Everywhere you turn, you’ll spot the “look”: video footage transformed to look like a cartoon. In a traditional workflow, the process involves rotoscoping. An artist literally traces animation frame by frame over the original source. The technique was invented by Max Fleischer around 1915, and has been used by animators on classic films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and Cinderella, as well as modern movies such as Titan A.E. and Waking Life.

The process is very tedious, however, so many video pros and motion graphics artists have been on a quest for an easier solution. These days you’ll find several products on the market to transform your video footage to look like it’s a cartoon. Early options such as Studio Artist ($379; www.synthetik.com) and market leaders like ToonIt ($399; www.redgiantsoftware.com) have all seen heavy use.

While they’re not new to the plug-in market, Boris FX has released their own take on cartoon filters. The Boris Continuum Unit: Cartoon Look breaks out four filters from the larger plug-in package Continuum Complete. The set is only $199 (significantly less than competitors) and runs in several host applications including Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro, as well as Apple Final Cut Pro and Motion. The four filters for stylizing your footage include:

• BCC Cartoon Look: This filter attempts to simulate the look of rotoscoped animation. The original colors are preserved and the edges thickened.
• BCC Pencil Sketch: The filter does a reasonable job of emulating the look of a hand-drawn, pencil-sketched image. Edges are enhanced, but most color is reduced or removed.
• BCC Charcoal Sketch: This filter quickly simulates the thick strokes of a charcoal sketch. The resulting animation is drawn with thick black-and-white lines.
• BCC Watercolor: Watercolor paint-style animation is created with this filter. These are typified by soft edges and intensified color.

For our testing, the effects were run under After Effects CS4. So the question is simple: Is it worth it? The answer is it truly depends.

First off, you’ll either love or hate the cartoon filter look as a whole. The look is very trendy and your clients may be asking for it. On the other hand, none of the filters on the market match the quality of hand-drawn animation.
The filter offers precise controls with numerous options. What’s nice is the ability to blend the stylized image with the original, as well as control the thickness of lines.

While the effects offer presets, they don’t load with the standard Adobe preset picker. The quality of presets also varies.

The filter does render relatively quickly on modern computers. It also does a nice job of preserving edge details so the “drawn” lines don’t jitter or suddenly disappear.

After Effects CS4 already includes a very versatile Cartoon filter. While its controls don’t match the Boris filter, the price to upgrade to CS4 is only a little more and offers many more advantages.

ToonIt from Red Giant Software seems to offer solid results and is worth a head-to-head comparison for the serious buyer. Be sure to download the trials for each package and see which you find more intuitive and eye-pleasing.—Richard Harrington

Company: Boris FX
Price: $199
Web: www.borisfx.com
Rating: 2.5

Hot: Popular look with easy-to-use controls
Not: Results don’t match quality of competing products

By now you’ve probably heard the term “video podcast,” but what exactly does it mean? The simplest answer is this: A video podcast is a TV show that’s delivered via the Internet. Shows are usually targeted to special interest groups and cover niche subject matters. The files can be watched on a computer; many TVs; and, of course, portable media players such as the iPod, iPhone, and Zune. The unique part is that viewers can subscribe and have new shows download automatically.

So why all the buzz? Because consumers want their Web video—a lot! It’s estimated that 38 million Americans will consume podcasts in 2009. When you expand that to worldwide, Web video is growing at an exponential rate. One reputable group estimates that Web video will have an audience of one billion by the year 2013. It’s a pretty exciting time for those wanting to share with the world.

It’s possible for a podcaster to reach out and connect with large audiences. This audience may not rival those consuming mainstream media (although some podcasts, such as Photoshop User TV [www.photoshopusertv.com], regularly outperform cable and network television), but your chances are good to reach a substantial percentage of a niche market.

Consumers are looking for news and entertainment that they can relate to—that addresses their needs and specific interests. But webcam video and low production values rarely cut it. Viewers expect nicely shot video with attractive graphics, effective editing, and killer sound. If you produce professional-looking content, your audience can enjoy the show without being distracted by horrendous production values.

Whether you’re a business, a government agency, or even an enterprising individual, you can harness the power of podcasting to reach an audience. Additionally, the video you produce for podcasting is fully compatible with other video distribution channels, ensuring that you can repurpose your content to reach the broadest audience. Let’s take a look at how you can use professional techniques and the Adobe Creative Suite to make great podcasts and Web video.

Video editing advice for podcasts

The editing stage is the place where all the pieces come together into the final story. In many ways, it all comes down to how the editor puts these pieces together. Editing podcasts has a few unique challenges compared to traditional video.

