The new 3D Camera Tracker can give you some amazing results in analyzing 2D footage and creating a true 3D camera to work with. But there are times when the tracker gets “fooled”. In this episode, Colin uses real-world footage that includes a camera pan, moving subject and an escalator and shows what to do when the tracker gets confused by all that motion.

In another user requested video, Colin answer the question that many Mac users are wondering - how hard is it to move to Windows? Colin explores just how easy it is to move your FinalCut Pro 7 projects into Premiere Pro CS6 on Windows. He also invites Terry Brown from HP to join him to see exactly what all the excitement is over HP hardware and why RED Digital Cinema has chosen a Windows platform for massive performance gains.

In yet another user requested episode, Colin takes you back to 1994 and shows you all the things your missing if you’ve been flattening, and rasterizing your complex Photoshop layers just to get them to work in FinaCut Pro 7. You might be amazed to see that lots has changed since 1994, including Layer Styles that instantly update and give you complete creative freedom!

The Photoshop team did a fantastic job in unifying the 3D controls in Photoshop CS6 Extended - BUT, if you spent a lot of time learning the controls in version 5, you might be wondering exactly where they are. Colin shows where they are now and why they’re so much easier to use.

Many advanced photographers are shooting multiple exposures these days in an attempt to blend them together and achieve the perfect composition. In this episode, Colin will reveal a simple one-click feature that will do all the work for you and the result looks like the same as if you took hours to paint a complex Layer Mask.

Motion blur is something that occurs naturally in photography but there are many ways that we can create realistic motion blur in After Effects too. Colin will show you the settings and options to help you control motion blur on animations, graphics and even on videos that don’t contain any movement at all. He will also demonstrate how to add motion blur to the many animation presets that ship with After Effects.

Adobe introduced the powerful Roto Brush in After Effects CS5 allowing you to increase your productivity when compositing layers together. Colin has some great tips to help you get the most out of Roto Brush including how to help After Effects make the best choices when propagating new frames.

This is a complete walk-through of using SpeedGrade. It was originally posted on the Adobe PreRelease web site and it was so popular that we thought we'd make it available here.

Adobe Story screenwriting software continues to get new features and improvements every other month, mostly due to the fact that it’s a cloud-based service so updates are ready to install when you launch. Colin will take you through some of these updates including auto recognition for scene headings, changing templates, the new properties panel, scene properties, non-speaking characters and the ability to create a schedule of scenes, shots and more.

Once again a customer question turns into an episode with the idea of something Colin calls Super Zoom. Colin shows you how to combine a high resolution still image with video so the camera can zoom into macro levels without the image getting pixelated. Using After Effects motion reframes and color correction, this can be achieved to create a seamless blend between video and a still.

Many moons ago, Adobe incorporated Aldus Filter Gallery into Photoshop. Colin will show you how these filters may be ready for a rebirth by showing how to combine them with the power of Smart Objects to create new and exciting patterns and backgrounds that can be experiment with and updated dynamically.

The Pen tool can be found in many Adobe applications and they way it works can sometimes be a little different. Colin Smith will take you through the similarities and differences with the Pen tool in Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop and After Effects. Colin also talks about AICB, what it means and why you should use it.

The measurement tool in Photoshop CS5 Extended can accurately measure distance, area and angels in your image but did you know that you can customize the scale that you measure? Colin will show you have to use these tools and accurately measure the height of our stand-in criminal Karl Miller. Also covered will be out to print our 1:1 so that measurements can be taken from printed outputs.

Go beyond the default settings for importing audio in Premiere Pro and control if all audio is imported as mono, stereo or 5.1. Colin will show you how do take control of all your imported audio and how to change and remap the output setting for each clip in your project. He’ll also show you the difference between Track keyframes and Clip keyframes and hot to use fader automation to create them.

Time Remapping, or “Speed Ramps” in some programs, is a visually dynamic editing technique that we can’t seem to get enough of these days. Premiere Pro has a unique and powerful way to control not only the speed changes, but also the transition from one speed to another. See how easy it is to create and edit time changes directly in the timeline and how to copy and paste this same keyframes right into After Effects. As an added bonus we’ve included Timewarp in After Effects which allows you to create new intermediate frames with the ultra smooth Pixel Motion effect.

No need for expensive contact lenses, we’ll show you how to use the incredible planar tracker in mocha AE to track your eyes, export them as a Mocha shape layer and apply effects in After Effects to create that “white iris of the zombie” look. Another added feature in this episode is how to use Refine Matte to control the feather, spread and choke of the mocha shape layer. This effect gives you control of how much of the original iris shows around the edge stopping the new white iris from blending into the rest of the eye.

