work well. Here are some examples that illustrate this point.

With the release of Apple Final Cut Pro 10.6.2, Apple improved object tracking. Here’s an illustrated example of what’s new.

This is an excerpt of a recent PowerUP webinar called “Ask Larry Anything.” In this short tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates why scaling video larger than 100% creates blurry images. This is also called “up-resing” or “up-scaling.”

Here’s some fun text effects including video-in-text, text animation and a limitless ability to customize; all using Apple Final Cut Pro.

Drop zones don’t support audio playback in Final Cut. This makes using drop zones with synced audio somewhat, ah, challenging. But there’s a simple workaround – and here it is.

Here’s a simple technique to simplify reframing clips stored inside a drop zone in Apple Final Cut Pro.

Here’s a useful animated split-screen effect that is easy to create in Motion and a big time-saver when editing split screens in Final Cut Pro. I also included the template this tutorial creates for you to download.

Another new feature that Adobe added recently to Premiere is text gradients. These are easy to create, but a key switch you need to access this feature is somewhat hidden. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how this works.

If you’ve been wondering what the color tools in Final Cut do, or how to make them work better, this session is for you. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to adjust the color in a portion of a video clip using the new object tracking feature in Final Cut Pro.

If you’ve been wondering what the color tools in Final Cut do, or how to make them work better, this session is for you. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to adjust skin colors, and fix color casts, using the color wheels in Final Cut.

If you’ve been wondering what the color tools in Final Cut do, or how to make them work better, this session is for you. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to fix color casts in video, using the Color Wheels in Final Cut.

Auditions are a fast, flexible tool that quickly preview different clips, sounds and/or effects in the Timeline. They are easy to create, simple to use and a worthwhile addition to your Final Cut toolset. Here’s how they work.

Last week, Adobe updated Premiere Pro to version 22.2. New features dramatically accelerate editorial workflows, including Remix, and an updated Speech to Text, which can now be used offline, generating accurate transcriptions up to 3 times faster. Here are the details.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about questions related to media production and editing. In this short excerpt, Larry Jordan explains how to use keyframes in Motion to animate the movement of an object.

The Video Limiter, in Adobe Premiere Pro, protects excessive video levels for broadcast, streaming, cable and DVD projects. Here’s how it works.

For web work, you don’t need to worry about video levels. However, for just about all other video projects, you do. In those cases, it’s nice to know the Broadcast Safe effect has your back by keeping your video levels “legal.” Here’s how it works.

Most of the time, you can easily create simple moves in Final Cut directly on the timeline. But, sometimes, when you need a truly complex move a compound clip can help. Let me illustrate. Normally, we add the image we …

This session takes a closer look at color grading in DaVinci Resolve 17, with a special emphasis on its unique color tools and secondary color correction ability. In this excerpt, Larry Jordan demonstrates how to use nodes to solve more complex problems in color grading.

This session takes a closer look at color grading in DaVinci Resolve 17, with a special emphasis on its unique color tools and secondary color correction ability. In this excerpt, Larry Jordan showcases a variety of ways to compare and match shots in Resolve.

This session takes a closer look at color grading in DaVinci Resolve 17, with a special emphasis on its unique color tools and secondary color correction ability. In this excerpt, Larry Jordan illustrates how to customize the video scopes.

When a clip is added to the timeline, if the frame size of the clip doesn’t match the frame size of the sequence, Premiere will scale it to fill as much of the frame as possible. In almost all cases, this is a bad choice. Here’s why.

Masking is a time-consuming and persnickety task. However, the Draw Mask in Apple Final Cut Pro makes the process straight-forward, with lots of ways to adjust it. Here’s an illustrated tutorial that explains how it works.

Happy New Year! Here’s an easy way to combine text, particles and animation in Apple Motion to celebrate the new year with an animated logo.

While human skin gray-scale and saturation values can vary by individual, skin color values are remarkably consistent. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to set skin color values to fix color problems and make on-camera talent look “normal.” This applies to all video editing software.

The latest version of DaVinci Resolve introduced the Cut Page, an interface designed for high-speed, fast-turnaround, editing. In this short tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to add, modify and remove transitions applied to clips in Resolve’s Cut page.

Accusonus has been improving audio for a long time. Regardless of where you edit your audio, ERA 6 can make it sound better. Here’s a look at the new ERA 6 bundle with automatic, customizable audio repair.

Last week, as part of Adobe MAX, Adobe released a flock of new features and improvements to Premiere Pro. Here’s a summary of what’s new.

Recently, Apple updated Motion to version 5.6, where one of the highlighted features is a new neon text effect. In this video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how this works and how you can add an effect to make it look even better.