Booklet Adobe After Effects Cs6 LBV

Photoshop Lightroom
Adobe Adobe After Effects CS6 4

LEARN BY VIDEO
Adobe After Effects CS6: Learn by Video

video2brain GmbH Todd Kopriva Angie Taylor Copyright 2013 by video2brain GmbH Peachpit Press 1249 Eighth Street Berkeley, CA 94710 510/524-2178 510/524-2221 (fax) Find us on the Web at www.peachpit.com To report errors, please send a note to errata@peachpit.com Peachpit Press is a division of Pearson Education. Adobe After Effects CS6: Learn by Video is published in association with Adobe Press. For the latest on Adobe Press books, go to www.adobepress.com Acquisitions Editor: Victor Gavenda Project Editor: Tracey Croom Media Producer: Eric Geoffroy Proofreader: Liz Welch Package design: Charlene Charles-Will Package imagery: Provided by Adobe Systems Inc. Book interior design: Danielle Foster
Notice of Rights
All rights reserved. No part of this video training book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. The software and media files on this disc are copyrighted by the authors and Peachpit. You have the non-exclusive right to use these programs and files. You may use them on one computer at a time. You may not transfer the files from one computer to another over a network. You may transfer the files onto a single hard disk so long as you can prove ownership of the original disc. For information on getting permission for reprints and excerpts, contact permissions@peachpit.com.
Notice of Liability
The information in this video training book is distributed on an As Is basis, without warranty. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the video training book, neither the trainers nor video2brain GmbH nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this video training book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.
Trademarks
Adobe After Effects is a trademark or registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All rights reserved. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this video training book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this video training book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this video training book. ISBN-13: 978-0-321-84038-7 ISBN10: 0-321-84038-0 987654321 Printed and bound in the United States of America
DVD Contents
Introducing After Effects CS6

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 What Is Adobe After Effects and Where Does It Come From? Course Introduction Whats New in After Effects CS6 Dont Worry, Its Only a Dialog Box Basic Workflow and Terminology Overview
Creating Compositions and Layers

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Creating Compositions and Changing Composition Settings Creating Text with the Character Panel Controlling Blocks of Text with the Paragraph Panel Creating Shape Layers Working with Solids
Interface Tour
2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 The Project Panel and Flowchart Panel The Composition Panel and the Layer Panel The Timeline Panel The Preview Panel The Effects & Presets Panel, Bridge, and the Effect Controls Panel Colors, Channels, and Color Bit Depth Modifying Preferences and Keyboard Shortcuts Configuring the User Interface
Importing Footage
4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Importing Movies Importing Still Images and Image Sequences Importing Photoshop and Illustrator Files Importing Projects
Interpreting and Managing Footage

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Interpreting Footage Manually and Automatically Fields and Interlacing Pixel Aspect Ratios Trimming Footage and Layers
Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo
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DVD Contents
6 Animation Basics
6.1 6.2 6.3 Animating Transform Properties Working with Motion Paths Using Motion Sketch to Record Motion
10 Basic Compositing
10.1 Blending Layers with Blending Modes 10.2 Alpha Channels and Transparency 10.3 Isolating a Subject with a Mask 10.4 Color Keying 10.5 Motion Tracking and Rotoscoping 10.6 The 3D Camera Tracker
Fine-Tuning Animation
7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Working in the Layer Panel Anchor Point Animation Keyframe Types Keyframe Assistants The Graph Editor
11 Effects
11.1 Understanding Effect Categories 11.2 Animating Effect Properties 11.3 Brainstorming 11.4 Using Compound Effects 11.5 Fixer Effects 11.6 Layer Styles 11.7 Effect Presets 11.8 Adjustment Layers (Force Motion Blur)
Animating Text Layers

8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Importing Photoshop Text Applying Animators Combining Animators Animation Presets
Fun with Shape Layers

9.1 9.2 Ways to Create Shapes Shape Layers for Text Effects
12 Time
12.1 Frame Rates 12.2 Time Stretching and Time Remapping 12.3 Slowing Motion, Freezing a Frame, and Reversing Time
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13 Grouping and Linking

13.1 Nesting 13.2 Pre-Composing 13.3 Parenting 13.4 Using Nulls 13.5 Expressions
16 Render Order and

Collapsing Transformations
16.1 Standard Render Order and the Transform Effect 16.2 Collapsing Transformations
17 Output Options
17.1 Rendering and Exporting with the Render Queue 17.2 Exporting with the Adobe Media Encoder 17.3 Collecting Files
14 Introduction to 3D
14.1 Working with 3D Layers 14.2 Axis Modes 14.3 Bending Layers 14.4 Extruding Shapes 14.5 Cameras 14.6 Lights 14.7 Material Options (Environment Layers) 14.8 Depth of Field 14.9 Environment Layers
18 Project Explorations and Recap

18.1 Preparing Cinema 4D Projects for After Effects 18.2 Compositing C4D Multipass Renders in After Effects 18.3 Using a Simple Effect and Duplicate Layers for Creative Results 18.4 Using Basic Color Correction and Light Wrap for Compositing 18.5 Closing Thoughts
15 Memory and Performance

15.1 Setting Up After Effects for Optimum Performance with 64-Bit Systems 15.2 RAM and Disk Caching
Booklet Contents
Introduction Adobe Creative Suite 6 Editors Notes
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A Personal Perspective . . . . . . . . . . 2 Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Premiere Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 After Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Audition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Encore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Glossary
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B ooklet Contents
Introduction
Introduction
Welcome to Adobe After Effects CS6 Learn by Video

Adobe After Effects is an incredibly deep and rich set of tools for creating motion graphics, manipulating movies, adding visual effects, and more. In this Learn by Video course, youll learn how to make the most of this powerful software, including the new features in After Effects CS6. After getting an overview of the workflow and the user interface, you will learn how to create projects and compositions, bring assets into After Effects, and configure the software for optimum performance. Then youll get up to speed on the fundamentals of animation, learning how to use keyframes, motion paths, layers, text, and more. In the following chapters youll learn a range of com positing features, such as the new variablewidth masks and 3D camera tracker fea tures, as well as basic masking and color keying. Youll get comfortable working with effects, time stretching and time remapping, layer groups, 3D, and transformations. And of course youll see how to output your projects using either the render queue or Adobe Media Encoder. The lessons are wrapped in a feature-rich interface that lets you jump to any topic and bookmark individual sections for later review. Full-Screen mode provides a hi-def, immersive experience, and Watch-and-Work mode shrinks the video into a small window so you can play the videos alongside your application. This course also includes project files so you can
follow along and try out new techniques as you learn them.
About This Book

This booklet is intended to provide food for thought, giving some personal perspective on the why as well as the how of navigating the Adobe Creative Suite and some of the creative choices involved in choosing work flows. Hopefully this text will serve as a helpful accompaniment to the video training.
How to Use This Course

The video2brain interface is easy to use, but it also has a large number of options. Weve pro vided this brief guide to give you a tour of the interface and make sure you dont miss out on any of its features. This course comes in a few different flavors. You can run the Mac application (labeled Start or Start.app) or the Windows application (.exe) file, or you can open start.html in your browser. Most people will use one of the application versions of the course. If youre working with an operating system that doesnt support one of these two options, such as Linux, the browser version is a great alternativeit works on any browser with a current version of Adobe Flash. The main difference between running the course as an application versus opening it in your browser is that the application versions include an option, discussed in more detail later in this guide, called Watch-and-Work mode. Watch-and-Work mode lets you watch the course
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in a smaller window while you follow along in another application. This option doesnt exist in the browser version of the course. Whether youre using the application or brow ser version, when you first launch the course, you will see the Welcome screen.
the courses titles and descriptive text to help you find what youre looking for.
Starting the Course