In working with a large multi project, it can be time consuming to try to keep all the dialog the same volume. This episode will show you the power of Match Volume which allows you to designate one track as the perfect volume and have all the others match it including a report that tells you how many dB’s (plus or minus) each track was changed.

If you’ve ever had to edit numerous audio files one by one, then this episode is going to make you happy. We’re going to show you how to Batch Process as many files as you want out to different formats including sample type, format settings and and the same time, apply any process that you’ve saved as a favorite! In our example we’ll Stretch and Pitch so each file will end up with the exact same length regardless how long the original recording was.

This episode is for all the After Effects users who want to easily get their audio from the timeline into Audition for editing and multitrack composition. We’ll start with some on location sound and show you now to create a new multitrack version that includes free sound effects from Resource Central which is built in to Audition.

Audition has been the king of noise reduction ever since its introduction from Adobe but sometimes cleaning up noise can be difficult when the background noise overwhelms the foreground audio. If you’ve ever experienced one of these problematic files where removing the noise introduces other artifacts like a “burbly background”, then this episode will help you understand powerful settings like Spectral Decay Rate and Smoothing that help control those artifacts and just remove the noise.

One of the easiest ways to increase the quality of your videos is to have good audio. In this episode of No Stupid Questions, Colin Smith gives you an introduction to noise reduction using Adobe Audition CS5.5

Join Colin Smith as he talks about how the new HP workstations powered by Intel Xeon processors can super charge Adobe Audition.

Part three on how to hide someone’s face in a video, this time we’re using Adobe After Effects CS5. If you need to obscure an element in a video, like a face or unlicensed product, this episode will demonstrate how it’s done using an adjustment layer and After Effect’s built-in effects.

Part two on how to hide someone’s face in a video, this time we’re using Adobe Premiere Pro CS5. If you need to obscure an element in a video, like a face or unlicensed product, this episode will demonstrate how it’s done using a track matte key and Premiere Pro’s built-in effects.

This new effect gives you the ability to create the optical effect of a real camera lens blur. If you need to add depth to a scene, or obscure something in the frame, Camera Lens Blur will do that and make it look completely realistic. You also have complete control parameters like iris shape, blur maps, super whites, gain and threshold.

Are you looking for the Tasks that you’re used to in Soundbooth when you start using Adobe Audition 5.5? Colin will show you a step by step walkthrough between to the two applications, pointing out where the same operations are in Audition. He’ll also point out that Audition is much more powerful at all the tasks you’re used to using in Soundbooth, including Noise Reduction, Time Stretching, Automatic Click Remover, DeHummer, Looping and more. The fact that he’s demonstrating all this on his “wicked fast” HP Z800 workstation makes Audition all the more powerful.

Colin’s back showing off how fantastic his Z800 workstation performs with the new Adobe 5.5 software. In this episode he shows you how to send a complete Premiere Pro sequence to a multitrack project in the new Adobe Audition 5.5. From there he shows how you can add effects to individual clips, or complete tracks with lots of built-in effects or support for VST and AU plug-ins. Once complete, this project can be send back to Premiere Pro CS5.5 or exported to OMF or Final Cut Pro XML.

Premiere Pro CS5.5 improves the speed with which you can render nested sequences. You can literally nest sequences into sequences and you’ll get the benefits of the Mercury Playback Engine using both the CPU and the GPU or Graphics Processing Unit on an Nvidia card with CUDA. Throw the HP Z800 workstation into the mix and you see rendering speeds like you have never seen before.

Colin takes advantage of the HP Z800’s massive horsepower combined with the raw speed of the 64-bit Adobe Media Encoder 5.5 to show you how you can output different versions of your comps using a combination of After Effects, Dynamic Link and Media Encoder, while working on new composites, without missing a beat.

There are times when you need to publish a video but hide a portion from view. Many times it’s someone’s face that gets blocked out by pixelating the area around it. This demonstration shows you how you can use the Extended version of Photoshop to import a video and add a non-destructive blur layer that follows someone’s face anywhere in the frame. The final result can be output to any video format or individual still images so you can guarantee no will ever know who was under that blur.

Photoshop is the perfect place to create and import complex 3D models, light them, animate them and output mind blowing creations. This demonstration will show you how easy it is to create a texture that uses animated layers that play back directly on 3D models and react to lights, environments and more.

