Blog Archives

DaVinci Resolve is a high-power media editing program. It is also very intimidating to learn. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to use the tools in the Cut page to get started learning Resolve. The Cut page is designed for projects with deadlines measured in minutes. It is a very fast way to edit.

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.

New to the latest (v22) version of Adobe Premiere Pro is “Simplify Sequence.” This allows you to remove empty tracks, disable clips with specific labels, and remove markers, or other user-specified elements. Larry Jordan illustrates how this works in this tutorial.

I’m a keyboard shortcut junkie. Many editors can edit happily and well using only the mouse. I am not one of them. Here’s a list of 50 hidden keyboard shortcuts that make editing, trimming and navigation in Adobe Premiere Pro a LOT faster.

The revised speech-to-text transcription and caption workflow in Adobe Premiere Pro is fast, easy to use and, now. extremely useful. If you haven’t looked at the new options for Speech-to-Text in Adobe Premiere Pro, now is a great time to start. This one feature can save you hours.

“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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

When you export a finished project from Apple Final Cut Pro, you can specify a variety of labels with the file. What are these, how do you change them, and what applications can read them? Learn more!

“Ask Larry Anything!” is a free-form conversation about technical questions of interest to video editors. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to modify track labels in Adobe Premiere Pro. Plus, he’ll illustrate how to create custom workspaces for a personalized interface.

“Ask Larry Anything!” is a free-form conversation about technical questions of interest to video editors. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to embed labels, called “metadata,” into video files during compression using Apple Compressor that can be viewed later during playback. These files could be ProRes, MP4, MP3 or QuickTime.

Adobe has made continual improvements to the color grading controls and video scopes in Premiere Pro. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to analyze your images using the video scopes inside Premiere.

Here are almost two dozen hidden interface secrets to Final Cut Pro. How many of these do you know?

EditMentor is an online education tool that teaches the craft of editing. It is deep, extensive and well-thought-out. It is obviously a labor of love on the part of the EditMentor team, with a clear focus on education. Here’s a review.

Here are ten keyboard shortcuts that make Apple Motion a whole lot easier to use – and ones I wish I knew a month ago.

Motion has a virtually limitless package of lights that can be positioned for both 2D and 3D elements. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates the four different light types in Apple Motion, and how they are used.

Final Cut Libraries store stuff. But how that stuff is organized is up to you. Here are a variety of thoughts on working with libraries in Apple Final Cut Pro X.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains some of the key settings you need to consider when configuring a multi-camera source sequence for editing in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Whether you use Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro X for your edit, you can clean, edit and mix your audio faster and better in Adobe Audition. In this excerpt, Larry Jordan shows how to move a project from Final Cut Pro X into Audition for audio clean-up and mixing, then, bring the final mix back into Final Cut for output.

A list of folders where Adobe Premiere Pro stores settings and work files. These are the first place to look when you need to track down a missing file.

New in the Sept. 2020 update to Adobe Premiere is an improved HDR workflow for Rec. 2100 HLG HDR media. Adobe continues to upgrade Premiere to support HDR. However, the process is not painless. Here’s an illustrated tutorial showcasing what you need to know.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use several new – but hidden – Viewer features in the latest 10.4.9 version of Apple Final Cut Pro X.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use several new – but hidden – Browser features in the latest 10.4.9 version of Apple Final Cut Pro X.

I first wrote these “Media Planning Guidelines” as a series of bullet points to help us think about media and the storage necessary for video editing. In this article, I expand these to explain my thinking to help you make better media decisions for your next project.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan discusses the impact of video frame size, frame rate and codec on storage capacity and video editing, whether you use Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro X.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains why converting video frame rates often causes video playback to stutter, whether you use Adobe Premiere Pro or Apple Final Cut Pro X.

An illustrated tutorial on how to create a countdown video in Final Cut Pro X that displays remaining minutes and seconds. Then, I show how to embed it into Keynote for a presentation.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan answers a question about how to catalog and find media files, this also features demos of Image Chest and Kyno software.

Unlike “normal” still images, working with a layered Photoshop (PSD) file in Adobe Premiere Pro provides a variety of options that can be useful in a video edit. This illustrated tutorial explains what they are.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to create, modify and search on keywords in Apple Final Cut Pro X. He also illustrates how to create Smart Collections.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to create and customize keyboard shortcuts in Apple Final Cut Pro X.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates a hidden feature in Apple Final Cut Pro X that can improve media handling during import.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains what the Media Import settings mean and how to optimize them for editing in Final Cut.

Hidden inside Final Cut is a batch renaming feature that makes renaming clips fast and easy. This illustrated tutorial shows where it is and how it works.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates different techniques to organize, move, copy and delete clips in the Adobe Premiere timeline.

If you haven’t used the Timeline Index, you are missing a powerful tool to help track and organize the contents of your projects. Here’s what it does and how to use it.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains how to automatically transcode media from one format to another, plus create proxy files, during import in Adobe Premiere Pro.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to access, add, modify and delete keyboard shortcuts for Adobe Premiere Pro.

In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates how to optimize Premiere Pro’s preference settings for video editing.

Productions were introduced by Adobe as a collaboration feature. But, even if you are a solo editor, there’s a lot to like in Productions. Here are Larry Jordan’s thoughts on Productions.

Victor asked me to outline an organizational structure for narrative storytelling in Final Cut Pro X. While there is no “best” way, here is a system you can use and modify for your next project, with some very cool keyword tricks.