When youre ready to dive in, you have several options for how to get started:
To begin at the beginning and play all the way through, click Play All Videos. To access a list of every video available in the training, click Table of Contents. To start with Chapter 1 (or any chapter that appeals to you), click the chapter name on the left of your screen.
The Welcome Screen

From here, there are a few ways you can proceed:
Click the Play icon in the middle of the screen to watch a video that introduces you to the instructor(s) and gives you an overview of whats covered in the course. For onscreen help and a users manual, click either the Help item on the menu at the top of your screen or the Need Help item at the bottom of the Content panel. You can also access help by pressing F1 on your keyboard. Entering a word or phrase in the Search field in the upper right of the screen will search
You can navigate the Table of Contents and Chapter views using your mouse, or using the keyboard to arrow up and down, left and right. When youve selected a movie, you can press the right arrow to play that movie.
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Introduction
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In the Table of Contents or Chapter view, any time you move your mouse over the name of a chapter or video, text describing the contents of that item will appear on the right side of your screen. This area is known as the Sidebar and is discussed in detail on the next page.
Navigating Inside a Video

While watching a video, you can use the buttons along the bottom right of your screen to toggle both Full-Screen mode 1 and video smoothing 2 on and off. You can adjust the volume 3 from here as well. You can also click and drag the green line 4 in the timeline at the bottom of the screen to move around within the video. When the video ends, click the Next Video button at the top right of the window to go directly to the next lesson. (This will happen automatically if you clicked Play All Chapter Videos to launch the chapter.) At the end of a chapter, this option will change to Next Chapter. You can also click Training Content at any time to leave the player and choose another lesson or click the navigation bar near the top of the screen to access the table of contents.
If you click the name of a chapter, youll see a list of all the videos in that chapter. Choose the video you want to start with or click Play All Chapter Videos to start with the first video in the chapter and go all the way through.
Keyboard Shortcuts for the Player

Spacebar: Play/pause Right Arrow: Jump forward Left Arrow: Jump backward Tab: Show/hide Sidebar B: Add bookmark M: Show/hide navigation bar Esc: Turn off Full-Screen mode
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Resizing Your Window

The player interface gives you a few different options for resizing your window to fit your needs. Click the Full-Screen icon 1 to enter FullScreen mode. You can exit Full-Screen mode by clicking the icon again or by pressing the Esc key. You can also dynamically resize your window while watching simply by grabbing the lower-right corner of the window and dragging until the window is the size you want. In the application versions of the course, you can also choose Watch-and-Work mode 2 from the player. This takes you to a smaller screen that leaves room for you to work in another application alongside the course. Click the Standard button to return to a regular-size screen.
Using Bookmarks
Its easy to create a bookmark in the video to mark where you left off or make note of some thing you want to refer back to later. Just click the Bookmark button at the bottom right or use the B keyboard shortcut. You will see the Create Bookmark dialog box.
The Sidebar
The Sidebar is an area on the right side of the player where additional informa tion, such as a description of the video youre watching, is displayed. At the bottom are buttons that enable you to access your bookmarks or a list of videos in the chapter. To turn the Sidebar on or off, you can press Tab or click the button in the navigation bar.
Enter a name for your bookmark and an optional note, then click Save or press Enter/Return. The bookmark will then be visible as a thin line in the timeline. You can access your bookmarks by clicking My Bookmarks at the top of the screen or via Video Bookmarks in the Sidebar. Just click the bookmark to go to your previously marked point. To delete a bookmark, click the Trashcan icon to the right of the bookmark and confirm your deletion by clicking Yes.
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Introduction
Test Yourself
This course includes a number of Test Yourself sections, each of which contains a series of questions about the topics covered in that chapter.
After answering any question, click the Submit Answer button at the bottom left to indicate that youre finished. A dialog box will pop up to let you know whether you got the question right. (If you get a question wrong and want to see the correct answer, press and hold F, A , and N on your keyboard at the same time. A check mark will appear in the box next to the right answer.) This dialog box also contains a button that will take you to the next question. When youre finished answering all the questions, click Training Content to return to the table of contents.
Just click the box for the right answer.
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About the Authors
About video2brain
video2brain (video2brain.com) has been Europes premier source for video training since 2002. We produce high-quality English, German, French, and Spanish video training on a variety of software topics, with a special emphasis on graphics, web design, photography, and programming. Our customers include people just starting out, professionals, educational institutions, and global corporations as well as home enthusiasts. All of our courses are available in 1280 x 720 Hi-Def video, with a full-screen mode that creates an immersive learning experience. They also include an interactive, easy-to-use interface; custom bookmarks that let you annotate your course and remember where you left off; and Watch-and-Work mode, so you can practice as you learn. Were passionate about teaching and about helping you build exceptional skills so you can create extraordinary work. Our mission is to provide the best and most affordable video training possible, and to offer you a feature-rich learning environment aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of ourtraining. video2brain was founded by Gerhard Koren, a v2b trainer himself. Our home office is nestledamong the mountains of the Austrian Alps in the city of Graz, a student city with six universities.
About Todd Kopriva and Angie Taylor

Todd Kopriva has led the Adobe team that creates documentation and training materials for After Effects since version 7.0. Todd spends much of his time helping After Effects users of all levels on various online forums, and hes often the person answering questions at the Ask the Expert station in the Adobe booth at trade shows. Todd combines a technical understanding of software and computers with a strong desire to help people to create art. Angie Taylor is Creative Director at GridIron Software Inc. She studied Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art (Heriot-Watt University) and had a 14-year career as a motion graphic artist producing animation, visual effects, and motion graphics for television, film, video, and the web. Examples of her work could be regularly seen on the BBC and Channel 4 in the UK and across Europe. Angie delivers software demonstrations and seminars on digital filmmaking and animation processes at international trade shows and conferences like NAB, IBC, and Macworld. She has provided custom training and consulting to such companies as the BBC, Channel 4, Carlton, HTV, and MTV.
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Adobe Creative Suite 6 Editors Notes