Determining editing size: Don’t worry about making your sequence match the finished podcast size. All of the resizing can happen later during the compression stage. Simply set up Premiere Pro to match your footage. If you shot in HD, edit that way. Widescreen DV? Set up the project to match. It’s a very good idea to stick with the sequence presets that ship with your editing software. Just be sure to match the right sequence settings to your footage. If you have to render everything in your Timeline, the sequence settings are wrong.

Maintaining optimum color and exposure: Many podcasters understand little about color correcting their video. Here are a few simple pieces of advice:

• Try to avoid blowing out the image. If it’s a choice between too light or too dark, favor too dark.
• Make sure you have sufficient contrast because a lack of contrast will cause problems when you compress.
• Use a three-way color corrector or curves-based color correction effects.

Consider transitions carefully: Oftentimes, wipes and transitions will break up due to a podcast’s compression. A transition (especially a dissolve) is much more complex to effectively compress. This is because so many of the pixels are changing at the same time—and usually quite rapidly. Podcast compression relies upon MPEG-4 technology, which saves space by only updating pixels that change. When you use a wipe, it causes a spike in the data needed to show the image clearly. Because podcasts generally have caps on their data rates, this results in the picture breaking up. Many podcasters eliminate wipes altogether, and instead rely upon the most basic dissolves and fade to color transitions (or even the most basic transition of all—the cut).

Dealing with interlaced material: There’s a very good chance that the video in your Timeline is interlaced (even if it was shot in 24p). Most video formats involve some interlacing. This is a “leftover” technology from the earliest days of television. Video interlacing causes half of one frame to load, followed by the second half. While this is useful for video that’s intended for television sets (it can produce smoother motion), it looks terrible on progressive-type displays (such as LCDs, iPods, etc.).

Here are a few ways to solve the problem:

• Shoot progressive: If you know that you’re only delivering to podcast, shoot your video progressive to get rid of fields.
• Deinterlace the Timeline: Premiere Pro lets you set a Timeline to progressive scan in the New Sequence dialog. You’ll generally need to remove fields using a plug-in for After Effects and Premiere Pro such as FieldsKit (www.revisionfx.com) or Resizer 2.2 (www.redgiantsoftware.com). Note: Resizer, formerly from Digital Anarchy, is now part of Magic Bullet Instant HD from Red Giant Software.
• During compression: The Adobe Media Encoder CS4 will automatically remove interlacing from your footage when you use a podcast preset on interlaced material (we’ll talk more about Adobe Media Encoder later).

Audio normalization: Pay attention to your audio levels. The podcasting audience is largely comprised of people with headphones jacked into their ears. If your audio mix keeps varying, with areas being very loud followed by very quiet, you’ll annoy your audience. A sudden blast of sound because the talent got really loud will cause someone to take the ear buds out and turn off your show.

Fortunately, Premiere Pro offers normalization gain. This process automatically smoothes out your audio levels. It won’t totally “flatten” the mix, but it will move it all closer to the middle: your highest highs will drop to a specified target (in dBs) and your lowest lows will be raised closer to the center. This is a very important step and worth doing. Here’s how:

STEP ONE: In the Timeline panel, select the sequence you want to normalize, and choose Sequence>Normalize Master Track.

STEP TWO: In the Normalize Track dialog, enter an amplitude value in the dB field (zero to –2 dB is a good starting point), and click OK.

STEP THREE: Play your sequence and listen to your audio. You can undo and repeat with a different dB value as needed.

Run time strategies: Never forget your target run time. For most podcasts, you’re editing short-form entertainment or training. It’s far better to keep a podcast short and to the point. In our opinion, this is an easy way to meet the audience’s needs and lower production costs. We personally target three to eight minutes per episode.

One trick is to add a marker in your Timeline to make it easier to see your target run time. Remember, most shows benefit from editing out the bad parts. A shorter show helps you distill your content to only the best parts.

Graphics for podcasts

There are several issues to consider when it comes to building motion graphics for a podcast. The advice we offer here is specific to podcast graphics. However, if you’re inexperienced with broadcast graphics, we strongly recommend additional reading and practice (there are tons of great tutorials on the Layers magazine website [www.layersmagazine.com] and books on motion and video graphics, such as Photoshop for Video, by Focal Press).

Screen size and design issues: Try resizing your graphics to a podcast size (such as 640×480 or 640×360 for widescreen) to see how they look. You don’t want to make your audience squint, so keep the text larger and easier to read. For podcasting, leave a 10% margin around the outside edge of your graphics so the text doesn’t get hard to read by being too close to the edge of the computer screen or portable media player.

