I'm Using Davinci Resolve a Little More These Days

I’ve been using Davinci Resolve a little more these days because I wanted to get better in yet another app that’s being used regularly in the creative industry. This has been a several month process and I’m still learning as I go. With that said, I did feel comfortable enough to do an intro video for folks on my Twitter page asking if I can help with a tutorial for beginners. Well, here’s that tutorial. This is just to help you get started with Davinci Resolve. And for the record, I’m not ready to leave the Adobe Creative Cloud* just yet, but Resolve can definitely make one think about it. At this time, I still find value in having Lightroom, Photoshop, and After Effects for my workflow. Thanks for watching and sharing. Click the image below to watch.

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Adobe Integrates Frame.IO Into Its Creative Apps

Adobe acquired Frame.IO in the summer of 2021 and all of the creative world was a buzz. It was an acquisition that just made sense in the creative space. Especially the film side. Now, Adobe has announced some fascinating and seamless integration of Frame.IO into its Premiere Pro and After Effects video apps.

Yup. The acquisition allows for simple integration for Creative Cloud subscribers* to work even more efficiently on video collaborations. Creative teams can work on a project managing assets as they’re used to doing with Premiere Pro and After Effects, but now there’s better versioning and review tools built right in. Even if you’re not a collaborative type like me, but want to have a client review a sequence, they can. And get the ability to add notes and mark-ups right onto the file with this new integration. Pretty good stuff. All of this will begin to roll out in PHASES starting April 12th (today).

Adobe also announced better performance for the M1 Apple silicon in its creative suite. In particularly in After Effects boasting an 3X performance boost. WOAH. I like After Effects, but man it can be really slow depending on the composite or effects. M1 users, rejoice.

Image: Adobe

Premiere Pro has also gotten a new look with its import, export and upload layout. More on that redesign and proposed efficiency can be found here on the Adobe blog. Sounds good, but I find the Frame.IO news to be the true meat of today’s announcement. I’m looking forward to trying this out with my clients for their video reviews.

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VEGAS Teams Up with Razer

Video creators looking to get a new Razor laptop may have a juicy incentive. The squad at VEGAS Creative is sweetening the pot with a FREE SIX MONTH subscription to VEGAS Post with the purchase of a qualifying Razer laptop if ordered by June 30, 2022.

Razer has been pretty popular in the gaming world for several years, which means that if you can do some extreme gaming on a device, there’s a likelihood that content creation can be quite snappy on the device. Usually, when you see a Razer laptop or desktop, it’s all RGB’d-up, but the internal components are usually those needed in handling high bandwidth video processing. All at a nice price.

The VEGAS Post package includes the following tools aimed to help out the content creators looking for a new rig:

VEGAS Pro 19 editing software

• 100GB of cloud storage

• VEGAS Effects software for high-end compositing

• VEGAS Image software for RAW image compositing

• VEGAS Stream for high-production-value live streaming

• VEGAS Content: Unlimited access to royalty-free HD and 4K video and/or audio clip downloads

• SOUND FORGE Audio Studio

• BorisFX Primatte chroma keying software

I’ve been playing around with Vegas Pro for video editing for my show and also been playing with BorisFX. There’s even a free Particle Illusion application from Boris FX that’s free and absolutely AMAZING for creating custom particle effects on your video. At some point, I’ll share some tutorials with that software.

To get the deal, order your Razer machine and follow the instructions on the image below. More information on the promo can be found here

Rent professional videography tools from Lensrentals today!

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I Tried the ATEM Mini Extreme ISO

The folks at Blackmagic Design were kind enough to send me an ATEM Mini Extreme ISO* to play with for a couple of weeks. MAAAAAAN this device. . .I won’t say much here. Just watch my video below. But before you watch the video, check out the tech specs:

• 8 inputs

• 2 USB-C outputs

• Supersource

• ISO recording

• Camera controls for BlackMagic Design cameras

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Black Friday Discounts for Photographers

So it’s holiday shopping season and time for #BlackFriday deals. I just got an email from my friends at Lensrentals* which I think is a pretty good deal for photographers and content creators. I’m sure some of you are working shoots and projects for the holidays. So now is a good time to take advantage of the discounts offered. If you’re not working on a project during the holidays, no worries. You can still get the discount for items delivered by February 25, 2022.

The deals

So if you’d like to rent some gear, head over to the site here* and add the items to your cart. Then at checkout, enter code LRBF2021. That code will get you 20% off your order.

