Tiffen DFX 3.0 Review/Tutorial

November 23, 2011November 23, 2011 ~ abcoon ~ Leave a comment

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 ComposerÂ®, and Symphonyâ„¢ v6.0 as well as NewsCutterÂ® 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
Open-GL capable graphics card
Display with 1280 x 1024 resolution or higher
Three-button mouse
Wacom Intous 3 and 4 support

Macintosh:

MacÂ® OS X 10.6.x – 10.7.x
Macintosh Multicore IntelÂ® processor
1GB RAM (2 GB+ recommended)
Wacom Intous 3 and 4 support

PHYX Keyer 2.0 Easy to Use Chroma Keyer

June 5, 2011 ~ abcoon ~ 1 Comment

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 Best Slideshow Generator: Photo Montage for Final Cut Pro

May 9, 2011May 9, 2011 ~ abcoon ~ 1 Comment

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)

Cool Uses of a Monopod with DSLR

January 19, 2011January 19, 2011 ~ abcoon ~ Leave a comment

My friends over at Beat Down Boogie are sharing their techniques of getting some high quality shots with some very simple and easy to use techniques.

Check em out.

Fix Your Audio Levels All At Once in Final Cut Pro with Normalization

August 3, 2010 ~ abcoon ~ 1 Comment

Normalization…for the longest time I couldn’t figure out exactly what it did. I had audio geeks tell me to normalize everything and I’d ask, “what does it do?” The answer I always got was always to technical and in terms I couldn’t understand. I think like a video editor, so I needed it explained to me by a video editor. I found a perfect post by Final Cut Pro Master, Larry Jordan, explaining exactly what Normalization does.

Normalization means to raise the audio gain of an enitre clip such that the loudest portion of the clip does not exceed a level which you specify. As a note, I never normalize to 0 dB — it’s too loud. I tend to normalize audio between -4.5 and -6 dB.

That explains it and is a great utility to use on your clips. Select all the audio in your project that you want to Normalize, which should be all the talking audio, and normalize. You have to be careful though not to Normalize a final project without selecting the audio tracks from the clips because it will add gain to the entire project including any music tracks that you have.

If you care about becoming a more efficient video editor check out Larry Jordan’s site and learn from the master. This one tip will save me about 30 minutes every two weeks when I clean up the audio for Often Awesome the series.