by Maxim Jago
A Personal Perspective
The video, graphics, and audio editing applications included with Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection and Production Premium provide powerful tools, including countless automation features, to support you in your creative work. Very often, just playing with the tools and options available will open up new avenues as you try out different ways of conveying your message and giving your audience unique experiences.
One of the challenges many editors face is not so much understanding which button to click or which menu to select from as why to do so. The question of when to use one effect rather than another, or whether to use a faster workflow or a more flexible one, is often answered simply by experience. The purpose of these Editors Notes is to offer a personal perspective on many of the creative choices you will be faced with when using applications in the Adobe Creative Suite. I hope understanding my approach will help you make well-directed, intentional creative choices. in achieving anything and get it wrong. If you achieved the result you were looking for, you got it right. Like driving through a city, there are several ways of getting from A to B; what matters is that you get there. Sometimes one way to get there is to randomly click until you get the result you want. However, my advice is to never randomly click. If you are not sure what you are doing, always watch carefully what you click and observe the result. This way, when you find yourself successfully achieving things, you will know why and you will be able to retrace your steps, learning as you go. This is the path toward technology mastery and it is a simple matter of self-awareness. Making random clicks and occasionally being successful will teach you only that random clicking is sometimes successful.
Many Paths
You will frequently find that there are many paths up the mountainmultiple ways of achieving exactly the same resultand this can be confusing. In Premiere Pro, for example, you can play back video in at least four ways and get almost exactly the same result each time: Video and sound play back so you can watch and listen. You might believe you have it all worked out, and then someone comes along and presses a different button and you think, Oh, I didnt understand it. But you did! And here is the first lesson: Because of the way computers are designed, it is impossible for you to succeed
Reading On
This text is divided into different sections focusing on different applications, so you can read it in any order, depending on the application you are interested in. However, concepts will be built on from one chapter to the next and you will probably benefit most by reading it in order from start to finish.
A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes
Story
The message from Hollywood is clear: Everything starts with the story. Adobe has taken some impressive steps toward developing Story into a front-loading metadata engine as well as a comprehensive scriptwriting tool.
Story also has an excellent facility for combining multiple documents in a single project. I highly recommend using this feature. You can always make a folder on your hard drive and keep peripheral documents together there, but it helps to be able to use the access anywhere, cloud-based computing Story offers.
Finding Yourself
When writing, I commonly use a series of symbols as placeholders for work still to do. For example, if there is some dialogue that needs work or if I have reached a particular scene and its time to sleep, Ill type in ###. This is some thing that will never appear in the regular text, so it is super-easy to search for. If you press Ctrl/ Command+F, Story displays the Search and Re place panel, so you can locate your placeholder text with ease. Or you can select some text and click the New Comment button that appears on the right of the page. I commonly use this feature to leave messages for my future self to find. The more you can put reminders into the text and get your to-do list out of your mind and onto the page, the more brain power you will have left to concentrate on the creative work at hand.
Writing in Waves
When editing a sequence in Premiere Pro, it is always my advice to go all the way through the edit making incremental adjustments rather than fine-cutting every clip. The same approach works for scriptwriting. When you are struggling to find a way to communicate a characters feelings, dont get bogged down trying to solve that one problem; just move on to the next scene, or the next, or the next. The trick is to get to the end, so you can go back to the start and work through every scene again. The difference is that now you know exactly how things turn out (at least until you rewrite). The extra knowledge and understanding can only come through actually writing scenes in full that might start out as nothing more than seed ideas.
A Clear View
I find the tagging features in Story particularly useful as a pre-production aid. However, once your script is tagged, you may find it looks rather messy. Even if you keep all of your tags color-coded black, you may have trouble
getting your eye to flow naturally across the text. I usually toggle the Show Bold and Show Color options off and on as needed. I also tend to use the Custom breakdown report (accessed by going to Production > Breakdown reports > Custom) rather than the prebuilt ones. If you turn on pretty much every option except Dialogues, you will get a top-level spreadsheet to use as a main reference for your production. I especially encourage you to download the desktop AIR application version of Story. When you install this version, Story can store a local copy of your work that is synchronized with
the cloud when you are online. When you are offline, you can continue working without interruption. You can download the installer for this version of Story by going to the Story home page and clicking the link.
Premiere Pro
Premiere Pro is an incredibly flexible nonlinear editing system. Its unique open format support allows you to combine multiple file types, frame rates, and frame sizes on a single timeline, with many visual effects working in real time thanks to the CUDA support in the latest versions. This enables you to think less about the logistics and get on with the editing. I think this is a good thing!
Staying Organized
Dont worry so much about being organized that it prevents you from getting on with the edit, but be considerate of your future self. When you return to your edit tomorrow, next week, or next month, will you have a clear sense of what is going on in your project? dance, sing, read books, and relax and dont think for a moment about your edit. When you get back and sit down at your editing system, will you know whats going on with the edit? If you think being away from your edit for two weeks might result in not knowing which sequence you should be working on, which effect presets relate to this project, what needs to happen next, and what your deliverables are, you need to make more notes for yourself.
Working with Multiple Media Sources

When working on a complex project with multiple media sources, you can sometimes get confused about sequence and output settings. All that really matters is that you focus on your output deliverables.
Imagine that in the middle of an edit, you save your work, quit out of Premiere Pro, and shut down your computer. You stand up, pick up some luggage, and leave for the airport to take a two-week holiday. While on vacation, you
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Clients are sometimes a little vague about exactly what they want, and its not a good idea to wait until the end of the edit to check in with them and confirm. My advice is to propose very precisely what you will deliver, with specific format information and even the medium youll deliver on (it could be a hard drive, a tape, a DVD, or an FTP server). Make sure your client confirms that they are happy with your pro posal, then use it to guide your decisions throughout the edit. Always focus on your output standard. This is what you are conforming to. You may have a mixture of media resolutions, including standard-definition and high-definition content. If you are supplying a 1280x720 progressive media file, use that as your sequence setting and have everything conform to it throughout the edit.
Even if your client wants a standard-definition master tape, shooting in high definition allows you to pan and scan around inside the picture in real time and keep a sharp image. This effectively allows you to reframe during the edit. If you are in a hurry when shooting, you can frame your shots very wide to make sure you cover the action and then either hunt around the picture to follow events using Pre miere Pros motion keyframe controls or simply scale and reposition the shot. If you are working with lots of media that have different frame sizes, consider turning on the Premiere Pro preference that makes all media scale to frame size when added to a sequence. Though this can make it harder to keep track of what is a natural fit and what isnt (because almost everything will look like a good fit), it can save you quite a few mouse clicks.
Assembly Edits Become Fine Cuts

When checking over your media in the Source panel, you can add in and out marks that will be persistent in the bin. This means that the next time you look at that clip, the in and out marks you added will still be there. You can also create subclips, which are shorter sections of your original clip that link to the same original media file on your hard drive. Subclips help you stay organized but have no particular effect on the performance of your editing system, so they are very handy. Note that you can right-click a subclip in the Project panel and edit its settings, meaning you can change the in and out points if you need to.
One of the lovely features of Premiere Pro is that it conforms only at the point of playback. This means that you can have higherresolution media on your timeline and pan and scan around it without everything going soft. Consider doing this with high-definition media when working on a standard-definition project.
When adding in and out marks, avoid making really careful selections. In fact, if you can do without in and out marks altogether, even better! Premiere Pro has great shortcuts and tools for removing unwanted parts of your clips on the timeline, and its always better to make your choices therein the context of all your other clipsrather than in the separate view of the Source panel. As you develop your edit, a pace and flow will emerge that you will want to sustain. You probably wont be able to tell what that is until you actually begin editingso, again, making careful selections in the Source panel can end up wasting time if you discover you need to adjust the timing of your edits later. There are occasions, of course, where you really need to check if a clip is long enough or if a piece of action is usable by accurately marking it. In this instance, go for it! For example, imagine you are editing a medieval drama and a bus drives past in the background of a shot. You want to use the shot but youre not sure there is enough of it before the bus arrivesthis would be a perfect time to use very careful in and out marks in the Source panel. Otherwise, save it for the keyboard shortcuts, mouse clicks, and trimming tools of the timeline.
avoid reediting sections of your timeline when you discover that clips later in the edit wont mix with earlier clips and you need to restructure things.
Editing in Phases
Think of editing as sanding wood. You start with the really rough adjustments, then incrementally get finer until you achieve a mirror finish. This leads to consistency in your edit, with an identifiable pace and rhythm. It also helps you
The keyboard is usually faster than the mouse, but it can be difficult to go through a list of endless keyboard shortcuts to memorize them. If you can get a dedicated Premiere Pro colorcoded keyboard, youll find you instantly get faster at editing, as almost every key has a use ful function. If not, try promising yourself you will learn just one keyboard shortcut every time you sit down to edit. Start with the regular keys, without modifier keys (like Shift or Ctrl), and youll notice that learning one shortcut often means learning two or three.
Very soon, you will know the core keys you use every day and your work will speed up. Here are a few I use all the time:
J, K, and L: These three keys act as a shuttle controller. Each time you press L, Premiere Pro will play clips or your timeline one step faster. J plays backwards and K is Stop. I tend to use these keys instead of the Spacebar as my default Play controls. I and O: Pretty obvious and the ones you are most likely to know alreadythey add in and out marks. Q and W: Q sends the playhead to your in mark; W sends it to your out mark. G: Removes both in and out marks. \: Adjusts the timeline zoom to display your entire sequence. T: Brings up the dedicated Trim panel. - and = (at the top of your keyboard, rather than on the numeric keypad): These zoom the timeline in and out. This makes more sense when you look at the keys, because the = key also has the + symbol on it. + and (on the numeric keypad): Press one of these and then enter some numbers followed by the Enter key to have Premiere Pro incrementally move the playhead. For example, if you type +1201 and then press Enter, Premiere Pro will move the playhead ahead 12 seconds and 1 frame. Try this outits a really quick way to jump around the timeline or Source panel. If you use the numbers without the + or , Premiere Pro will interpret your entry as an absolute
value. In this example, it would take you to 00:00:12:01. This is very useful if you have notes from a client based on specific times in your sequence.
Cutting to the Beat