If you’re looking to BUY items from Lensrentals*, you can take advantage of their new “Keeper” program and get 10% off your order with code KPRBF2021. The Keeper program is pretty cool because items are discounted since they’re used. And in my experience, the gear I rent from Lensrentals* is always in GREAT shape regardless of how old the gear is.

I’ve been eyeballing a particular Sigma lens* to use with my Pocket Cinema Camera 6K. I’ve used it before for portrait work, but never for video. Part of me just wants to go ahead and buy it. We’ll see. That’s the beauty of renting first. Anyway, check out the deals. Let me know what you end up ordering.

Image credit: Lensrentals

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Sound Devices MixPre Firmware Update Available

If you’re using a MixPre audio recorder from Sound Devices, the company released an updated firmware today. Get firmware version 7.15 from the website here.

Update details

As mentioned on the site. The update addresses the following:

• Last digit of the elapsed record time no longer displays incorrectly when the recording is longer than one hour.

• Take numbers are now correctly reset to 001 if the take name is changed and the MixPre is power cycled before recording.

• Loud pop in the headphone monitor no longer occurs when entering playback while monitoring an isolated channel.

• Rare events where a channel suddenly experiences a brief crackle no longer occur.

I’ve not had any problems with the one I use for work. I love this dadgum thing. The dynamic range on it really helps getting audio dialed in for the show. Even though I’ve not had any issues, I’ll still update the firmware just to be safe.

image: Ant Pruitt all rights reserved

Photoshop on the Web? Yes Please: Adobe Max 2021 Announcements

Happy Adobe Max Day, everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I come off as a huge fanboy. So be it. I like what I like and the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription* works for me for most things I do in my day-to-day professional life. With that said, Adobe began its annual conference aimed to educate and inspire the content creators of the world. The keynote presentation is always noteworthy with some big updates to its software offerings. Let’s take a look at those new updates.

Photoshop Is Pretty Much Everywhere

The Adobe Sensei AI engine continues to improve as it will offer more tools to help speed up the photo post-processing workflow with just a few clicks. Creating selections in Photoshop gets easier as you can now hover over objects and preview what a selection would be in your artwork. There’s also more neural filters in place to help with enhancing landscape images beyond sky replacements. Lightroom also gets some new AI love. What excites me the most is a forth-coming (beta) Photoshop web interface with the help of a more collaborative Creative Cloud. This is all about speeding up the collaboration process as well as aid in helping train up someone you’re mentoring. Collaborators can use the browser to do some basic editing or provide feedback to the artist. No Creative Cloud account required for the collaborator. More on this beta and other photography app updates is available here on the Adobe blog.

Image: Adobe

Slick Update for Vloggers in Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro has had a few updates earlier in the year pointing towards performance and useful tools for your final video composition. Let’s face it, video is becoming more and more prominent the world of communication and branding. Platforms like YouTube and TikTok will favor your videos if you have certain behind-the-scenes elements in place with your workflow in addition to creating captivating stories to keep your viewers on their platform. Vloggers and film makers will love the updates. As a vlogger wanting to have music bed in their video, but the music track doesn’t quite match the length of the video. It’s a horrible experience to try to tastefully trim music to a video with cuts and trimming of the audio track. Now audio remix, which is found in Adobe Audition, is available in Premiere Pro. This is a great tool in Audition. Good news is this is coming to Premiere Pro. Bad news is this is a beta release.

Image: Adobe

Another useful update is the “simplified timeline” AI that’s available in Premiere Pro. This is yet another tool aimed at making collaboration more efficient. For some, a video sequence timeline can become quite messy when piecing together tracks, effects and markers. If the project is a team project, it may be helpful to minimize all the extraneous markers and layers when a collaborator is reviewing the sequence. Simplified Timeline does just that without destroying the project. This feature is available in the new update. More on the video updates from Adobe can be found here.

There are other updates available to the Creative Cloud suite this week. In Design, Illustrator, Character Animator and more received updates. I didn’t get into them all because, I don’t use those apps as often. But if you’re interested, more news on the all the Adobe updates can be found here on the Adobe blog.

Did you sign up for Adobe Max? I hope so. It’s FREE and full of information to help you better understand some creative concepts and fundamentals, as well as get a better grip on the Creative Cloud suite of apps.