DV/HDV sucks the life from graphics: The DV (digital video) and HDV (high-definition video) codecs are the kiss of death to graphics. They instantly throw away three-fourths of the work you’ve done and it makes it look terrible. Be very careful if you’re working with DV footage not to finish your sequences using the DV codec. Instead, change your sequence settings to a higher quality (such as Animation codec) for the final render. If using HDV, capture to a different codec and work with something less compressed.

Keep ’em clean: While clean is a subjective judgment, it’s still essential. By clean, we mean crisp, easy-to-read, and easy-to-understand designs. You want clarity with your podcast graphics. If things feel too busy, it’s probably too busy; if you think it’s a little hard to read, your audience will think it’s very hard to read. We’re not advocating for vanilla design, just remember that podcasting is a very low-resolution medium that’s also heavily compressed. You have less latitude than print (and even video), so it’s essential you design with the medium in mind.

Match style of show: The goal is simple; you want the personality of your graphics package to match the style of your show and its host. Make sure that you’re figuring out a way to make your show different than all the rest. Analyze your perceived competition then develop graphics that have a unique appearance that matches your show.

Read time: Many motion graphic designers and editors seem to forget that graphics are actually meant to be read by an audience. The idea with read times is that you want to be able to read the graphic “out loud,” preferably twice, before removing the graphic. This is an old broadcast standard for a good reason.

Fonts for small screens: Be sure to invest in a font for your show that didn’t come preinstalled with Microsoft Office. You need to find a visual identity for your podcast, and good use of type is an easy way to do so. Take a look out there—there’s a typeface that has your show’s personality. Something that’s somewhat unique and will help convey the character of your show. Here are a few of our favorite type foundries: Chank (www.chank.com); Dinctype (www.girlswhowearglasses.com); BV Fonts (www.bvfonts.com); and Acid Fonts (www.acidfonts.com).

Working with screen captures

Are you looking to launch the next podcast to share your design ideas or software tips? Then you need screen capture software. There are software programs that allow you to record what’s happening on your computer’s screen. The software can create and store a video file on a hard drive so you can edit it with Premiere Pro. Here are some popular screen capture utilities:

• iShowU (www.shinywhitebox.com): This Mac-only tool is reasonably priced and does a great job of writing files to disk.
• Snapz Pro (www.ambrosiasw.com): This is another Mac-only tool that offers capture of both static and motion screens.
• Camtasia Studio (www.techsmith.com): This PC-only solution writes very small files. It can then export to virtually any video format.

Music for podcasts

Finding the right music to use in a podcast is very tricky. Sure you have the same selection challenges as any video—making sure the music fits the mood—but it goes well beyond that. With podcasts, you have all sorts of issues. First, the files are shown on the Web (which is usually considered worldwide distribution). Then, add the fact that the items can be downloaded to a user’s computer. When it comes to licensing music, things can get very expensive. Here are two approaches to staying legal that are worth considering:

Pod-safe music: Many independent musicians make their music available for promotional reasons. There are websites where musicians of all genres offer up their music for free use as long as you identify them in your show credits. This is a great way to find music that sounds fresh and literally costs nothing. Here are some sites for finding pod-safe music:

• PodSafe Music Network: http://podsafemusicnetwork.com
• IODA Promonet: www.iodapromonet.com
• Moby gratis: www.mobygratis.com
• AudioFeeds.org: http://audiofeeds.org
• Kahvi Collective: http://kahvi.org

Soundbooth scoring: Building a customized music track is easy with Adobe Soundbooth CS4. Soundbooth is a recent addition to the Adobe Creative Suite and represents a significant evolution in approaching audio tasks. Adobe Soundbooth is designed to make music creation simple. Soundbooth gives you access to several musical scores as well as sound effects. The first step to scoring music with Soundbooth is to preview scores. Most of the scores aren’t loaded by default, but they’re easy to access with an Internet connection.

STEP ONE: Launch Adobe Soundbooth CS4 and choose Window>Resource Central. If your computer is connected to the Internet, you’ll see new content load.

STEP TWO: Click the Scores tab to see the free scores for download. Each score is a highly customizable song that can intelligently adjust to the length of your video and has the ability to change intensity and instrumentation. Items in the Score and Sound Effects tabs are free to download and use.

STEP THREE: Click the category drop-down menu (currently labeled Ambient) and choose Electronic 2. Click the Preview icon (right-facing arrow) for “River of Unreality.” Let’s give this track a try. Click the download icon (down-facing arrow) to save the file. Wait until the file finishes downloading to proceed.

STEP FOUR: Click the Scores tab to switch to the Scores panel (not within Resource Central, but at the top of the window). At the bottom of the Scores panel, click the Import Scores to Score Library icon. Select the downloaded score.

Once a score is selected, you can add it to a movie file, After Effects composition, or Premiere Pro sequence. Soundbooth makes it easy to adjust the length of a score to get a customized sound that fits the duration of your video.

