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Use Roles to Find Clips Faster in Apple Final Cut Pro 10.8

Roles can now display different colors in an Apple Final Cut Pro 10.8 timeline. This new technique also provides a super-powerful, secret selection trick that can help organize complex projects, and apply effects. This is a trick worth knowing.

Survey Says: What Media Plugins Are You Using?

Looking for reputable video or audio plugins that “the pro’s use?” Recently Larry Jordan surveyed his audience to learn the answer to that question. Here are the results.

Not All Slo-mo is the Same. The New Smooth Slo-mo in Apple Final Cut Pro [v]

Not all slow motion looks the same. In this short video, Larry Jordan illustrates the four different ways to create slow motion – including the brand new Smooth Slo-mo in Final Cut Pro 10.8 – and the different looks each of these options create.

How to Use Color Adjustments to Fix Problems in Apple Final Cut Pro [v]

In this short video, Larry Jordan shows how to improve the look of your video using the new Color Adjustments effect in Apple Final Cut Pro 10.8.

Setup and Editing iPhone HDR Media in Apple Final Cut Pro [v]

HDR is quickly transforming from the video format of the future into the video format of today. In fact, every iPhone 12 or later can shoot HDR. In this short video, Larry Jordan shows how to setup and edit HDR media in two Final Cut Pro projects, one is HDR and the other is SDR.

Improved Markers in Adobe Premiere Pro

Markers are an invaluable navigation and commenting aid in Premiere. My problem with markers is that I can never put them where I want them. Or find them, once I’ve got them put. Fortunately, Adobe added some new features that make working with markers in Premiere Pro a lot easier.

Three Ways to Organize a Final Cut Pro Timeline

The 10.8 update extended the number of ways we can organize timelines in Final Cut Pro to three. This tutorial shows you the options, their strengths and weaknesses and how to create them.

Survey Says: Who’s Reading Larry Jordan’s Newsletter?

It is always good to know your audience. So, in July, 2024, I created a survey to learn more about the readers of my “Edit Smarter” weekly newsletter – and, more generally, the tools used by professional media creators. Here are key results.

Why Digital Files Are Always (Slightly) Bigger Than You Expect

Files stored on hard disk or SSD are always bigger than the original file. Why? Because of “block size.” This article explains what block size is and how it affects storage.

How to Sort Lists in Apple Final Cut Pro

How do lists sort in Apple Final Cut Pro? If you don’t understand the importance of column headers, you can get some confusing results. Here are the details.

Integrating AI in VFX (Visual Effects)

Discover the tools that harness AI for seamless VFX integration. More than just Generative AI, these can profoundly amplify your capabilities in visual storytelling. By automating labor-intensive tasks like rotoscoping, texture generation, and object tracking, you can focus more on the creative aspects of your projects.

Survey Says: Industry News is Important

My “Edit Smarter” newsletter survey is a wealth of useful information. Here’s one result that immediately jumped out at me.

Review Revisited: Elgato Stream Deck

Three years ago, I purchased and reviewed the Stream Deck from Elgato. I thought it was fine – but not particularly helpful to me. Until this week. Suddenly, I’m finding ways where it can save me a ton of time in ways I totally did not expect. So, time to revise my review.

Editing HDR iPhone Video in Final Cut Pro

Andy Wilson asked an interesting question recently. He wrote: “I shoot outdoors in sunlight in HDR on my iPhone 13 Pro Max (so nothing gets overexposed) and edit on a SDR timeline for publication to the web. I find that …

Then There Was the Time – 2″ Video Tape

More stories from the early days of video production and video tape. This one from Warren (“Butch”) Nelson.

Create Customized Effects in Apple Final Cut Pro 10.8

New effects features in the 10.8 update to Final Cut Pro, when combined with existing effects features, can make your post-production life faster and more consistent. These include renaming custom effects and building effects presets.

Why is Relinking Media Necessary?

Regardless of which NLE you use for media editing, you’ve probably suffered through the hassle of relinking media. This tutorial explains what caused it, how to fix it, and how to prevent it in the future.

Faster Ways to Export H.264 and HEVC Video from Final Cut Pro

In this tutorial, I tested different export options to see which is the fastest way to create an H.264 or HEVC compressed file from a Final Cut Pro project. Several results surprised me.

Key New Features in Apple Final Cut Pro 10.8 (Mac)

This week, Apple released Final Cut Pro 10.8. While this significant upgrade contains multiple new features and lots of fixes, here are the key features and how to use them.

CAUTION: Apple Final Cut Pro (Mac) 10.8 No Longer Supports DVD Burning

Apple Final Cut Pro 10.8 no longer supports DVD burning. However, Apple and Corel teamed up to provide a 50% discount to Roxio Toast for all FCP users. Here are the details.