Your audience will unconsciously relate to the beat of any music in your sequence. In a way, as the editor, this means relating to the music is the same as relating to the viewer. When you are cutting to music, you can set the tone by subtly timing your edits before, on, or after the beat. If you make your cuts just before the beat, the feeling will be urgent. Right on the beat feels steady, almost like a march. Just after the beat feels lazy and unhurried. You can achieve the same effect when cutting dialogue. There is a natural rhythm to speech, and people who engage in natural dialogue with positive empathy tend to match breathing patterns and vocal timing. If you want to suggest this kind of empathy, you can time your cuts to ensure that dialogue flows consistently. If you cut dialogue in early, you can imply that one or both characters are being impatient. Cut dialogue in late, and they can seem disinterested or distractedperhaps more interested in their personal, inner dialogue. This means that you can strongly influence how dialogue appears to flow, regardless of the original interaction, though it should always be in response to the original performance. It is very rare for written dialogue to involve overlapping speech, partly to allow the editor this kind of control.
Final Checks
It is well worth making sure you are fully familiar with the scopes and waveforms in Premiere Pro. At the last possible moment before you hand off your work, these will be your best friends. They will tell you if your visuals are legalthat is, if they will display properly on regular television monitors.
Correct levels for televisions look pretty awful on computer monitors, which have a higher range and operate in a different color mode. Compare the two by plugging a television into your system, even if it is only a consumer television. You will see that those gray-looking whites on your computer screen look perfect on a television monitor.
After Effects
If youre a new user, you may find After Effects a bit daunting at first. Not to worry, thoughits actually pretty easy to learn. In this chapter well cover some of the basic terms and see what the workflow looks like.
No matter what kind of work you are doing in After Effects, many parts of the workflow are roughly the same:
Import or create movies and other assets of a project Use those assets to create layers Assemble the layers into a composition Modify properties of those layers, including animating some properties Often add effects to layers and modify and animate their properties Preview your composition And finally, render or export the composition to one or more output movies
You can open a footage item in its own Footage panel by double-clicking it in the Project panel. This allows you to preview the footage item and trim it. Trimming refers to removing portions of the item so that you use only the parts that you like in your composition.
Lets look at each of these pieces in a bit more detail.
The Composition
A composition is the basic framework of a movie. You can access your compositions in the Project panel, and by double-clicking a composition, you open it in both a Timeline panel and the Composition panel. The Composition panel and Timeline panel provide two complementary ways of seeing and interacting with the composition and its layers. The Timeline panel is the best place to see each of the layers and to make adjustments to them individually. The Composition panel, on the other hand, is the best place to see the com-
The Project
Whenever After Effects is running, a project is open. You can see which project is open by looking at the top of the Application window. You will almost always import some files into a project; these are referred to as source files. Inside of a project, the source files are used as the basis for footage items. You can see all of your source files in the Project panel, and it is recommended that you place them into different folders to keep your Project panel organized.
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posite: the image that results from stacking all these layers on top of one another. When layers are stacked on top of one another, you can use several different features to determine exactly how the underlying layers will show through and blend with the layers on top. This is called compositing.
The example here is a nested composition that consists of two layers: a vector graphic logo and a simple text layer with the number 3. If you go back to the main composition by clicking its main timeline panel tab, these items together are what form the vector graphic bug in the upper-right corner of the screen.
Layer Properties
Each layer has several properties, and you typically interact with these properties in the Timeline panel. If you click one of the small triangles in the Timeline panel, you expand a property group. Some examples of properties are Anchor Point, Position, Scale, Rotation, and Opacity. At the right of each property, you can see the numerical value that is currently set for it.
Nesting Compositions
Compositions can be nested one inside the other, with the nested composition acting in the same way as any other footage item. If you double-click the precomposition layer of a nested composition, it will open in its own Composition panel.
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Animation and Keyframes

When you modify a property so that it has a different value at one time than it has at another time, this is called animation. In After Effects, any property with a stopwatch icon next to it can be animated.
The Effect Controls panel provides a view of effect properties very similar to what you see in the Timeline panel, but it is often more convenient to access them through the Effect Controls panel.
The most common way to animate a property is to use keyframes to specify certain values at specific times. You enable animation for a prop erty by clicking the stopwatch icon. This sets a keyframe, as indicated by a yellow icon on the timeline that looks like a diamond formed by two triangles. You can disable keyframing for a property by clicking the stopwatch again. You can also use keyframes to specify the shape and position of a mask at specific times so the mask roughly follows the key region of a shot. Masks are most commonly placed on adjustment layers, which are used for effects.
Previewing Your Work

As you are working, you will need to preview your work, and After Effects provides many ways to do this. You can use a manual method such as dragging the playhead in the Timeline panel back and forth, which is often referred to as scrubbing. Or you can use the RAM Preview feature in the Preview panel, which plays the entire movie in real time after the frames have been rendered into RAM.
Effects
After Effects comes with hundreds of effects. You can browse through them using either the Effect menu or the Effects & Presets panel. You can control effects using the Effect Controls panel; anytime you select a layer that has effects applied, those effects appear in the Effect Controls panel.
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Rendering and Exporting Your Work

Once you are happy with the way your movie looks, it is time to render and export it. Rendering is the process that After Effects uses internally to create the frames of a movie from all of the information that you have given it in the composition. Encoding and exporting are the processes that After Effects uses to then convert these movie frames into output files that can be played back or used in other programs. When you are ready to render and export a movie, you add your composition to the Render queue, which you can see by clicking on the Render Queue panel tab.
The render settings you choose tell After Effects how to create the rendered frames from the composition. The output module settings specify what formats, output locations, and other details After Effects should use to output your movies. When everything is ready to go, you just click Render and the program takes care of the rest for you. So, there is a whirlwind tour of the After Effects workflow. To sum up: Projects hold footage items, compositions hold layers, layers are based on footage items, layers have properties that you can modify, keyframes specify pro perty values at specific times, effects add additional properties to layers, and you can render and export your compositions to create output files.
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Photoshop
Many editors come to video from working with photography, so Photoshop is a familiar environment for them. If you are new to Photoshop, you may want to spend a little time clicking through the menus to get a sense of what it can do for you.
The toolbar on the left of the default workspace houses an enormous range of features, especially when you consider that many of the tools will reveal a menu of several other tools if you click and hold down the mouse button. Each of the tools you select on the toolbar will have unique settings that appear along the top of the Photoshop interface. Getting to know these settings is an important step toward Photoshop mastery.
You can do this by selecting the layer in the Layers panel and then choosing Filter > Convert for Smart Filters. From now on, any filters you apply will be added as a list attached to the video layer that you can turn on and off as you wish. Unlike traditional result effects work in Photoshop, where filter effects amend the original media, this method is nondestructive in the same way that nonlinear editing systems are.
Working with Video