STEP ONE: In the Scores panel, select the score “River of Unreality.” Click the Add Score to Multitrack icon. The score moves into the Editor window. You can now add a Premiere Pro sequence.

STEP TWO: Choose File>Adobe Dynamic Link>Import Premiere Pro Sequence. A new window opens asking you to specify a location for the Premiere Pro project. You can also choose File>Import>Files to simply add a video file. Select the sequence or file and click OK.

STEP THREE: If the music is too long or short, click the score track then move the pointer over the end of the audio track until it turns into a red cursor. Click-and-drag to adjust the audio track to match the video’s length.

STEP FOUR: Choose Window>Video to see the video you’re scoring to. Click Play to preview the music and video. Not too shabby, but the score can be customized using basic presets to set the intensity or adjusted over time using keyframes. This flexibility greatly improves the usefulness of each score.

STEP FIVE: At the top of the audio track in the editor window, click the Parameters drop-down menu and choose Show All to see all the keyframeable properties for the track. Volume allows you to adjust how loud the clip is—usually louder in the beginning and end, but dips lower when people are talking. Intensity impacts how “strong” the music is. Experiment with Intensity by scrubbing its value up and down.

STEP SIX: When you’re done, you can save the ASND file and sync to your video in Premiere Pro.

Podcast compression

To output your podcast video files, you have the perfect tool: Adobe Media Encoder CS4. This versatile utility can read any video format that you’d create using the Creative Suite and can output podcast-ready MPEG-4 files.

STEP ONE: Launch the Adobe Media Encoder, click the Add button, and select one or more files.

STEP TWO: From the Format drop-down menu, choose H.264, and then click the Preset drop-down menu and choose an Apple iPod preset for standard-definition shows or an Apple TV preset for HD shows. After you select a preset, you can click on its name to customize the settings to make them more compatible for Apple iPods.

STEP THREE: Click the Output File path to specify a location for your compressed files. Choose File>Save Queue, then click Start Queue to create your podcast-ready video files.

RSS & podcast delivery

Once the video is encoded, you need to create an RSS file and host the shows. There are no Adobe services for hosting and delivering podcasts—but the process is pretty straightforward. Here are a few resources to check out to learn more about podcast hosting and delivery.

• Apple podcasting online class: http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/podcast/apple
• iTunes podcasting tech specs: www.apple.com/itunes/whatson/podcasts/specs.html
• Podcast Maker for Mac: http://lemonzdream.com/podcastmaker
• The Podcast RSS Buddy for Mac and PC: www.tolley.info/rssbuddy
• RSS Feed Validator: http://feedvalidator.org
• The Adobe Media Player: www.adobe.com/products/mediaplayer

And here are a few hosting companies that offer podcast hosting packages. These plans often have much higher bandwidth than webhosting plans and are priced differently. Don’t use standard webhosting for your podcast as it’s more expensive and not the best solution.

• AltarCast: www.altarcast.com
• Apple MobileMe: www.apple.com/mobileme
• Big Contact: http://v2.bigcontact.com
• Blogamp: http://blogamp.com
• GoDaddy: www.godaddy.com
• Hipcast: www.hipcast.com
• LibSyn: www.libsyn.com
• mDialog: www.mdialog.com
• Ourmedia: http://ourmedia.org
• Podbean: www.podbean.com
• podbus: www.podbus.com
• Podcast Spot: www.podcastspot.com
• podHoster: www.podhoster.com
• Podkive: www.genetichosting.com
• PodStrike!: www.podstrike.com
• Switchpod: www.switchpod.com

The road ahead

At this point, we would like to welcome you to the new publishing revolution. Be sure to keep up on podcasting news by visiting the blog www.vidpodcaster.com, and you can find local podcasting groups by visiting www.meetup.com. Join us—there’s an audience out there waiting just for you.

ALL IMAGES ©RHED PIXEL UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

If you’d like to download the assets used in this tutorial to practice these techniques, just click here. All files are for personal use only.

1 LOAD YOUR MEDIA IN PREMIERE PRO
You’ll need some audio to transcribe. Fortunately, this works well with both audio-only formats and video formats with audio attached. Here are a few guidelines to improve the accuracy of the transcriptions:
• Try to avoid heavily compressed or lossy file formats like MP3 audio.
• You can normalize the volume in a clip in Soundbooth using the Equalize Volume Levels tool (Processes>Equalize Volume Levels).
• If there’s a lot of background noise, try to clean that up. Soundbooth also offers noise-reduction tools if needed.
If you need an audio file, you can use the Layers_About_Us.wav from www.layersmagazine.com/magazine-downloads or visit the Internet Archive at www.archive.org.

