Blog Archives

Confused when comparing Intel to Apple silicon systems? Jerry Thompson was, too. Here are the answers to your questions on what the differences are between Apple silicon and Intel, along with suggestions on how to spec a system.

As video professionals and, especially, free-lancers, we have an instinctive regard for the value of time. Here are my thoughts on what is under our control, what isn’t and what splits the difference.

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.

Here are two very clever workarounds to create short extracts of much larger media files to save storage space when importing video into Apple Final Cut Pro.

Looking for ways to work faster? Here are five pretty much undocumented quick tricks – from import to export – that make Final Cut Pro work even faster.

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.

Last week, Adobe released a detailed Premiere Pro Workflow Guide for Episodic and Feature film Editing. This week, I spoke with Morgan Prygrocki, at Adobe, about typical mistakes video editors make and how this Guide can help.

One of the smaller changes in the June update to Premiere Pro is also one that can save you a bunch of time: Adobe revised Copy/Paste. Here’s what you need to know.

The TourBox is a small control surface for just about any Windows or Mac application – with a special emphasis on media creation and editing. It is well-built with a very well-designed software interface. There’s only one small problem…

Larry Jordan shows how to optimize preference settings for Adobe Premiere Pro 2022. Feel free to share your personal choices in the comments.

This built-in Mac utility is fast, easy-to-use and always available. When you need to rename files in a hurry, this is a good trick to know.

Machine learning is a fact of life in video editing today, though its impact is often a two-edged sword. In this guest post, Jourdan Aldredge looks at Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s AI tool for video editors.

Adobe added two significant new workspaces to Adobe Premiere Pro (v22.5) to simplify editing projects on single monitors and laptops.

In the 22.3.1 update to Premiere Pro, Adobe added two features that significantly speed exports: Smart Render and the Export Preset Manager. This illustrated tutorial shows how they work.

This tutorial compares the export speed on an Apple silicon MacBook Pro of Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve; along with how effectively they used CPU and GPU systems.The results surprised me – none of them maxed out the system!

Recently, Adobe updated Premiere Pro to version 22.3.1. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use the new Quick Export and Export Preset Manager to quickly convert your Premiere sequence into finished media.

Recently, Adobe updated Premiere Pro to version 22.3.1. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use the new Import panel to create a new project and import media clips into Premiere.

Recently, Apple updated Final Cut Pro to version 10.6.2. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use the new duplicate media detection feature to indicate where you are using the same media in the timeline more than once.

New in the 22.3 released of Premiere Pro, is the ability to show or hide markers by color. This works for both timeline and clip markers, but not both at the same time. Here’s an illustrated tutorial showing how.

If you are a relatively new user of Final Cut, you may not know that there is a powerful organizational tool in the Browser. Why? Because its hidden… in plain sight. It’s called “Favorites” and here’s how it works.

Here are almost twenty little-known keyboard shortcuts for Adobe Premiere Pro that make timeline editing easier.

Adobe changed the Premier Pro export interface — cleaning it up without removing any of the power or flexibility. Here’s a tutorial with a look at the new changes.

With the 22.3 release of Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe created a faster and easier way to create a new project and import media into it. Here’s how it works.

This option doesn’t appear in the File > Share menu. Nor in the the Share icon (link). But it does in Preferences > Destinations: a Share Bundle. What is it? This illustrated tutorial provides the answers.

Here’s a great tip that saves wear-and-tear on your storage system when editing multicam clips using Apple Final Cut Pro.

One of the newer features added to Premiere Pro is the ability to gang, or connect, the Program Monitor to one of two different monitor panels. This allows you to see two moving images at once. Here’s how this works.

There is a wealth of keyboard shortcuts hiding inside Final Cut Pro. Here’s how to find them and make them yours.

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 use the Comparison Viewer for color correction 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 explains the Three Rules of Color Correction and how they apply regardless of which video editing software you are using.

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.

Remix, a new feature in Adobe Premiere Pro, shortens the length of a music clip, without making the edits obvious. Here’s a tutorial that explains how it works.

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.

The Event Monitor in Apple Final Cut Pro enables viewing Browser clips in a much larger monitor. This tutorial shows where it is and how to use it.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about questions related to media production and editing. In this short excerpt, Larry Jordan discusses the differences between using photo scanners and copy stands when digitizing photos or 3D objects.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about questions related to media production and editing. In this short excerpt, Larry Jordan suggests several ideas that media creators and editors can use to find new clients and grow their business.

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 is a very fast trick I recently learned which can save a ton of time when you need to change fonts in one or more titles in an Adobe Premiere Pro sequence or project.

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 explores the different variations of RGB color wheels in Resolve.

There are many reasons to send a project from Premiere Pro to DaVinci Resolve. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to move projects between apps. Easy, but there are a lot of steps. Here’s how it works.

This morning, Adobe announced new features and updates for Premiere Pro, Character Animator and After Effects. Here are the details.

The Elgato Stream Deck is an easy-to-use, flexible and well-built external keyboard specifically designed to trigger actions by pushing a button with your fingers, not the mouse. For live events, webinars, gaming and general productivity, this is a great little device.

Most technical problems with media editing are often the result of insufficient bandwidth caused by bottlenecks in the media, the operating system, software, or hardware. This looks at each in detail to provide ideas to get your system working better.

The latest version of DaVinci Resolve introduced the Cut Page, an interface designed for high-speed, fast-turnaround, editing. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to sync, edit and trim multiple cameras using Resolve’s Cut page.

The Primary Storyline is an innovative way of editing and organizing clips in the Final Cut Pro Timeline. But many editors find it confusing. In this illustrated tutorial, I explain what it is, how it works and how to work-around it when you need to.

Here are 21 keyboard shortcuts that work on any Mac that can help you get your work done faster.

Recently, Adobe updated Premiere Pro to version 22 where one of the big new features is called: “Simplify Sequences.” In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how this feature works, the options it has and when it makes sense to use it.

Recently, Adobe updated Premiere Pro to version 22, where one of the new features is very mysterious – a hidden keyboard shortcut that can save you time – if only you can find it. Larry Jordan shows what this does, where it is and how to turn it on.

Yes, the new M1 MacBook Pro is very, very fast. But, the M1 did not win every race when tested against a 2013 MacBook Pro and a 2017 iMac. These twelve tests are a good comparison between performance benchmarks and real-world media processing of the improvements you can expect if you upgrade to these new systems.