Blog Archives

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.

New with the 4.5.3 update to Compressor are compression settings which simplify cropping and compressing square and vertical media. These new settings simplify the conversion of, say, horizontal media to vertical making it easier to repurpose existing assets for new uses.

Last week, Apple released updates for Final Cut Pro, Motion and Compressor. Both Final Cut and Compressor added new features, while all three applications saw significant bug fixes. Here’s the full list of what’s new.

We love the look of film, but the world has gone digital. In this guest blog, Drew Gula, from SoundStripe.com, explores the balance between digital media and creating a film look.

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.

New Pfieffer Report testing confirms Adobe software, running natively on M1 Macs, is far, FAR faster than the same software running on Intel Macs. Speeds are almost double. Read the details here.

Recent versions of Final Cut Pro have a feature called: “Consolidate Library Media.” This tutorial looks at what this feature does, when to use it and how it can aid archiving and collaboration.

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.

New with the May, 2021, update to both Premiere Pro and Audition is the Loudness Meter. The Loudness Meter displays average audio levels on an instant-by-instant basis and complements the Loudness Radar. Here’s how to use it.

Adobe updated both Audition and Premiere Pro in their May, 2021, release. Here’s what’s new.

The iRig Pre HD means you can travel wherever you want, with whatever mics you want and record them on whatever device you have handy and get high quality results. Here are the details.

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 the best way to modify and copy titles and compound clips to retain position settings in Apple Final Cut Pro.

“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 create, delete and modify proxy settings in Apple Final Cut Pro.

“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 create a custom compression setting, using Apple Compressor, to create a 10-bit HEVC video file with surround sound.

“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.

Simon Says, an AI transcription and video assembly platform for video professionals, just released a workflow extension panel for Adobe Premiere Pro. While Simon Says has supported web-based transcription for several years, the news here is the Premiere extension. This …

In a world where videos move millions and a picture is more powerful – and popular – than the written word, a key survival skill is how well you communicate visually. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows the importance of the 180° Rule and the impact of changing the position of camera and talent on the impact of your visuals.

In a world where videos move millions and a picture is more powerful – and popular – than the written word, a key survival skill is how well you communicate visually. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan demonstrates “eyelines,” what they are and how they help our eye explore an image.

In a world where videos move millions and a picture is more powerful – and popular – than the written word, a key survival skill is how well you communicate visually. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan explains The Six Priorities that determine where the eye looks FIRST in an image and how they help guide a viewer in exploring it.

Bryan asked me to explain the media workflow for both master and proxy files from Frame.io’s “Camera 2 Cloud” into Final Cut Pro. It is surprisingly easy – provided you start in the right place.

Here’s how to create a logo or shape in Photoshop, fill it with moving video in Final Cut Pro, then place that over a moving background. This works with video or stills and with any text, logos or shapes you care to use. Plus, it is fun to create – once you know how.

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 use the Hue / Saturation Curves to change the colors of a portion of an image, for example, to change the color of a shirt.

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 change the color grade as colors change within a single shot; for example, as an actor walks from daylight in to interior lighting.

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 use the Video Limiter in Premiere Pro to make sure your video levels stay within legal boundaries.

When it comes time to mix your video project in Premiere Pro, one of the more tedious – but necessary – tasks is cutting dialog to remove unwanted sounds, then filling the gaps with room tone. Here’s a much faster way to do this – using the Essential Sound panel.

Cutting dialog and mixing room tone into the gaps is a tedious and boring part of any video project. Here’s a MUCH faster way to do this using Adobe Audition.

The Lume Cube panels are solidly built, easily adjustable, and come with flexible mounting options for different situations. I bought these for myself – here’s my review.

Nothing makes audio editing super-fast. But these are the techniques I use each week in my programs to improve the quality of my sound without wasting a lot of time editing.

This is a very fast and flexible technique to add multiple images to an Apple Final Cut Pro project, think a Zoom video, where each image is in a shape that can be scaled, animated, positioned and changed quickly and easily.

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.

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 use the new Comparison View in Premiere.

It’s easy to digitize SD video. But the quality isn’t great, the audio is often noisy and the results, for pros, are disappointing. Here’s a system to digitize older media and maximize audio and video quality.

When it comes to updating the operating system on my main production Mac, I’m a laggard. This is by intent. Still, I finally decided it was time to upgrade. Here’s what I learned in the process.

Both the new M1 and existing T2 chips from Apple support hardware-assisted encoding and decoding of H.264 and HEVC media. Here’s how to enable them in Apple Compressor.

In March, Adobe released the new 2021 versions of Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Media Encoder, and the rest of their audio and video applications. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use the new media replacement feature in Motion Graphic templates in Adobe Premiere Pro.

In March, Adobe released the new 2021 versions of Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Media Encoder, and the rest of their audio and video applications. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to use the new insert recording features in both the Waveform Editor and Multitrack Mixer in Adobe Audition.

In March, Adobe released the new 2021 versions of Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Media Encoder, and the rest of their audio and video applications. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to verify the quality of your audio media – and how to repair problems with DC Offset – using Adobe Audition.

With the release of the March, 2021, update to Premiere Pro, Adobe introduced a new caption workflow. You can create edit, stylize, and export captions and subtitles in all supported formats. Here’s an illustrated tutorial on how this new system works.

This week, Adobe released new versions of its video and audio applications: Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Media Encoder, Character Animator and Premiere Rush. There is a LOT in these new releases. Here are the details.

Audio is a huge part of any project. But, all too often, we ignore the audio to concentrate on the image – only to discover that the emotional heart is missing. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows a variety of ways to set audio levels in Final Cut.

Audio is a huge part of any project. But, all too often, we ignore the audio to concentrate on the image – only to discover that the emotional heart is missing. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to add, modify, fine-tune and automate audio transitions in Apple Final Cut Pro.

Audio is a huge part of any project. But, all too often, we ignore the audio to concentrate on the image – only to discover that the emotional heart is missing. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to work with double-system sound – where the audio is recorded separately from the video – in Apple Final Cut Pro.

Audio is a huge part of any project. But, all too often, we ignore the audio to concentrate on the image – only to discover that the emotional heart is missing. In this short video tutorial, Larry Jordan shows how to work with auditions in Final Cut Pro to compare audio clips.

Most of us have heard of Apple’s transition from Intel CPUs to its own Apple silicon. But these new systems upend the established rules for how to configure a computer system for media editing. Here’s what you need to know about the new M1 SoC from Apple.

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