Photoshop has an enormous range of filter effects, but theres a gotcha you need to be aware of if you want to use them on a video clip. You can open video clips just like any other kind of file in Photoshop Extended; if you open the Animation window, youll be able to play a clip and step through it, frame by frame. However, if you apply a filter to a video clip, it wont be applied to any frames except the one you happen to be displaying. If you want an effect to apply to every frame of video in your clip, you must first convert the video to a Smart Object.
Placing Video
If you use the File > Place command to add a video file to an existing Photoshop document, it will automatically be imported as a Smart Object. This works very well if you use one of the document presets in Photoshop to create a blank document that exactly matches the output format you need, because you are able to resize the placed item before committing the changes to the Smart Object. You could do this manually later on, but it saves a few clicks to deal with scaling the new source layer as you import it. Because Smart Objects are only based on the original rasterized media, you can always rescale safelyadjustments made to Smart Objects are nondestructive.
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Audition
Adobe Audition is a very user-friendly audio post-production tool primarily designed to support the needs of video editors, who may not have much experience or training in audio technologies.
It can be overwhelming when you first interact with an advanced application like Audition, even if you have experience with similar tools. My advice is to begin by looking for the features you are familiar with and closing panels that dont make any sense to you. This way you can keep the clutter away while you find your bearings.
Tip: Because Soundbooth was based on

Audition, users of Soundbooth will find Audition familiar territoryexcept for the many extra tools and panels that were not present in Soundbooth.
Cleaning Up Audio
You will find that Audition has exactly the same Waveform and Spectral display modes as Soundbooth and many of the same effects, though there is more flexibility in the ways you can interact with your media. Even the Spectral display offers a more advanced way to clean up unwanted sounds.
In Soundbooth, you can select a sound you want to remove and press Delete. Soundbooth will smooth the edges of the selection and remove exactly the frequencies you selected. Audition also has a healing option, which will use surrounding frequencies to fill in the gap you create. This advanced audio restoration feature is one of the many reasons it is worth taking the time to learn about Auditionthe more you know it, the more you will love it.
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Encore
Encore is probably one of my favorite applications. It is powerful, flexible, and userfriendly. You can use prebuilt menus to learn about button and background design, automatically generate an After Effects composition from a menu to create animated transitions, import a dynamically linked Premiere Pro sequence to begin authoring before you have even completed the edit, and even generate multiple deliverables from a single projectincluding a stereoscopic 3D Blu-ray DVD!
With all of that wonderful performance in mind, theres just one fundamental rule to observe when authoring with Encore: Be selective with your selections. Encore uses object-oriented design, which broadly speaking means that you set up the interactivity of your DVD by selecting objects or assets and then making choices for them in the Properties panel. These properties might involve an end action that tells the DVD player what to do when an item finishes playing, or they might specify what music to play in the background of a menu.
Getting to Know Encore

The first step in understanding Encore is to discover all of the options available in the Properties panel when you clickanything! See what happens when you select a video clip compared to a timeline. Select buttons, then menus in the Project panel, or select nothing in the Project panel by clicking on the background. Most of the functionality Encore has to offer is inside that one important panel. Though you can set up your transcoding very precisely with Encore, I tend to only set a maximum bitrate that I know is safe. For me, safe means it is low enough for all set-top boxes to be able to play the disc. When you transcode your media, Encore will automatically use the maximum bitrate you set, unless the duration
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of your content is such that there is not enough room on the disc at that bitrate. Encore will then automatically set the maximum bitrate for the space available, which means much less thinking is required! All of the calculations, including ensuring that there is enough room for your menus, are carried out by Encore without you having to do a thing.
Being Flexible with Content

If you want to create multiple versions of a film without taking up extra space on the disc by making multiple copies, check out Chapter Playlists. These allow you to treat individual chapters as separate timelines that can be viewed in any order. This means that you could have one menu button that only plays chapters 1, 3, 7, 10, and 11, then another menu button that only plays chapters 2, 4, 5, 8 and 9, and yet another button that plays the whole thing from beginning to end. This approach to project organization is incredibly efficient and easy to implement. Its also easy to change your mind about the playback order. You can have multiple Chapter Playlists without adding a single extra clip to your project. This feature is perfect for including multiple endings and allowing your viewer to choose the ending they want before they start the movie.
You can use any encoding application, including the Adobe Media Encoder, to produce a compatible file for output (usually an MPEG2 or H.264 file unless you intend to output to Flash only). If you do this, Encore will automatically skip transcoding the media.
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If you use Chapter Playlists, consider doubling your chapter markers: The portion of your timeline that is played when you add a chapter to a Chapter Playlist goes from the chapter marker you select to the next chapter marker. To avoid playing the beginning of the next chapter, add one marker for the start of a chapter and another for the end of that chapter. This means there will be a very short chapter at the end of each main chapter (the gap between your chapter end and the next chapter). It will have no impact on playback if the viewer simply watches the video from beginning to end and will allow you to set end points for chapters on your Chapter Playlists.
in your color rendering. If you are mixing and matching source material of different frame sizes, the Maximum Render Quality setting will improve the quality of the scaling. Be aware that you may not notice much of a difference if you are working with the monitor window in Premiere Pro at anything other than 100% scale; but on a larger professional monitor, you should see an improvement, particularly where there is movement.
Being Dynamic
The more you can use dynamic linking in your workflow, the more flexible and agile you can be as you develop your project. Many editors base their workflows on aiming for picture lock, when the final decision is made about exactly which frames will be included in the video and which will not. As clients become more familiar with the power of nonlinear editing, changes at the last moment are becoming increasingly common.
Connecting Everything Together

