If you are a photographer, professional or amateur this is software for you. Boinx Software has put out a very good stand alone slideshow creator. As a video professional this is a way for me to create a slideshow to slap together quickly. I prefer some bells and whistles and like to add effects and motion graphics to make it more compelling…but for presentations, weddings and events this is the software to use.
Some things I’d like to see added to Fotomagico for future updates…
Blur effect
Ability to crop photos and animate it
Masking ability
It’s a shortlist but when I use images in my video I use those three things often. Check out the video review below and under the video review is a great video tutorial produced by Boinx software about new features and in-depth look at Fotomagico 4. You can download and try out Fotomagico 4 for 5 days. But make sure you are running 10.8 in order to use it.
Luca Visual FX has a treat for anyone with a throwback style. I absolutely love this video generator. The effect is a damaged film leader, why you would use it? Perfect to start a music video or a transition into old footage or a great effect to overlay on top of your video footage and give it some style.
It has incredible customization which is a huge plus. You can select the font, size, aspect, stroke, color background and control the texture. Or, you can clear the text and have the leaders by itself. The amount of presets that come with Luca Visual FX Leaders is fantastic. They give you so many variations of presets and within those presets they have 6 more presets of the background and text, what a wealth of film leaders that come with this package. The great thing about this plug-in is how easy it is to customize the generator and create your own preset for later use…you just have to make sure you save it. Film Leaders is an exciting addition to anyone’s plug-in library.
This is priced right at $99. I know Indie filmmakers will be jumping all over this.
I do not have a disclosure about my the reviews that I do for plug-ins. What you should know is I try to be as honest as possible about the plugin for the professional freelancer or amateur that spends their hard earned money wisely. There are many kinds of professionals in this field, corporate clients, wedding or events, music videos, feature film, and documentary filmmakers. Today we rent ourselves out to anyone to pay the bills. So when I review a product you will hear me try to categorize which filmmaker would benefit from the plugin. I also try to be as respectful to the vendors as possible. But I will not tell you to buy a product if I do not believe in it. That being said…here is the review for Yanobox Moods. 🙂
Yanobox Moods is a unique color grading plug-in with a full screen interface for Final Cut Pro X, Final Cut Pro 7, Motion and After Effects.
It is a pretty simple and effective color grading plug-in that comes with a handful of presets that can get you started. The coolest thing about Moods is the first parameter, the desaturate button. I love the fact that all I have to do is pull down to get a bleach bypass look. If I’m color grading with this plug-in I will be using that each time. Old habits die hard and I’m still a fan of the Color Corrector 3-Way…which is what Moods is but on an Energy Drink. It gets you the results fast and with time I believe this is a plug-in that I will be using more often. This is a great plug-in for someone that has less to no experience with color correction. It is all there in one plug-in and easy to use. The presets will get you off and running in no time.
Moods is $49, which is not a bad price but I could see more people buying it at $19.
Tiffen, I know you have been in the film/video world for years and are well established too. But I had no idea about your sweet plugins for FCP.
Tiffen Dfx Video/Film Plug-in is a top of the line plug-in suite that incorporates filters and lenses that Tiffen is so well known for and infuses it into Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Premiere Pro and Avid. It is a complete plug-in suite that adds glass filters, specialized lenses, optical lab processes, film grain, exacting color correction, plus natural light and photographic effects.
One of the best features of this plug-in is the usability. The Dfx Interface allows you to preview the tons of presets each filter comes with. Within the Dfx Interface you can customize the parameters of a preset to make it yours while viewing it in real-time.
There are so many different film looks it is absolutely ridiculous…which is a great thing. In the past I never dabbled with different film stocks because of price and I didn’t shoot with a film camera. Now that everything is digital those looks are fresh to a new generation of video editors.
Some of my favorite filters from Tiffen Dfx are the Light filters. You can add lights, gobos and even flags to your video. I love the gobo, simply adding a gobo to an interview gives the interview a fresh look. I’m so glad to have this product in my effects library. It will turn good looking video into beautiful looking video…but let’s not kid ourselves. It is always important to shoot it right the first time, great lighting, lenses and composition will always keep you looking like a pro. Now Tiffen Dfx 3.0 will make you stand out in the crowded field of professionals.
Price
$599…yeah, that stings the purse a bit especially with FCP X out and about and this is not yet ready for FCP X. The price of these filters are more than the upgrade to FCP X, there is a reason for that…the effects are amazing. But ask questions and research before you buy any plug-ins set. Will they upgrade to allow you to use these with FCP X? I mean FCP 7 will eventually fade once Apple gets it right with FCP X. Until then, if you have FCP 7 check out these filters for FREE for 15 days and do a cool project and impress your client or wow the audience at a film festival.