2 OPEN THE METADATA PANEL
The Metadata panel is your starting point for speech transcription. To open the panel, choose Window>Metadata. If the Metadata panel is hidden behind another panel, click its tab to bring it forward.
Using the Speech Search function takes a while to set up, but when finished, all metadata for clips will be searchable from the Metadata panel. Fortunately, the process can run in the background, which means you can still edit or perform other tasks. The Metadata panel allows you to search by any word or phrase within the clip.

3 SELECT A CLIP FOR TRANSCRIPTION
You need to specify which clip you want to transcribe. In Premiere, you can only select one clip at a time. Select the desired clip in the Project panel. Then in the Metadata panel, click on the Transcribe button. A new dialog opens and asks for more information about the clip.

4 SPECIFY A LANGAUGE
In order to improve the accuracy of the transcription, Premiere needs additional information from you. Production Premium applications can currently access 12 different language libraries, but this list is expected to grow. Click on the Language drop-down menu in the Speech Transcription Options dialog and choose your language. Be sure to pick the one that most closely matches your speaker. Note that there are unique choices for Spanish, French, and English, depending on region.

5 SPECIFY THE QUALITY OF TRANSCRIPTION
Adobe offers two quality choices for the transcription. The default choice is High (Slower), which will take longer to process the files, but offers significantly better translation. The second choice, Medium (Faster), should only be used when you’re very tight on time. The results are less accurate, but do process more quickly.

In our tests, we used a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 4 GB of RAM to transcribe the Layers_About_Us.wav file. The High method resulted in a ratio of 1.8, meaning the runtime of the clip multiplied by 1.8 equals the approximate processing time. The Medium method was nearly four times faster with a ratio of approximately .5.

6 IDENTIFY YOUR SPEAKERS
The transcription option can attempt to identify different speakers in a clip. In the Speech Transcription Options dialog, you can select Identify Speakers. This takes longer to process, but will attempt to create separate transcripts for each person. This method can be more inaccurate, so only use it if you have a long clip with multiple voices or want to export the transcript for others to view. When ready to submit your clip, click OK.

7 SWITCH TO THE ADOBE MEDIA ENCODER CS4
The actual transcription is powered by the Adobe Media Encoder CS4 application, which will automatically launch when you click OK in the Speech Transcription Options dialog. This powerful tool allows you to convert audio and video files to many different formats used for tasks, such as DVD authoring and Web distribution. The clip you selected in Premiere Pro should appear at the top of the list and be ready to transcribe. If you have more than one clip to transcribe, you can set up a batch.

8 BATCH METHOD #1
If you have multiple clips organized in Premiere Pro, switch back to that application. You can select the next desired clip for processing. Just repeat Steps 3–6 in this tutorial for each clip you want to transcribe. This method works well if you have just a few clips to select. The benefit of setting up all the clips for transcription is that you can run the task in the background while editing or working on graphics.

9 BATCH METHOD #2
If you have several clips to transcribe, you might find it easier to grab an entire folder of media. In the Adobe Media Encoder CS4 application, click the Add button in the main window. You can then navigate to a folder and select multiple clips (hold down the Shift key to choose more than one clip). Next, specify Speech Transcription from the Format button. You must then specify options by clicking on the word Custom (if you want to adjust multiple clips at once, Shift-click to select them all before clicking Custom). Select the Speech Params tab and set the Language, Quality, and Speaker options using the aforementioned advice.

10 START YOUR ENGINES
Once you have all your clips ready to encode, you’ll need to start the Adobe Media Encoder. Just click the Start Queue button to initiate the transcription process. If you have more than one clip loaded for transcription, the Encoder will process them from top to bottom in the Queue. If you plan to leave your computer, leave the Adobe Media Encoder software as the foreground application (and quit any software you aren’t using to free up RAM). If you want to keep working, just switch back to Premiere.

11 VIEW THE TRANSCRIPTION
When the transcription is completed for each clip, the text automatically becomes available. In Premiere Pro select the clip you’d like to search in the Project panel then click on the Metadata panel. To make it easier to view, click in the space above the Speech Transcript area and drag upward to resize the window. You can also close the disclosure triangles for the Clip and File properties to make more room.

