[ This article was first published in the August, 2006, issue of
Larry’s Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. ]
Here’s another new thing we learned in class — a technique that I had forgotten. Jen discovered that you can select just part of a clip, then apply a filter just to the selection.
Here’s how:
1. Select the Range Selection tool on the Tool palette (or type ggg)
2. Drag across the portion of a clip, or group of clips, to which you want to apply the filter. You don’t need to select the entire clip.
3. Double-click the clip to load it into the Viewer. Click the Motion tab. See how the range of the filter is indicated by the two vertical black bars at the top of the filter tab — and that it only covers a portion of the the clip?
4. And, what Jen didn’t discover but you can, is that if you put your cursor between those two vertical black bars, you can drag the filter earlier or later in the clip.
In other words, you can slip the filter just like you would slip the content of a clip on the Timeline, provided you have sufficient space (called “handles”) in the clip to move the filter back and forth.
This technique can be much easier than using the razor blade to cut a clip, when all you want to do is apply a filter to a portion of the clip.