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Sony's "Basic" A7 Isn't So "Basic" Now: Sony A7 IV Full-frame Mirrorless Camera

The rumored Sony A7 IV is now here for pre-order. Sony has kicked up the standards when it comes to what a “base model” full-frame camera can offer its consumers. Really great specs announced with the A7 IV.

Tech Specs

With this new camera body you’re getting a full-frame 33 megapixel sensor with Sony’s updated BIONZ XR image processor. You’re also getting:

• 4K 60 frames per second 10-bit 4:2:2 video with full pixel readout

• 7K oversampling full-frame 4K 30p 4:2:2

• Eye auto focus for humans, animals and birds

• S-Cinetone, S-Log3, HLG and other video profiles to record your footage

• Up to 15 stops of dynamic range

• Dual SD card slots (1 for UHS-I/II cards, 1 for both UHS-I/II cards and CFExpress Type A cards)

• 10 frames person second shooting still

• Flip-out touch screen on the back

• 5-axis in-body stabilization

Image by Sony

This body is available for $2499 on pre-order*. That price point seems fair considering the massive spec bump shown in this body compared to previous models. Compact, light weight which makes it great for portability. Of course I’ve reached out to see if I can get my hands on one. I’m curious to see how this body will feel in my hands. The A7C did NOT feel good in my hands, but the A7R-IV and A1 felt great in my hands. What are your thoughts on the Sony A7 IV?

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Vegas Creative Software Gets Updated

Am I an Adobe Creative Cloud user? Yup. Unapologetically. Am I someone that looks into other software tools that can help me with my content creation? Yup. So yeah, there are some other apps in the video creation world beyond Adobe Premiere Pro, One of those options being Vegas, which has been recently been updated.

All about the color grade

Last year, Vegas Creative had a big push in using AI in the creative workflow. In the latest release, version 19, the push is more about tweaking the user experience in addition to harnessing the power of AI and the cloud. More on the cloud in a moment.

Vegas 19 has added a more intuitive design of its app with a new color grading interface designed to make the color grading experience more efficient. The new color wheels are range-limited with precision control so you can target certain hues and tones to make your grade pop on the screen. Vegas Creative has also included 40 professionally developed LUTs based on different cameras and trendy looks seen in films today.

Image: Vegas Creative

Unlike what I mentioned regarding Premiere Pro’s recent update, Vegas Pro video editor touts a text TO speech engine. Not the other way around. This tool generates natural-sounding voices from any text source fed into it. I’ve not tried this, but it sounds pretty badass. It’s only available in the Pro and Post package, by the way. Also, if you’re a Blackmagic Design shooter like me, Vegas Creative has announced beta support for the BRAW codec. THAT’s awesome. Raw video is so much better in post-processing when it comes to color grading and dynamic range.

Image: Vegas Creative

So what’s the price of this stuff?

Pricing for Vegas Creative software varies upon each product SKU. You’re not locked to a subscription model, but you can choose to be a subscriber if you’d like. Each package includes cloud storage depending upon which package you choose. Vegas Edit is $12.99 per month or $249 for a perpetual license. Vegas Pro is $19.99 per month or $399 for a perpetual license. Vegas Post is $29.99 per month or $599 for a perpetual license. You can see a comparison between the packages here. All the other specs and goodies are listed there. It’s pretty extensive.

New Sony ZV-E10 Camera Announced for Video Creators and Vloggers

I’m still catching up on my emails, press releases and what not, but I didn’t want to go another day without acknowledging the latest offering from Sony. Sony has announced the new ZV-E10 camera. This is a bit of a step up from the ZV-1 that I reviewed last year. Here’s the tech info on it.

Interchangeable lens and “new” image sensor

So the ZV-1 was a point and shoot with capabilities to be a vlogging camera. This is not a point and shoot as it now has the option to swap out lenses. You’re also getting a larger sensor via the APS-C standard at 24 megapixels.

You’ll also get improved autofocus, UHD without pixel binning, 100Mpbs when recording UHD, 120 frames per second for slow motion in HD, time lapse mode and multiple picture profiles such as S-Log3 for optimal color grading of video.

It comes in two colors: black and white. Pricing and availability is “approximately $800,” per Sony and shipping at the end of August 2021. You can go ahead and get your pre-order in with my friends at Adorama right here.*

I’ve already gotten my request in for a demo unit, so stay tuned for that. I’m not the biggest fan of small cameras, but they do have their place. I get that. Stay tuned.

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