12 SEARCH WITH TRANSCRIPTION
To find a particular piece of audio, just click its word. The accuracy of the transcription will vary (Adobe keeps releasing updates to improve the Speech Search). A little bit of reading, though, will often help you find a word. To actually search for a word or phrase, click in the search field next to the magnifying glass at the top of the Metadata panel. Then type a word or phrase you want to find in the audio file. If the word or phrase occurs it will be highlighted in the Speech Transcript field. Click on the word and its timecode location will appear in the Timecode In field. The playhead is automatically cued to the selected metadata and ready to edit

13 IMPROVE ACCURACY
The transcript created is fully editable. If you want to correct a word, just double-click it, select the letters you want to edit, and type. Additionally, you can Control-click (PC: Right-click) on a word to access commands. The entire transcript can be copied by choosing Copy All from the contextual menu. Additionally, you can choose to include the transcript file in the final export if sending your video to the Web via Flash Video.
This feature is in its infancy, but should prove its use as it continues to mature. Be sure to give it a shot. For more information about XMP metadata, see www.adobe.com/go/learn_dv_tutorial_xmpcreative_en.

ALL IMAGES ©RHED PIXEL, UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

Rich Harrington demonstrates how to use After Effects CS4′s guides and device central tools to make sure that your video content will display correctly on whatever device your viewers will be using.

Mocha is a cool new piece of software that is included in the After Effects CS4 bundle. It is a planer tracking system that works as an assistant when doing things like creating and adjusting screens.

Rich Harrington explores the new realistic behaviors of light and shadow in After Effects CS4. In this video, Rich concentrates on creating and positioning light sources and creating shadows. He also moves the camera around to create a small action clip.

Rich Harrington talks about one his favorite new features in Premiere Pro CS4; the audio transcription options. Audio transcription is very powerful and it comes in real handy when editing by helping to locate audio clips. The transcription information can also be exported with the video.

Adobe Media Encoder CS4 takes the place of several tools that users had to rely on for processing and compression. The Adobe Media Encoder converts to several different formats, including formats for web and mobile devices. There are also speech transcription option and batch processing.

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1 [SHOOT YOUR VIDEO RIGHT]
Cameras often have auto features turned on that can make keying much more difficult. Turn off auto-exposure, auto-white balance, and auto-focus. If any of these are left on, this means the green you’re trying to key will constantly change as your model moves. While you’re in the setup menu, be sure to turn off Sharpening. Keep your model and your camera as far away from the screen as possible. If your camera shoots progressive, take advantage of it. Fields definitely get in the way of a good key. If possible avoid DV and HDV.

2 [CAPTURE VIDEO WITH PREMIERE PRO]
You’ll need to get the video into the Creative Suite in order to work with it. With Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium, you have Adobe Premiere Pro for digitizing or importing video. If working with tape-based sources, choose File>Capture and use your deck or camera to load footage. If working with tapeless sources (such as P2 Cards or XDCAM) simply choose File>Import and navigate to the clips on your hard drive. It’s a good idea to transfer the media first to an edit-grade hard drive.

3 [MAKE YOUR ESSENTIAL EDITS]
First, you’ll want to edit your clips in Premiere. Simply put, keying takes time—time to set it up and render. You don’t want to bother keying footage you don’t need. Create a new sequence and get it edited in a rough form. It’s a good idea to leave one second of pad on both ends of the shots you want to key (this is called “laving handles”). This pad gives you overlap that you’ll use for transitions (wipes and dissolves). You’ll add these after you’ve created the composited image.

4 [GO TO AFTER EFFECTS WITH DYNAMIC LINK]
Adobe Dynamic Link works across many of the applications in the Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium. It can significantly speed up your workflow as it provides the ability to create dynamic links between applications, without a need for exporting or rendering. In the Project window, select the sequence you want to share and choose Edit>Copy. Switch to After Effects and choose Edit>Paste. A new composition that matches the settings of your Premiere sequence is created and the associated media is imported into After Effects. Double-click the new sequence to open it.

5 [STEP AWAY AND MAKE A BACKDROP]
In order to key, you’ll need a backdrop. This can be a stock background, a 3D rendering, or a photograph. One of our favorite techniques is to use a panoramic photo. This gives you a lot of options as you can easily resize and reposition the backdrop for different framings. To create a pano, use a digital still camera. Orient the camera for portrait, then shoot three to five photographs. Be sure each shot overlaps the previous shot by 10–20% so the photos can be easily stitched together. Load the photos onto your computer.

6 [LOCATE IMAGES WITH ADOBE BRIDGE]
The easiest way to browse your photos is with Adobe Bridge. This file navigation tool allows you to visually browse your media, which comes in handy when looking for your background images. If needed, you can even rotate images in Bridge. Once you’ve found and selected your panoramic images, choose Tools>Photoshop>Photomerge. If it’s not running already, Photoshop will launch and become the active application. The Photomerge dialog presents itself and awaits your input.

7 [RUN THE PHOTOMERGE COMMAND]
The files you selected in Bridge are automatically loaded in the Use: Files list. There are several layout options, but we’ve found that Auto works very well most of the time. Be sure to check the box next to Blend Images Together. Click OK and be patient—each image has to open. Photoshop will attempt to automatically align your images and use layer masks to blend them together seamlessly.