Trying to remember where all your files are by filename alone is a losing battle with hard drives that hold hundreds of thousands of files. Metadata can help narrow your searches by allowing you to embed unique information about each file. Adobe Bridge will allow you to apply Metadata templates to thousands of files automatically so you can get started organizing your files today.

Adobe Bridge includes a powerful feature that allows you to output PDF’s using the built-in Output module. This often overlooked feature makes create contact sheets, full-page outputs, and other layouts a breeze using ready made templates or even customized design. You’ll also see how to overlay transparent watermarks for image protection and branding.

Watch how Illustrator and After Effects can be used together to create organic animations using simple masks copied and pasted between the two applications. Also see how the Twirl tool in Illustrator can be used to distort paths and make it look as if “tendrils” are growing outward. This all comes together in After Effects by setting the first vertex and ensuring your blended masks don’t flip inside out.

Adobe InDesign CS5 is the perfect tool to use when authoring books and this demonstration will introduce you to a simple technique that ensures the cover of your ePub will look exactly like the original artwork including rich typesetting, drawn objects and images. By placing and InDesign document into an existing InDesign document, you bypass the inherent restrictions of the ePub format and your book cover looks fantastic no matter what device you use. Special thanks for Colin Fleming for creating this fantastic technique.

Live Trace is one of Illustrator's most unique features but sometimes the vector result contains small unwanted artifacts. This tutorial shows you how to use Photoshop layers in combination with Illustrator Live Trace to fine tune the final vector result to give you gorgeous, transparent results with very little effort and still maintain complete control.

We've all heard the term ""Ken Burns Effect"", but do you know that this random effect will sometimes zoom into areas you don't want to zoom into? This tutorial will show you how to easily import images and give you complete control to pan, zoom, and travel across images to create customized dynamic slideshows that you can output to Blu-ray, DVD or any device. The ease and power of this tutorial comes from using custom presets for motion and effects in Premiere Pro CS5; a feature that many users tend to miss.

Have you ever tried to create a complex motion path in After Effects? This tip will show you just how well Illustrator and After Effects communicate using a simple copy and paste to the clipboard and transfer illustrations to motion paths in After Effects! Now you can make Illustrator's powerful drawing tools work as motion path creation tools in After Effects.

Getting the most out of Photoshop performance means understanding what settings are the best for you. This tutorial will show you what settings to use for different workflows, from large high resolution images to smaller multi-layered Photoshop compositions. Photoshop is doing a lot of work behind the scenes to manage memory and disk space and this presentation will shine a light on that process and illustrate best practices for all users. Special thanks to Russell Williams, Principal Scientist at Adobe, for technical guidance.

This tutorial will show you how to create great looking type by applying Illustrator art brushes to your text. Learn how to keep your newly decorated text editable and how to prevent the art brushes from distorting along the text path.

Learn how to use Photoshop CS5 Extended to remove wide angle lens distortion from high definition video footage shot with a DSLR camera.

Have you ever tried to import a graphic into Microsoft Powerpoint, only to discover the areas of the image you expected to be transparent have been replaced by a solid white background? In this episode, Colin shows how to export Adobe Illustrator graphics with transparency using the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format.

Learn how speed the process of photo restoration using the Spot Healing brush and Content-aware Fill.

Design changes are inevitable, and it’s all too easy to destroy layers by resizing them up and down. Smart Objects, including live Illustrator artwork, will allow you to keep making changes while retaining the original layers in pristine form.

Make your DVDs and Blu-ray discs more dynamic by using After Effects to create live, dynamic menu transitions. An added benefit is this technique uses Adobe’s Dynamic Link technology so any changes you make in After Effects is instantly updated in Encore - no need to render!

Have you ever wanted to create hidden “easter egg” menus in your DVDs or Blu-ray disks? This tutorial will show you how to use Photoshop layers and Encore button routing to hide secret clickable areas for your disks.

For years retouchers have been asked to affect the expressions on subjects faces, making them smile more or open their eyes. This tutorial will show you how you can use Puppet Warp in Photoshop to easily and accurately take control of faces.

This tutorial will show you how to get your designs from layered Illustrator files to Photoshop 3D layers and from there apply materials and bump maps and add perspective camera views.

It’s typical to design in Illustrator using multiple layers, but you can dramatically increase your productivity by using the Appearance panel and this tutorial will show you how to get started.

This productivity tutorial will show you who to take advantage of Illustrator’s dynamic transform effects to instantly update multiple business cards in any layout.

Masking tools in Photoshop are very powerful, but there are times when you need to make manual adjustments. This tutorial gives you the tools you need to understand how to tweak and mask and paint in isolated areas.