Join Apple Certified Trainer Chris Phrommayon as he shows you how to use multiple viewers in Final Cut Pro to compare different takes, and use the replace edit to put the best take in the timeline.



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One way to address color calibration between your angles is to use a calibration card when shooting. This is relatively easy if you just remember to put a fresh color balance card on your clapboard for each shoot.

One of our favorites is the QP Card, an affordable reference card (http://www.qpcard.se). Priced at less than $5 per card, this is a great investment in accurate color.

• They are small and lightweight, easily fitting in your gear bag.
• Relatively inexpensive and disposable, so you can use a fresh card periodically. Old cards tend to fade in the light.
• It’s adhesive on the back so you can easily attach it to your clapboard.
• With a white, black, and neutral grey surface, color correcting with Final Cut Pro’s three-way color corrector is a snap.
• $5 spent per shoot is well worth hours saved on color correction. In most circumstances, just three clicks per angle will calibrate across each camera.
  

Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.

When a Macintosh application is installed, it tends to install several language localization files on your drive. If you have a robust Applications folder, these files can quickly add up to gigabytes of space. On a laptop, this can be particularly bad. Instead of manually performing a 'seek-and-dstroy' mission, you can harness the power of DeLocalizer. This useful piece of freeware will remove all non-American English localization resource files that you specify. This useful program lets you customize which languages to remove and can save you a lot of space on your drive.

For more information click here.

Join Apple Certified Trainer Richard Harrington as he explains how you can harness the pen tool to keyframe audio in your Final Cut Pro timeline&do a good audio mix.



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Tired of scrolling up and down in the Timeline? Need to see audio tracks 1 and 2 so you can mix the music, but there are sound effects and natural sound living on tracks A3–A6? Sometimes it’s just hard to see all the tracks you need.

It’s easy, however, to create a static region in the middle of the Timeline. The static region can contain video tracks, audio tracks, or both. When you create a static region, you end up with three regions in the Timeline. The top video portion and bottom audio portion are scrollable. The middle portion can be resized and repositioned, but not scrolled. This style of Timeline makes it easy to constantly see your dialogue and A-Roll, while still having access to your other tracks.

To create the static region, drag the thumb tabs to set the number of tracks. Grab the central tab in the static region to move it up and down your Timeline. To eliminate the static region, drag the video tab downward and the audio tab upward.

Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.

Join Apple Certified Trainer Abba Shapiro as he gives you an overview of Compressor and explains how you can use it to compress your videos.



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While it’s useful that you can import layered PSD files into Final Cut Pro, it’s unfortunate that not all features carry over. On the other hand, when you need to change a graphic (such as a spelling mistake) it’s very useful to have those layers...Have your cake and eat it too—hmm.

Okay, this is easy. In Photoshop, save your files as LAYERED TIFFs. Final Cut Pro will read it in as a flattened file, but you can make changes. Better yet, if you use the Open in Editor shortcut, you can open and modify the file. In fact you can add, delete, move, and rename layers with no ill effects (try that with a PSD file you’ve imported and watch what craziness breaks loose).



Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.

Join Apple Certified Trainer Richard Harrington as he explains how to properly mix aspect ratios and add graphics into your Final Cut Pro Timeline.



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Many editors find audio waveforms helpful when editing. You’ve likely noticed the waveforms in your Viewer menu. It’s possible to view this same information directly in the Timeline:

1. Highlight the Timeline or Canvas, and press Command + 0 to access the Timeline settings.
2. Select the Timeline Options tab.
3. Check the “Show Audio Waveforms” box.
4. Make the desired tracks larger to see the audio waveform data in the Timeline.
   

Want quick access? Simply click the submenu at the bottom of the Timeline, and choose Show Audio Waveforms.

Better yet, press Command + Option + W to toggle waveforms on or off. Be sure to turn these off when not in use because they slow down the Timeline’s ability to redraw.



Like this tip? It comes from the book
Final Cut Studio On the Spot from Focal Press.