8 [SAVE A PREPPED IMAGE]
Once the image is built, you should optimize it for a video workflow. If you’re happy with the Photomerge, you’ll likely no longer need layers. Choose Layer>Flatten Image to reduce the image to a flattened file. This will reduce render times and RAM overhead for the After Effects Composition. Crop the image to a clean rectangular shape using the Crop tool (C). Save the file as a TIFF image to your project folder.

9 [IMPORT AND STACK]
Unfortunately, there’s no Dynamic Link between Photoshop and After Effects (but the workflow is still easy). Switch back to After Effects and double-click in an empty area of the Project panel (or choose File>Import>File). Navigate to the file just created with Photomerge, select it, and click Open. Drag this imported file to the bottommost layer in the open composition (placing it below your video footage). Now turn to the After Effects column on page 90 for instructions on keying your footage using Keylight, a powerful chroma keying plug-in from The Foundry. Then return here to composite your background with your keyed video.

10 [Tweak Position]
Once you’ve nailed the key, you can tweak the background. The advantage with an oversized background is that you can position it to taste. This way, as your shot composition changes (such as a medium shot to close-up), you can change the size and position of the background. This also allows for a background to be reused on multiple interviews with greater flexibility. To access position controls, simply select the layer and press the shortcut key P. You can then tweak the layer’s X Y Position to suit. To use Scale, just press the shortcut key S.

11 [Tweak Focus]
Chances are that your backdrop is a little too clear. Most photographers make it a point to take pictures in focus. But if this scene were really being filmed with a video camera, the backdrop would be out of focus due to depth of field. You can tweak this using a Gaussian or Lens Blur effect (both under Effect>Blur & Sharpen) to soften the background and simulate depth of field. Gaussian Blur is faster than Lens Blur if you’re in a hurry, but Lens Blur offers some realistic settings you can tweak, such as Grain and Highlights.

12 [Tweak Color Balance]
Your foreground and background elements will likely not match from a color balance point of view, but it’s easy to tweak your colors. One effective way is to apply an Adjustment Layer (Layer>New>Adjustment Layer) with a Photo Filter (Effect>Color Correction>Photo Filter), which offers useful presets for warming or cooling shots. Additionally, Keylight offers color-correction controls to match foreground and background elements. Paying close attention to color will help make the composite more believable. Additionally, you can use any other Color Correction effects in After Effects to refine the shot. The professional workflow is to key the shot first, then tweak color and exposure.

13 [Bake It]
It’s generally a good idea to invoke a full-quality RAM preview first to make sure the key works well. Simply mark out a work area of a few seconds and check the key. When satisfied with your composition, you’ll need to render it. This can be done via the After Effects Render Queue (Composition>Add to Render Queue), which allows you to create QuickTime, AVI, or FLV files. If further editing is needed, simply invoke Dynamic Link (copy-and-paste) to return the composite to Premiere Pro.

All images ©RHED Pixel, unless otherwise noted

[If you’d like to download the project files used in this tutorial to practice these techniques, click here. All files are for practice purposes only.]

1 [MATCH YOUR CAMERAS]
Whether you’re giving a technical demonstration or just an in-depth interview, the option to shoot with more than one camera makes editing much easier. Rolling multiple cameras at once ensures you have another angle to cut to and that the footage will stay in sync. What often happens, though, is that it becomes jarring as the editor cuts from one angle to the next. This is because the cameras aren’t matched. To make color matching easier, do your best to shoot with similar or identical cameras and to set the cameras to the same menu settings.

2 [USE A CALIBRATION CARD]
If you want great color, then using a calibration chart can really come in handy. There are several options here, but what’s important is that you have a clean shot of a card with pure black, pure white, and neutral gray. One option is the QPcard (www.qpcard.se) that offers disposable, self-adhesive cards. The QPcard 101 calibration card runs about $14 for a three-pack and the advantage here is that you can toss the card once it gets faded. Another choice might be the PhotoVision Digital Calibration Targets (www.photovisionvideo.com) that range in size and cost between $30 and $100.

3 [WHITE AND BLACK BALANCE IN THE FIELD]
Don’t think that fixing it in post means you can screw it up in the field. Always use the white and black balance options on your camera. Be sure to zoom in tightly on the calibration chart and balance your cameras. Anytime you change a battery, move locations, or move lights, you’ll want to rebalance your cameras. If you’re using natural light (such as the sun), remember that it moves so, depending on the time of day, you may need to recalibrate your cameras. Once your shot is set, don’t forget to roll actual footage of your reference chart (you’ll use it in post).