If all your work is aimed at the final output, it makes sense to plan backwards from there. If you are delivering a Blu-ray DVD, this can guide your sequence settings in Premiere Pro, workflow for incorporating After Effects compositions, graphics resolutions, and every other variable in media acquisition.
If your system is powerful, you may want to turn on the Maximum Bit Depth and Maximum Render Quality settings for your sequence in Premiere Pro before you output. The Maximum Bit Depth option will allow the 32-bit effects to operate fully, retaining every possible detail
Dynamic linking helps you keep your sanity if you need to make retroactive changes and dont want to have to think about where the updates should appear. Take time to familiarize yourself with the best approach for incorporating dynamic links into your workflow. This way, when your client asks for just one more version, youll know that everything will update automatically.
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Glossary
Glossary
AIFF Audio Interchange File Format. AIFF is a cross-platform audio file format. Aliasing An artifact or a distortion in the repro duction of digital audio or video resulting from a signal frequency more than twice as high as the sampling frequency or resolution. In this case, sufficient distinction between alternate reconstructions of the waveform becomes impossible and additional noise is introduced that was not present in the original signal. See also anti-aliasing. Alpha Transparency Transparency information for bitmap images that is stored in a separate alpha channel. In addition to its individual color values, each pixel of the raster graphic has a certain alpha value or transparency level associated with it. amplify To increase a signals strength or amplitude. Anamorphic formatting The process of horizontally compressing a wide picture or video image to fit a narrower media standard. When played back on a widescreen display, the image is expanded to its full size. Animation A sequence of gradually changing images interpreted as a fluid motion by the brain. Anti-aliasing To smooth out or to reduce disturbing picture effects caused by a jagged or stairstep appearance or motion between neighboring pixels. See aliasing.
Artifacts Color faults or line faults that visibly impact an image. Artifacts are often caused by excessive image compression. Aspect Ratio The ratio of image width to image height. Standard video uses an aspect ratio of 4:3, while widescreen video uses an aspect ratio of 16:9. audio waveform The graphical representation of an audio clip, visually depicting the signal levels over a time axis. Adobe After Effects shows waveform miniatures in the timeline and features a separate Clip dialog box for editing audio. AVI Audio Video Interleave. AVI was defined by Microsoft and is a common container format for video files on the Windows platform. balance Distribution of the volume of a stereo clip between the left and right channels. bandwidth In the digital world, this refers to the data rate (amount per unit of time) that can be processed in real time by a given device or program. As an example, a dial-up modem has a very narrow bandwidth compared to a cable modem or a LAN connection, so the former is not suitable for streaming high-bandwidth videos on the Internet. Originally, the term comes from analog signal transmission, describing the width of the electro magnetic frequency range or band a signal needs for its transmission. See also data rate. batch capture The automated process of cap turing an entire group of pictures or video clips.
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G lossary
Bit (Binary Digit) The smallest unit of information in a computer. Bits can have only two values: 0 or 1. Bitmap A digital image file that uses spatially arranged pixels to store the image information. Sometimes bitmap implies a color depth of one bit per pixel, resulting in a two-color image. Bitrate The file size of digital audio and video files as measured in kilobits per second. The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality of the audio and video. bitstream An accumulation of data compressed to a file or transmitted between devices, such as in video or audio streams. Blue screen/Green screen A keying technique where a blue (or green) background is used when recording a subject or an object. During post-production, the blue (or green) background is removed, allowing the subject or object to easily be placed into a different scene. This technique is commonly used in television to show a weather forecaster in front of a weather map and in movies to produce special effects. Blurring The process of adding fuzziness to or decreasing the focus of an image or certain parts of it for a softer appearance or to hide a defect. bps Bits per second. A measurement unit for data rate.
Browser An application that retrieves data from the Internet and processes and displays it on a client computer. In addition to text and HTML, modern browsers can display graphics, movie clips, and various other types of media, frequently using plug-ins for these tasks. Byte A data unit equal to eight bits. Caption A text overlay that labels a scene, identifies a location or person, or displays dialogue onscreen. Captions can be either open or closed. Open captions are displayed any time the video is played; closed captions like subtitles for different languages or the hearing-impaired are not shown unless called up by the receiving equipment. capture To record or import and store video and/or audio in a digital format on a storage medium such as a computer hard disk or a tape. For analog sources, a special video capture card is typically used to convert the signals into a computer-legible format. Digital data from DV camcorders can be transferred directly into a computer over a FireWire/IEEE 1394 interface. See also import. channel A clip can consist of several channels or components. For example, an alpha channel might contain matte or mask frames to key certain regions of the image to be transparent. A stereo audio clip consists of separate left and right channels.
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Glossary
clip A short sequence of video and/or audio material. You can import various clip files into your After Effects project and trim longer clips into individual scenes. These clips are edited together in the timeline to play in sequential order, with appropriate transitions between the individual clips and other effects. Clip Art A collection of mostly royalty-free images and illustrations for use in document and project design. CODEC Compressor/decompressor. Software that manages compression during recording and decompression during playback of media. Compression makes the audio/video files smaller for more efficient delivery. Compression Any technique that reduces the size of still image, audio, or video files. Video compression technologies, or codecs, reduce the data rate via inter-frame techniques (i.e., by removing redundant information between frames) and intraframe techniques, such as JPEG. Digital video files are usually very large, so without compression, video could not be stored on DVDs (which use the MPEG-2 codec) or streamed over the Internet (using a variety of codecs, including VP6, H.264, and the Windows Media Video codec). compression rate An indicator of how much a file was compressed. A compression rate of 10:1 means that the size of the compressed file is onetenth the size of the original. Contrast The relationship and degree of difference in color and light between parts of an image.
Conversion To translate data from one format into another one that suits the current needs. For video, this obviously includes changing a video file that is in a particular codec to another video codec (like MPEG to Xvid, DivX to QuickTime, and so on). crawl Scrolling a single line of title text sideways across the screen, either from left to right or from right to left. See also roll. credits Title text that identifies the people who contributed to a production, shows song titles, and gives general acknowledgments. Usually rolled from bottom to top at the end of the production. crop To physically trim away one or more edges of a video stream prior to compression, resulting in a smaller picture size. This reduces the amount of video data and therefore reduces the size of the compressed computer file. crossfade See fade. Cue Point A point introduced into the timeline of a video track where an event is designated to occur. Cue points are used in online video publishing to trigger custom functionality, like synchro nized animations or closed captions. cut To instantly switch from one clip to another without any other kind of transition effect. The cut is the most basic kind of transition used for changing scenes and dropping titles onto the screen. Also see fade, transition. data rate The speed of data throughput, usually in bytes per second. Also referred to as bitrate. When creating a compressed video or audio file, you can specify the target data rate at which the file will be played. See also bandwidth.
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G lossary
Decoding See decompression. Decompression Decoding a compressed data stream in order to recover and play back the original data (for lossless compression methods) or an approximation of the original (for lossy compression methods). See also compression. Deinterlacing The process of creating a single composite frame from the two separate fields cap tured at slightly different times that are present in an interlaced video frame. Deinterlacing is used to remove the artifacts that may be visible when displayed on a computer monitor. See also interlaced video, NTSC. delay An effect in audio editing that echoes a sound after a certain amount of time. dissolve A video transition that crossfades two subsequent video clips into each other. See also fade, transition. Dithering To display a full-color graphic image in a restricted color situation, as in a 256-color GIF file, the additional colors need to be simulated by combining pixels from a 256-color palette into patterns. When the image is viewed at a distance, the human eye merges the pixels into a single color. dub To copy or duplicate a production. In analog recording, this was done from a (master) tape to another tape. duration For a clip, this is the period of time for which the clip will play. If the clip has been trimmed, the duration is reduced to the stretch of time between its in and out points. See also timecode.
DV A standard-definition digital format commonly used in consumer camcorders. DV was the first widely used digital video format and accelerated the demise of analog formats such as VHS and Hi-8. DV cameras store video at about 25 megabits per second on DV tapes and communicate to computers using the IEEE 1394 standard, which is often called FireWire. DVD Video A format used to store video on DVDs for playback on consumer DVD players. DVD Video discs use MPEG-2 for encoding. dynamic range The difference between the smallest and largest possible values of a change able quantity, such as sound or light. You can decrease the dynamic range to compress it and reduce audio or video noise, or expand it to emphasize volume or color differences. effect The outcome of manipulations to audio and video clips meant to enhance, modify, or distort them. See also filter. Encoding The process of changing a data stream from one form into another following a set of algorithms specified by a codec. The data stream usually contains audio and/or video or still image information. Encoding is frequently performed to make a data file compatible with specific playback hardware or software or to compress the data and therefore reduce the space required for storage, the bandwidth for real-time transmission, or the download time.
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Glossary
equalizing Balancing out the sonic quality of an audio clip. An equalizing effect in software can be used to boost or damp the original signal within specific audio frequency ranges. Equalization may also be helpful in cutting offending noise such as hum. Exporting Saving a file in a non-native format that is readable in another application. fade A gradual transition from no signal to full signal strength or vice versa. With video, the clip changes from black, white, or transparent to fully opaque (or vice versa) to fade in or out. With audio, the volume changes between silence and the maximum level. See also transition, dissolve. Field In interlaced video, each frame consists of two fields. One field contains the odd lines of the frame and the other field is made up of the even lines of the frame. This technique makes video display more smoothly. Filter A routine that contains algorithms to modify digital still images or video or audio clips by changing the values or arrangement of specified portions of the image or soundwave. Common applications for video filters include resizing, noise reduction, deinterlacing, softening, and sharpening. FireWire This term refers to the IEEE 1394 interface used to connect compatible DV devices such as camcorders, video recorders, hard disks, and computers. There are 4-pin and 6-pin plugs.
Flash An Adobe vector graphic animation toolkit that allows developers to create animations that look the same across all browsers, thanks to the free Flash Player plug-in. Today, Flash has also become a standard for rich media and video playback on the Web. FLV A file format used to deliver video over the Internet. Flash Video (FLV) files contain video bitstreams that use a variant of the H.263 video standard. Flash Player 8 and newer revisions support the playback of On2 TrueMotion VP6 video bitstreams and Flash Player 9 Update 3 includes support for the H.264 video standard, which is even more computationally demanding but offers a significantly better quality/bitrate ratio. Font The complete character set (numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and in some cases, small caps and special characters) of a particular typeface in a specific style, for example Verdana Bold. FPS Frames per second. A measure of the frame rate of a video or film. NTSC video has 29.97 fps, PAL and SECAM videos have 25 fps, and films that you watch in a theater have 24 fps. frame Video clips, like analog movies, consist of a sequence of individual images called frames. These still pictures are shown in rapid succession, tricking the mind into thinking it is seeing motion if the frame rate is high enough. Video formats are typically described in terms of their frame size or resolution, as well as the frame rate at which they are played. See also frame rate, field.
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G lossary
Frame Rate The number of frames displayed in a video each second. Common frame rates are 25 (PAL, SECAM) and 30 (NTSC) frames per second, though some streaming files are distributed at 15 frames per second or less. gain Main audio output volume. You can increase the gain to amplify a clips volume or decrease it to make the audio track of a clip quieter. GB Gigabytes. A gigabyte is 1024x1024x1024= 1,073,741,824 bytes. See also byte, KB, MB. Gradient A gradual transition from one color or shade to another. Gradients can use different shades or color proportions. Hz Hertz. A measurement unit of frequencies or oscillations per second (1/s) for audio fre quencies and the audio sampling rate, as in the number of audio samples per second. See also sampling rate. import To bring media elements into your working application. Adobe After Effects can import video and audio clips, still images, and animated sequences in different formats. See also capture, export. In point A mark specifying a certain timecode within a clip as the starting point of a segment. In and out points can be used to mark a clip to be captured or copied from a source tape, to mark a certain part of a clip to be trimmed, or to select part of the timeline for playback. See also marker, out point.
