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.

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.

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.

Which combination of hard disk or SSD storage provides the fastest speed or highest capacity for video editing? This illustrated tutorial will answer these questions, plus provide a spreadsheet you can use to test your own numbers. This works for Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Apple Final Cut Pro editors.

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.

There’s an old axiom for everyone who works in video, “Editing is all about work arounds.” Carleton Cole presents a workaround for editing Microsoft Teams videos when the images randomly shift position.

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.

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.

Multicam recording captures an event using multiple cameras. Multicam editing displays all those angles during the edit. In this short video excerpt, Larry Jordan shows how to handle multi-channel audio in a Final Cut multicam clip.

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.

Based on a reader’s comment, this compares image quality between three different source codecs (ProRes, MPEG-2 and H.264) compressed into H.264 using Apple Compressor. This also illustrates how many CPU and GPU cores were active.

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!

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!

Why does Apple Final Cut Pro only use Apple silicon efficiency cores when exporting? And which cores do Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve use? Here’s a comparison between the three.

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, 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.

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!

Recently, the folks at ViewSonic contacted me about what they see as the top trends in 2022 for visual displays and monitors. I was intrigued by their list and emailed Jeff Volpe, President of ViewSonic Americas, to learn more. Larry: Jeff, …

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.

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.

Adobe updated Premiere Pro and After Effects with a flock of new features, but the headline feature is the integration of Frame.io. Here are the details on all the updates.

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 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.

Hidden in the top right corner of the Apple Final Cut Pro interface is a small icon with a lot of big features behind it. The Share icon. Here’s what it does.

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.”

This is an excerpt of a recent PowerUP webinar called “Ask Larry Anything.” In this short tutorial, Larry Jordan illustrates what video interlacing is, why deinterlacing is necessary and why deinterlacing always degrades video image quality.

This is an excerpt of a recent PowerUP webinar called “Ask Larry Anything.” In this short tutorial, Larry Jordan explains what makes video frame rate conversions so difficult.

Step-by-step illustrated instructions on how to encode image sequences using Adobe Media Encoder.

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.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about questions related to media production and editing. In this short excerpt, Larry Jordan explains what Final Cut Pro’s export tags are, where they are located and how to change them.

“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.

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

Leigh Reeves owns a Canon R5 camera and needs to record ProRes RAW to an Atomos Ninja V. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to configure the gear to do this.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The sound these monitors produce is very clean, crisp and rich that fills the space. If you are looking for accurate, high-quality sound in a small space, give these Yamaha monitor speakers a good listen. Larry Jordan has a review.

“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 export captions from YouTube, then what you need to do to convert them for import into Adobe Premiere.

“Ask Larry Anything,” is a free-form conversation about, well, anything you want to ask. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan demos the new Speech-to-Text transcript and caption workflow options in Adobe Premiere 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.

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.)