4 [LOAD FOOTAGE WITH ANGLE INFO]
When you digitize or transfer your footage, be sure to include information that can help you color correct. Load information such as camera angle, tape number, and date. That way, you’ll only need to color-correct the first shot in the scene or location. Once the shot is fixed, you’re able to reuse your color effects; but to do this, you’ll need good information to help identify your clips.

(For hands-on practice, you can download the practice project we’re using here from layersmagazine.com )

5 [SET UP A COLOR CORRECTION WORKSPACE]
To make color correction easier, choose Window>Workspace>Color Correction. This will switch you to a specialized layout optimized for color correction. (To ensure that you’re working in the default Color Correction workspace, go ahead and choose Window>Workspace>Reset Current Workspace, as well.) Make sure that Draft Quality isn’t chosen in the Program Monitor flyout menu. While you’re in the flyout menu, you can set the Program Monitor to something more useful, such as a Waveform monitor, which can help show you areas that aren’t broadcast safe.

6 [COLOR CORRECT REFERENCE CLIP]
Select the first clip in your Timeline that has the reference chart in it (this will be the first shot in the Calibrated Angles Timeline). The best effect to use for color correction (especially when you have a reference chart) is the Three-Way Color Corrector. In the Effects panel, click to expand the Video Effects, then click to expand the Color Correction effects. Select the Three-Way Color Corrector and drag it onto your first clip.

(Tip: If you want to jump right to the Three-Way Color Corrector, you can type the word “three” into the Contains field at the top of the Effects panel.)

7 [SET THE BALANCES]
To color balance the shot, you’ll need to position the Current Time Indicator so the reference card is clearly visible (for the sample project, 02:28). In the Effects Control panel, click to expand the Three-Way Color Corrector. You can now use the Balance eyedroppers to fix the Black, Gray, and White Balance (in that order). Click on the Black Balance eyedropper and then click once on the black swatch of the reference card. Repeat for the Gray Balance and White Balance droppers. You’ll notice that the hue balance wheels have had their magnitude control points adjusted to remove color cast.

8 [ADJUST WHITE AND BLACK LEVELS]
While you performed a white and black balance on set, the clip can still benefit from adjusting levels. Click the Black Level eyedropper and sample black from the reference card. Repeat for the Gray Level and White Level eyedroppers. The shadows and highlights are stronger in the image but the image isn’t broadcast safe. If you view the Waveform monitor in the Reference window (choose YC Waveform from the flyout menu), you’ll see that the luminance exceeds 100 on the IRE scale; we’ll fix this in a minute.

9 [ADJUST SATURATION]
While we have a pleasant contrast in the image, the Saturation can be pushed a bit. This is especially true if you have vivid color objects in the frame. Switch the Tonal Range pop-up menu in the Effect Controls panel to Midtones—this is where most of the skin tones and objects are situated. Increase the Midtone Saturation to 125%. By targeting just the midtones, you can limit the saturation change to the areas that need it most without impacting the shadows or highlights.

10 [MAKE IT LEGAL]
All of the tweaking we’ve done to the shot has pushed the saturation and luminance values outside the “legal” range. By legal, we mean following the acceptable standards of broadcasters. Even if you don’t intend to show it in a broadcast environment, following standards helps ensure the show’s appearance on television sets. To make this “legalization” easy, simply go back to the Effects panel and apply the Broadcast Colors effect from the Color Correction group.

11 [SAVE EFFECT]
To save time, once the master shot is color-corrected, you can reuse the color effect on all other appearances of the shot in a Timeline. First, save the effect: The easiest way to store the effect is to save it as a preset. In the Effect Controls panel, click the Three-Way Color Corrector effect, then click the Effect Controls flyout menu and choose Save Preset. Name the effect “Camera A, Scene 12.” (See how that camera angle and scene info comes in handy?) The effect preset is added to the Presets folder in the Effects panel.

12 [REUSE EFFECT]
To reuse an effect, simply drag-and-drop. By naming your effect presets clearly, you’ll know where to use them and remember that you can make subfolders to organize your presets by job. When a job is done, click on the saved preset, and then click the Trash icon at the bottom of the Effects panel. The key here is consistency with your color correction while moving at a fast pace.

13 [CHECK THE SHOW]
Once a show is “done,” it needs to be checked. Reviewing your show on a color-calibrated, broadcast-quality monitor ensures that what you think a shot looks like will hold up in the real world. While many editors work with laptop screens or computer displays, you need to actually check your video on a professional video monitor. This will often mean using a CRT-style reference monitor attached to a professional video capture card. This extra investment in hardware is essential to a truly professional workflow.

©ISTOCKPHOTO/ANDREW BREAN