interlaced video A recording technique used for video formats such as NTSC, PAL, and 1080i. Interlaced video composites each full frame of video from alternating lines of two separate fields that were captured at slightly different times. If the frame rate of an interlaced video system is 30 fps, it has 60 fields per second. The alternating lines of the two fields are then interleaved or interlaced to render the full video frame. See also progressive video. interpolation Computing new frames containing graduated steps between two or more keyframes, aiming to create smooth transitions for motion effects. JPEG A lossy compression method used to reduce the file size of digital images. Depending on the amount of compression, more or less image quality will be sacrificed to obtain smaller files. Common compression rates of about 10:1 tend to have little effect on image quality. KB Kilobytes. A kilobyte is 1024 bytes. See also byte, GB, MB. Key A mask specifying a transparent or semitransparent region in an image or a video clip that is to composite parts of a scene with other material that is superimposed on the track. The technique is called color keying if a specific color is used to determine the masked region. Another masking option is to include a separate alpha channel or image matte. See also blue screen/green screen, matte.
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Glossary
Keying See matte. Keyframe Video compression codecs commonly distinguish between three types of frames. Keyframes, or I-frames, are completely self-referential. Usually they are compressed with an intra-frame compression scheme like JPEG. In contrast, the reconstruction of B-frames and P-frames partially depends on information contained in surrounding frames. B-frames can use redundant information in frames both before and after the B-frame, whereas P-frames can only use redundant information contained in preceding frames. leader A piece of nonrecording tape material at the beginning of the physical tape on an audiotape or videocassette that mechanically connects the actual recording tape to the spindle of the cassette. Also used to describe extra material before the beginning of a clip. lossless Compression Any compression technique that uses a nondestructive method, retaining all the original information. Therefore sound or video data can be compressed without a reduction in quality. lossy Any compression technique, especially for audio and video data, that strips out some of the original information in order to significantly reduce the size of the compressed data. Lossy video and audio compression schemes include perceptual coding techniques meant to limit the data loss to portions that are least likely to be noticed by human perception. See also perceptual coding.
luminance The brightness level or intensity of a video signal, usually represented by the letter Y. Video signals are split into separate luma and chroma (color) components for better signal quality and more efficient transmission and encoding. marker A flag used to mark a specific timecode in a clip or sequence in order to denote changes, events, or sync points in a longer sequence. In and out point markers can be used to mark a clip to be captured or copied from a source tape, to mark a certain part of a clip to be trimmed, or to select part of the timeline for playback. See also in point, out point. Masking A technique used to hide certain areas of an image or design or to prevent them from being edited. master The original video or audio source used for a video production. Digital masters are usually uncompressed or use a very high-quality compression scheme. The master is a high-quality source to which you should return whenever you want to make more copies. matte An electronically created image mask used to remove parts of a picture or video frame in order to superimpose another picture or video frame. See also key. MB Megabytes. A megabyte is 1024x1024= 1,048,576 bytes. See also byte, GB, KB. mono Mono, or monophonic, audio is limited to a single channel. See also stereo.
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G lossary
motion blur A blur effect that occurs in the background when you track a speeding object with the camera. Without tracking, the object itself will be blurred. MOV QuickTime content uses the file extensions .mov and .qt. See also QuickTime. MPEG Acronym for the Motion Pictures Expert Group of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The MPEG committee formulates compression standards, such as MPEG-1 (used for VideoCD and CDi), MPEG-2 (used for cable, satellite, and DVD), and MPEG-4 (used for satellite, Blu-ray, and streaming). The MP3 audio compression format was also formulated by the MPEG committee. MPEG-1 A standard for audio and video com pression developed by the Motion Pictures Expert Group. MPEG-1 was originally designed to enable single-speed CD-ROM drives to play back broadcast-quality video. Standard MPEG-1 compression uses the full frame rate (24 to 30 fps depending on the source) and a quarter of the frame size (352x240), and the files can be played back on most modern desktop computers. MPEG-2 A second and more efficient MPEG compression standard used for DVDs, cable, TV, and satellite broadcast systems. MPEG-2 is also the compression technology used by HDV camcorders. MPEG-2 files are typically produced at full frame rates of 24 to 30 fps in standard definition (720x480) and high definition (1280x720 and higher).
MPEG-4 The most recent codec released by the MPEG committee. Includes the MPEG-4 video codec and the AAC audio codecs. The H.264 codec is a subset of the MPEG-4 standard and is used for applications ranging from satellite broadcasting to Internet streaming. MPEG Layer-3 Audio (MP3) An MPEG audio file format that is widely used on the Internet. narration A spoken audio track explaining what is happening or being shown on a video. Neutral Any color without hue or having the same value in all three RGB channels, such as white, gray, or black. NTSC National Television Standards Committee. The NTSC defines the standards for TV broadcasts in North America, but these standards are also used in Japan and other countries. Videos and broadcasts recorded using the NTSC standard cannot be played back or rendered using PAL devices, but require NTSC or multi-standard video recorders and TV sets. See also PAL. NTSC safe colors Colors that are inside the safe region for the NTSC television video standard. Title colors outside of this range might bleed and not display properly on NTSC equipment. See also safe area. opaque Solid, non-transparent regions of an image that will cover an underlying image if superimposed. See also transparent.
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Glossary
Out point A mark specifying a certain timecode within a clip as the ending point of a segment. Out and in points can be used to mark a clip to be captured or copied from a source tape, to mark a certain part of a clip to be trimmed, or to select part of the timeline for playback. See also in point, marker. overscan Typically, the outer edges of a video image are cut off by consumer television equipment to ensure that the image fills the entire display without any letterboxing. Overscan is the part of the image that may not be seen by the viewer. See also safe area. PAL Phase Alternate Line. A television video standard commonly used in Europe and elsewhere, PAL delivers 625 lines at 50 fields interlaced per second (25 frames per second). See also NTSC. panning Moving the apparent location of a mono audio track to position it between the left and right audio channels. With stereo clips, you adjust the balance between the two channels. Also used to describe horizontal camera pivoting, similar to looking left and right when you turn your head. See also balance. Perceptual Coding Lossy compression techniques that take advantage of the study of human perception, identifying and removing only that portion of the information that is least likely to be missed by the average human observer.
Pixel Picture element. The smallest unit of information in a digital image. Pixels are usually arranged in a two-dimensional grid; depending on the output device, they can be represented using squares or dots. preview To play a timeline sequence in order to view the appearance of the final production, complete with effects and transitions. See also scrub. progressive download A technique for downloading Internet video or audio clips in real time so they can be viewed while they are still being transferred to your computer. This comes close to the benefits of streaming media without requiring a special streaming server. However, there is no bandwidth guarantee and intermediate buffering may occur. See also streaming media. progressive Video In a progressively scanned, noninterlaced video signal, the lines of each frame are drawn in sequence. Therefore, a progressive scan video signal sends twice as much data as an interlaced signal where the odd and even lines of each field are drawn alternately. QuickTime A file format developed by Apple for compressed video, sound, and 3D media. The QuickTime framework provides a common set of APIs for encoding and decoding audio and video, including the MOV movie format. RealMedia A multiplatform file format from RealNetworks used for streaming audiovisual Web media. RealMedia files use the extensions .rm and .ram.
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G lossary
render To output a video production in its final form, including transitions, effects, and superimposed tracks. You can either render individual portions of a timeline in order to preview your edits at full quality, or render the entire production as a master before exporting it in its final form. Resolution The detail level of an image de scribed as density of graphic information in dots per inch (dpi) or pixels per inch (ppi). reverb An audio effect that simulates the ambience of a room of a specific size and its acoustic properties. RGB An additive color model that uses red, green, and blue as primary colors to describe the RGB color space, which is a subset of the visual color spectrum. RGB values consist of three numeric values (red, green, and blue) representing how much of each primary color is used to create a specific color in the RGB color space. Please note: RGB values do not describe colors device-independently without color management. roll To vertically scroll lines of title text up or down the screen. See also crawl. rough cut Quickly assembling a collection of raw clips in the desired order as an approximation or a storyboard of the final production. safe area Margins left around the edge of the image to prevent important information like parts of title text from bleeding off the screen on television displays. Also called safe zone. See also overscan.
sampling rate Defines the number of samples per second taken of a continuous signal, such as music or a sound, to create a digital representation of the original signal. Higher sampling frequencies create a more accurate representation of the original sound. Theoretically the sampling frequency must be more than twice the signal frequency in order to reproduce the signal without aliasing. See also aliasing, frame rate, Hz. Saturation The intensity or purity of a specific color; a completely desaturated color is gray. scale To resize an image or a video sequence by squeezing or stretching it to a smaller or larger image resolution. scene A single video sequence, typically shot in one continuous take and isolated in an indivi dual clip that can be edited on the timeline. See also clip. scrub To play back a sequence in the After Effects timeline by dragging the playhead. Sharpness The subjective density difference between two tones at their boundary, interpreted as fineness of detail. shuttle To move rapidly through a timeline sequence, as with the scan forward or scan reverse controls of a playback device. stereo Two-channel audio, with left and right channels creating a spatial listening experience. See also mono.
29
Glossary
still frame A single frame that is part of a video clip. storyboard In video production, a storyboard refers to cartoonlike sketches of frames or scenes used to describe a movie shot by shot. streaming media Internet media clips containing video and/or audio information that can be played directly over the Internet without requiring the complete file to be downloaded onto a computer. Used for live audio and video broadcasts and to interactively play and seek in stored clips. See also progressive download. subtitle A text overlay on video materials, typically used to display dialogue in another language or to convey information for the hearing-impaired. SWF Small Web Format. This format is used for storing multimedia Flash animations or more complex Flash files like entire websites containing interactive forms. Users must have the Adobe Flash Player plug-in installed to play back SWF files. TIFF A lossless image format that compresses the image size while preserving all the image quality. As a result, TIFF images are larger than those stored using lossy compression methods like JPEG. Timebase The timebase describes the time increments After Effects uses to compute individual cut points. For editing cinema movies, this value is 24, for PAL and SECAM videos it is 25, and for NTSC video it is 29.97. The timebase is not necessarily identical to the frame rate of the video played back or exported from the sequence; however, the two values are often the same.
Timecode A time-related address for the indi vidual frames of a clip. The standard format is hours:minutes:seconds:frames. timeline A concept in video editing that enables you to assemble different clips into a production using multiple overlapping tracks. The After Effects timeline allows you to combine multiple sources over time using separate video and audio tracks, as well as transitions and effects. titles Onscreen text and graphics used to add information to a production. Examples are the title screen at the beginning of the production, superimposed subtitles, and rolling credits at the end of a production. tracks The separate video and/or audio clips in the Timeline that are combined and superimposed to generate the final production. transcode To convert from one compression or encoding format to another. Transcoding audio or video material almost always implies a certain loss of quality due to the lossy nature of the codecs used. To minimize loss of quality, you should avoid repeated decompression and compression in your workflow whenever possible. transition A visual effect used to bridge the end of one clip or scene and the beginning of the next one. A cut can be considered to be the most basic transition effect, with the last frame of one clip being directly followed by the first frame of the next clip. Smoother transitions include fades, dissolves, and wipes between adjacent clips. See also cut, dissolve, fade, wipe.
30
G lossary
Transparency The quality of an image element with an opacity value below 100 percent that allows elements underneath to show through. trim To cut off frames from the beginning and/or end of a clip. This can also be done non destructively by adjusting the in and out points of a clip to identify the portion to be used in the final production. Variable Bitrate (VBR) Encoding A technique for encoding video files that adapts the data rate to the complexity of the scene. Vector Graphics Graphics that consist of coordinate points and mathematically drawn lines and curves rather than pixels. Vector graphics can be scaled and rotated without affecting quality. watermark A small, semitransparent graphic overlay in a video production. Many TV channels add their own watermark to broadcast material. WAV An uncompressed audio file format commonly used on Microsoft Windows machines. See also AIFF, MP3, Windows Media Audio. WEB Browser See browser.
widescreen VIDEO A wide picture format for video with an aspect ratio of 16:9 (or 1.78:1). See also aspect ratio. Windows Media The multimedia platform built into Microsoft Windows, encompassing a variety of formats for storing and transmitting video and audio. Includes the ASF, WMA, WMV, and WMF (AVI) file types. See also Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Video. Windows Media Audio (WMA) A file format natively used by Microsoft Windows Media for compressing and storing audio. Also compatible with a variety of mobile audio players and set-top DVD players. See also MP3, WAV, Windows Media. Windows Media Video (WMV) A compressed video and audio file format used by Microsoft Windows media for storing files on CD and DVD discs. See also Windows Media Audio. wipe A transition effect for video in which the new clip seems to physically move into the frame, displacing the old clip. YUV A full-color video signal format comprised of three different components: Y (luminance), and U and V (chrominance).
31
Index
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Photoshop Lightroom

