Blog Archives

Picking a high-quality computer monitor for video editing is surprisingly confusing. Here is Larry Jordan’s explanation of what specs you need to look for, which you can ignore, and what criteria he uses for picking computer and video monitors.

What is a “Retina Display?” What does it do and what monitors support it? This tutorial explains the term, why it’s used and what it means.

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.

One of our favorite – and most wide-ranging – sessions returns with “Ask Larry Anything!” Presented by Larry Jordan, this is a free-form conversation based on questions submitted by viewers. In this short video, Larry answers Simone’s question about scanning photographs for digital video.

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.

Integrating vertical video into a horizontal video timeline is increasingly common. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how to do it using both Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro.

Video bit depth makes a difference when you are creating effects, color grading or working with HDR material. Here’s an explanation of what bit depth is and when to care about it.

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.

What I like about the Classic Color Meter is that it works the way you expect, measures colors six ways from Sunday and allows copying and pasting color values, even color images, from whatever you measured into whatever you need. Here’s how it works.

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 create virtual angles in a multicam clip to provide more diversity in shot selection, as well as how to create a montage using multicam in Final Cut Pro.

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.

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 …

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.”

Creating the illusion of night in video is not a case of turning off the lights. It a case of where those lights get put and the contrast between them.

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

Like many, I get confused about the differences between HDR, RAW, HDR, Log, LUT, and 10-bit media. All too often, the explanations are deeply technical – and confusing. So, here’s an overview of what these are and how to use them.

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 high dynamic range media, called “HDR,” in a standard dynamic range (SDR) project, like HD, 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 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.

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.

“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.

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.

SilverFast SE Plus 9, by LaserSoft Imaging, provides high-quality image scans for professional use. However, it has an interface that takes time to learn. It does a great job, not because of its interface, but in spite of it. Here’s my review.

I’m a long-time owner of an Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner. But, recently I purchased an Epson V850 Pro because I have a lot of slides to scan. In this review, I compare both and share the strengths and weaknesses of each.

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 explores the different variations of RGB color wheels in Resolve.

Connecting two scanners to the same computer is not as simple as plugging them in. Here’s what you need to know to get these to work.

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.

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.

Apple introduced new security technology with M1 Macs that affects 3rd-party RAIDs, hard disk and other external gear frequently used by professionals. Here’s what it is and how it affects you.

When you need to get the best streaming video possible – for Mac or Windows, live or recorded – here is the gear you need, links to find it and instructions on how to get it all to work.

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.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about subjects related to editing. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates the two key video scopes in Apple Final Cut Pro, how to read them and how to use them to fix color problems like color casts and dark exposure levels.

An illustrated tutorial on how to put different video inside each 3D text letter, while still keeping the 3D effect. This effect has multiple uses and lots of creative options to play with it, once the basic effect is created.

Adobe introduces Auto Tone in the beta version of Adobe Premiere Pro. Here’s a description of what this new automatic color correction tool does.

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.

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.

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.

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.