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Advanced video stabilisation with Premiere and After Effects

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One of the most off putting things for viewers of video is shaky footage. The best way to keep the camera steady is to use a tripod, but sometimes we want to add a little motion. Quality sliders can still cost a fair amount of money, and not everybody has a gimbal or other stabiliser. We just have to go regular handheld. But this often leads to bumpy footage. So, what can we do?

Adobe Premiere Pro has a built in Warp Stabiliser, but it doesn’t always do the best job. When it works, it works extremely well, but it often falls over and gives results we really didn’t expect. In this video from Miesner Media, Theo takes us on a round trip from Premiere to After Effects, and back to Premiere again, resulting in perfectly stabilised footage.

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How to create the dolly zoom effect without a zoom lens

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The dolly zoom, also known as the “Vertigo Effect” or “Hitchcock Zoom” can be an amazing technique to add tension or drama to a scene. It’s a process whereby the camera is dollied in toward your subject while the lens zooms out wide. Or, the reverse, where the camera moves away from your subject while the lens zooms in.

It’s a difficult technique to master, and almost impossible if shooting on your own. You have to move the camera, adjust the zoom of the lens, and try to keep your subject in focus all at the same time. This video from Lewis McGregor shows a technique to create a similar effect without doing any zooming whatsoever. But, there is a caveat. It won’t really work if your camera only shoots 1080p.

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An easy guide to colouring with LUTs in Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve

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Lookup Tables, or LUTs, are simply amazing. LUTs are like presets, but work across all platforms and software, for both video and stills. LUTs can be used for both colour correction, to bring cameras to a standard, and for giving your footage or images a desired “look”. But how do we use them?

In this video from Casey Faris, we see how to use LUTs for both correction and grading for video. Using both DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro, Casey walks us through the whole process.

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Adobe responds to QuickTime for Windows security flaw, offers native ProRes support

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Many Windows based video users have been concerned lately regarding security flaws which led Apple to pull all support for Quicktime for Windows, with the Federal Government going so far as recommending that Windows users completely remove it from their system.

Adobe have today announced a response to this issue, declaring that they are adding native support for ProRes into their products.

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Faking the tilt-shift video look in Adobe Premiere Pro

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Since the first tilt-shift timelapses started to appear online several years ago, it’s a look that’s been attempted, copied, and improved upon quite a bit.  Tilt-shift lenses, however, can be pretty expensive, and for something that you may only use occasionally, an expense you may not be able to justify.

As a consequence, the tilt-shift look of many videos is created in post.  In this video from VideoRevealed, Colin Smith shows us how we can quickly achieve the look in Adobe Premiere Pro.

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Edit your videos using a game controller

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If, like some, you spend the same amount of time playing Doom 4K as you are editing videos, you will absolutely like this hack for using a game controller to control premiere.

Editor Casey Faris has a pretty sweet setup using Logitech Gamepad controller (about $20). The secret sauce is the actual mapping of the buttons. Casey uses a free software called xPadder  (here is a link to the free version)

Of course, using the gamepad only makes sense if it actually expedites your workflow, if it makes you go slow, there is no point in using it. And the magic to making it fast is mapping the right buttons to the right shortcuts. And what do you know, Casey shares his layout on the video link.

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Create an entire new keyboard of shortcodes with this hack

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If you are editing a lot of videos, you know that shortcodes and hot-keys are essential for fast editing. We actually shared a tip on using gaming keyboards for editing becasue they have more keys that you can assign macros to.

But LinusTechTips just upped the game of adding shortcodes by creating a whole 87-shorcut keyboard form a cheap $15 keyboard. Of course, the video editor from LinusTechTips is kinda of an extreme-case in the sense that he already has his entire letter-set, numbers, shift, alt and control combos assigned to macros and he needed MORE macro buttons.[Read More…]

One Up Your Editing Game By Using A Gaming Mouse

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If you are reading this blog, you know that we are big fan of keyboard short cuts, but for some programs, working with a mouse is unavoidable. I was talking with an editor friend, Ariel Hadar from Kaveret, and he showed me quite an awesome was to utilize a gaming mouse and keyboard to get the benefits that you would get when working with a keyboard while working with a mouse. The best of both worlds.

Of course, this means that you are the type that likes working with shortcuts, and just want to take it up to the next level. If you like working with menus, move along, this is not the hack you’re looking for…

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Adobe Creative Cloud Update Brings Native 4K+8K support and more focus on Video Apps is more attractive

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Today, Adobe has updated its Creative Cloud video tools with features it first showed off at IBC and Adobe MAX earlier this year.

The updates bring a host of new and revamped capabilities for Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC and Audition CC. Below, we’ll dive into some of the details of the updates.[Read More…]

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