Adobe Adobe After Effects CS6 4

Adobe After Effects CS6: Learn by Video

Introducing After Effects CS6

Creating Compositions and Layers

Interpreting and Managing Footage

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Animating Text Layers

Fun with Shape Layers

13 Grouping and Linking

16 Render Order and

18 Project Explorations and Recap

15 Memory and Performance

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Introduction Adobe Creative Suite 6 Editors Notes

Welcome to Adobe After Effects CS6 Learn by Video

About This Book

How to Use This Course

Starting the Course

The Welcome Screen

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Navigating Inside a Video

Keyboard Shortcuts for the Player

Resizing Your Window

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Just click the box for the right answer.

About the Authors

About Todd Kopriva and Angie Taylor

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Adobe Creative Suite 6 Editors Notes

A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes

Working with Multiple Media Sources

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Assembly Edits Become Fine Cuts

A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Cutting to the Beat

A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Lets look at each of these pieces in a bit more detail.

A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Animation and Keyframes

Previewing Your Work

A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes

Rendering and Exporting Your Work

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Working with Video

A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes

Tip: Because Soundbooth was based on

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Getting to Know Encore

A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes

Being Flexible with Content

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Connecting Everything Together

A dobe C reative S uite 6 E ditor s N otes

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo

Adobe After E ffects C S6 : Learn by V ideo