Tiffen Dfx Video/Film Feature Highlights
121 individual filters
Thousands of customizable presets
Simulation of Tiffen glass camera filters, specialized lenses, optical lab processes, film grain, exacting color correction as well as natural light and photographic effects
Rosco and GamColor Gel libraries
Rosco and Gam Gobo libraries for lighting effects
8 or 16 bit image processing
Multi-processor acceleration
Tech Specs / Requirements
Adobe After Effects CS5 and up
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and up
Apple Final Cut Pro 6 and 7
Avid 64-bit systems, Media Composer®, and Symphony™ v6.0 as well as NewsCutter® v10.0.
Windows:
Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
1.0 GHz processor or faster
Intel or AMD processor
1GB RAM (2 GB+ recommended)
1GB available disk space for caching and temporary files
GenArts knocks it out of the park with Sapphire Edge plugin for Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, Apple Motion and Sony Vegas Pro. If you want a sweet look for your video regardless of your line of work or status as a professional or amateur this is a no-brainer. Sapphire Edge makes it easy to turn your normal video into something special in a few clicks. If you shoot or edit music videos this is a must have set of effects and looks. I can think of 10 looks right off the bat to use in wedding videos. It can give your corporate video that look that takes it up a notch from, “do I have to watch this s^$t?” That is how good these effects are.
I love the preset browser where you can apply the preset to the footage and preview what it looks like before you load it. The tags are a HUGE bonus for the editor. The tags simplify things so it is streamlined for the editor. You can always tweak the preset once it is loaded on your footage and save it as a favorite, then rename it.
Receive a one-year subscription to FX Central with your purchase of Sapphire Edge. FX Central is the place to browse looks and view tutorials. Now, you can access the GenArts visual effects gallery presented as pre-built looks, regularly updated, easy to apply, and always of the highest quality. Stay ahead of the curve with fresh new collections and get the best look every time.
Features
350+ unique, pre-built looks generated from 18 effects and transitions
64-bit quality
Powered by the Sapphire engine
Streamlined and intuitive user interface
GPU-accelerated for Nvidia CUDA cards
Multiprocessor support
Ever-expanding library of professionally built preset looks
Visual browsing of presets applied to user media
Includes one-year subscription to FX Central, GenArts’ cutting-edge preset browser, which allows editors instantaneous preview-and-apply capabilities
Stylize and color-correct your footage with effects such as FilmStyle, FilmDamage, and TVDamage
Numerous transitions utilizing natural looking lighting effects such as DissolveLensFlare, DissolveGlow and DissolveGlint
Price
$299 for over 350 effects and transitions plus a one-year subscription to FX Central ($99 value) is a great addition to your effects library. The great thing about these looks are they inspire you to create and think outside of your normal looking video. These will be implemented right away on my next project.
I love what PHYX has done for pulling the perfect chroma key. Keyer 2.0 is an amazing plugin for FxFactory that will allow you to pull the perfect key in Final Cut Pro, Motion, After Effects or Final Cut Express.
If I had PHYX Keyer 2.0, 4 years ago my job would’ve been so much easier. Instead I rendered overnight and sometimes had to make a correction that would send me back to re-render. My editing name is Sir Render. With this, you can pull the green and make your subject look so much better with the Lightwrap feature. Hands down this plugin rocks and I’m so very happy to review it. Go ahead and download it and try it out for free for 14 days. This is a plugin for FxFactory that works with Final Cut Pro, Motion, After Effects and Final Cut Express.
Requirements
Mac OS X Leopard / Snow Leopard
Version 10.5.8 / Version 10.6.3
Mac with Intel processor
ATI, NVIDIA or Intel HD* graphics processor
Final Cut Pro
Versions 6 and 7
Motion
Versions 3 and 4
Final Cut Express
Version 4
Adobe After Effects
Versions 8, 9, 10 and 10.5
(CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS5.5)**
* The Intel GMA 950 and X3100 are not supported.
** Mac OS X 10.6.3 (or later) is required to use 64-bit versions of FxFactory plug-ins in Adobe After Effects.
The more I use Photo Montage from Noise Industries the more I love it. I have to say that this is the most friendly and easy to use with so many ways to customize the pics to make a slideshow an amazing part of any video. I’ve reviewed a few in the past and it seems that Photo Montage took a lot from those but added more features and allowed it to be more user friendly. Photo Montage works in Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, Motion and After Effects. I love how it works across the board.
The only thing I wish that these slideshow generators would do is add a feature in the parameters to allow the duration of the slides to fit the duration of the generator. For instance if I had 20 slides and I wanted the duration of the generator to be 30 seconds it would automatically set the transition and duration of the slide accordingly. That would be a huge upgrade and make it hands down incredible. Right now it is a great generator and can use the manual settings to make a slideshow exactly how I want it. Since this is version 1.0, I hope it makes the cut for the next version.
Price
$199, for that price you better buy the one slideshow generator that has the most options…luckily this is the best one that I’ve used. You can instantly throw together an amazing wedding slideshow and get back to editing. That is the first thing that went through my head. The time saved will allow you to be a more efficient editor as well as a better one too. But there are so many more uses for this. I know we will be using this generator quite often for our web series Often Awesome the series. If you are looking for a good slideshow generator but with less features you can purchase one that I reviewed, the Aquafada’s generator PulpFx Abstract. The great thing about FxFactory is you can download the entire set of filters, transitions and generators and try them out for 14 days for free and I suggest you try those two out for yourself and see which one works best for you.
Requirements
Universal Binary
Mac OS X Leopard / Snow Leopard
Version 10.5.8 / Version 10.6.3
Mac with Intel processor
ATI, NVIDIA or Intel HD* graphics processor
Supported Hosts
Final Cut Pro
Final Cut Pro
Versions 6 and 7
Motion
Motion Versions 3 and 4
Final Cut Express Version 4
Adobe After Effects Versions 8, 9 and 10 (CS3, CS4 and CS5)**
* The earlier Intel Graphics Media Accelerators 950 and X3100 are not supported.
** Mac OS X 10.6.3 (or later) is required to use FxFactory plug-ins in Adobe After Effects 10 (CS5)
I’ve been waiting for this software for the longest time. As an Independent Filmmaker I have so many hats to wear that I don’t have the time to properly log all the important information into Final Cut Pro…OK, I’m just lazy and I know I’m not the only one either. Get, is the kind of software that will allow me to get to bed earlier and actually go out and have a life. I know other non-linear editing software has this feature already incorporated in it but as a Final Cut Pro user this is something that has been missing for years.
To be able to type in a word and Get searches your media footage and places markers in the media. Then you can export those markers into the Final Cut Pro project is priceless. Well sorta, the price of Get is $249 for a full license. But if you are working on someone else’s project and you are not on their machine you can rent it as well for 30 days -$59, 60 days – $109 or 90 days – $159. I love that you are able to rent it. If you don’t believe the hype, wait until you have to edit a project and try it for free for 10 days.
I’m not sure if Final Cut Pro X will have this feature incorporated in it or not but this is a no-brainier if you are a Final Cut Pro user and especially if you edit with massive amounts of media you gotta get, “Get“.
I love Photocopy from Digital Film Tools. There are many plugins that allow you to change the look of your video to match other popular films and give your video a different look, whether it is another time period, planet, location or feel. This plugin does it all and allows you to bring in your own textures and looks as well.
Here is how they do it…
Software that creates a photographic reproduction of a printed or graphic work made with a process in which a new image is formed by the action of proprietary image analysis, color, texture and light. Whether it’s still or moving images, the key attributes are copied from one image and applied to another.
We have painstakingly analyzed the brightness, color, tone, detail, grain and texture of some of the world’s greatest movies, paintings, photographs and historical photographic processes. The DNA of these masterpieces can now be applied to your very own images with PhotoCopy. The color, tone and brightness of the original work are replicated while the texture, grain and detail are simulated. [more…]
Photocopy contains a 15 day fully functional trial. Please download and test the software on your machine before purchasing. The software will be converted to a permanent version by purchasing a license.
Price
The price is $195 and it is worth it. Here is where I can see this plugin being useful.
Music Videos
Short Films
Documentaries
Feature Films
Art Films
If you have the budget for any of these projects go ahead and throw $195 extra in your budget and get this software. It will speed things up and give you a great polished look.
Product Specifications
Adobe Photoshop CS3 and up
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 and up
Photoshop Lightroom 3 and up
Apple Aperture 3 and up
After Effects CS3 and up
Final Cut Pro 6 and up
Final Cut Express 4
Avid Symphony, Media Composer, Newscutter, Xpress Pro
Macintosh Multicore Intel® processor
Mac OSX 10.5.x – OSX 10.6.x
Singular Software has done it again with software that syncs audio with video…perfectly. If you shoot with a DSLR and record audio on a digital recorder this is the perfect solution for your post production needs.
This is only a small sample of what Dual Eyes is capable of. I haven’t had the pleasure to sync a multi-camera edit yet…have footage that needs it in the next couple of weeks so I’ll update how well it does with that.
FCProducer (archive) 