Instructor Richard Harrington shows you how to use layer comps and scripts to save many design options in a single Photoshop file.

This is part 2 in a series on making great-looking lower thirds with Photoshop.

#3 – Pick a cool font

Now that we’ve got most of the technical junk out of the way, let’s have some fun. Other than music, nothing says more about the character of your show than the fonts you use. Be sure to allow enough time (and possibly $$$) to pick a cool font. There are several options to consider when picking a font.

• SERIF vs SANS-SERIF: Serifs are the little hooks on type. Serifed type (think Times) uses thick and thin strokes. Sans-Serif (think Helvetica) uses even-weighted strokes. Sans Serif usually reads better for video. If using serifed fonts, look for a bold or black version and avoid lines thinner that 3-pixels.
• Style: Write 10 – 20 words down that describe your video. Get input from your client too. Use these words for guidance when looking at fonts.
• Free or Paid: Free fonts (and overly cheap) fonts often have partial character sets. This may be an issue if you need special symbols (such as & ™ © or •). You get what you pay for, but don’t worry, several independent font foundries sell great fonts for less than $25 per font.
• Keep it in the Family: Some fonts belong to families (regular, bold, black, italic, etc). This is useful as you can use one font family and mix styles. This leads to a consistent design in your titles. If you want to mix fonts NEVER use more then two fonts in a title graphic.
• Format: Many fonts come in different formats. Macs have historically used Postscript while PCs have used TrueType. Macintosh OSX can now read many “PC” true type fonts with no problem. A new format OpenType is also starting to pop up for sale.
• Kerning: Some professional fonts have had the spacing between characters carefully tweaked. This balanciong is called pair kerning. If your type appears improperly balanced you will need to kern it. Move between characters using the left and right arrows. Hold down the Option key (Alt key) and press the left and right arrows to tighten or loosen pair-kerning.

Some places to look for unique (and often free) fonts:

#4 – Use good color

Can you match your own clothes in the morning? When you walk through a room do people point? By now you’ve likely figured out a few color basics (or have strategies that work). Here are a few more tips.

• Avoid highly saturated colors. Bright reds and yellows will cause problems in video.
• Use contrasting colors; if you were to use a color wheel, these would be colors opposite each other. If you want to use three colors, draw a triangle on the color wheel. Digital Anarchy sells a great product called ColorTheory that makes it easy to pick color combinations for two or more colors.
• Pick up the Pantone book on color trends. This book offers interesting color combinations that always seem to end up the latest fashion.
• Mix light and dark colors to maintain contrast. Dark on dark and light on light are VERY hard to read.
• Use a contrasting edge on your type (such as a shadow or glow). This will improve readability.

#5 – Make it layered

If all you ever do is draw a box and put some words on it, you’re so retro that it’s not even cool. Video graphics these days use multiple layers and transparency to achieve good looks. I can go on for hundreds pages on layering techniques (see Photoshop for Nonlinear Editors, part of the DV Expert Series). Here’s some down & dirty tricks to take you to a higher level.

• Use photos of textures in your bars. I often take pictures of light, reflections, lighting, water waves, etc. and mix these in with my graphics to add a natural depth. Simply place the texture above your bar and press Cmd + G (Ctrl + G) to group it. The texture is now applied just to the bar area below.
• Use blending modes to achieve better looks. This is perhaps Photoshop’s coolest feature. While you can pick them from a list in the layer’s palette, I find it easier just to experiment. Highlight the layer you want to blend, pick the move tool (V), then press Shift + + or Shift + - to cycle through blend modes. Experiment, have fun, trust me it works!
• Use layer masks to blend layers together. Use black and white gradients on your layer masks to create smooth transitions in mixing layers.
• Fill an empty layer above your bar with a solid color or gradient. Tint your bar by setting this layer to the Color or Hue blending mode.

It’s very common to use Photoshop and Illustrator to prepare content for import into Adobe After Effects. Here are some practical tips to avoid problems when merging the software.

Import Tips

• Double-Click in the AE Project Window
• Shift-Click Multiple Items
• Organize in Folder and Option+Drag (Alt+Drag) from Desktop
• Keep file names less than 27 characters long

Photoshop

• Assign unique names to each layer
• Avoid using layer sets unless you want the layers to come in as a nested composition

• If layers are not needed, reduce your render burden by importing as a flattened file such as a PICT, TIFF or TARGA
• If you have applied an adjustment layer in Photoshop such as Levels, consider applying the effect directly to the individual layers in Photoshop instead

Illustrator

• Be sure to use layers in Adobe Illustrator to split up elements
• Change AI preferences to use AICB format (not PDF) for proper Copy/Paste

Instructor Richard Harrington how to work with 3-D objects in Photoshop CS3. Part 2 of 2.

You’re nearly finished with your video. You’ve picked the perfect music, gotten the editing done just right, and now its time to give credit where it’s due. No, there’s no need to tell your mom how much you love her (at least not in your video). But you do need to identify all those talking heads in your show. After all, it’s important to let your audience know who’s talking and why they should care.

Proper use of titles and lower-third graphics help your audience follow the action. They establish the credibility of your on-camera interviews. If you apply a few simple ‘rules’ they can even improve the quality of your entire piece and add to the overall style. Don’t freak out when I say rules; rather think of this as experienced advice. Choose to follow whatever makes sense for your show.

To build titles and lower-thirds, I recommend Adobe Photoshop. While there are several other tools out there, none have as big a user base or as many options. Think of Photoshop as a flexible friend, it’s great at getting you out of tight jams and creative bottlenecks. All of these tips will work with Photoshop 5.5 or newer (and most are timeless, working with all versions).

#1 – Build It Right

You have to get things started, might as well do it right. The first step to make great looking titles is to build them the right size. If your graphics get formatted incorrectly, they will have to be resized by your video software. This usually results in shakes, jitters, and strobing (while this may make for a good Saturday night, you won’t want this in your show).

The right size for graphics is a popular arguing point amongst video pros. The issue is that Photoshop 7 and earlier has used square pixels, which is the standard for computer graphics. The problem is that most video sources use a D1/DV pixel, which is rectangular in shape, or non-square. Don’t worry, short-term problem.

To make things easier, Photoshop 7 (and newer) has built-in templates. Use them. The sizes Adobe recommends work just fine and I have never had any problems with these dimensions.

#2 – Make a template

1. Have an empty document open sized for your editing system (see above).
2. Create a new (empty) layer, and name it Safe Title Area.
3. Select All by pressing Cmd+A (Ctrl+A).
4. Scale the active selection to 80% by choosing Select>Transform Selection, and then typing in 80% in the Options bar for width and height. Press Return (Enter).
5. Load red as the foreground color. Then choose Edit>Stroke and specify four pixels centered. This is the title safe area.
6. Lock the Safe Area Overlay layer by clicking on the Lock icon in the layer’s palette.
7. Save your work.

Instructor Richard Harrington how to work with 3-D objects in Photoshop CS3. Part 1 of 2.

This is part 3 in a series on making great-looking lower thirds with Photoshop.

#6 – Layer Styles are your friend

While everyone knows about filters, many miss layer styles (or effects in older versions). These real-time effects combine good looks with speed and flexibility. When building titles, they are the way to go. You can use styles for shadows, glows, bevels, textures and more. Best of all they are stored within the document and can be easily modified.

Check out the following sites for more on Actions
http://www.actionfx.com
http://www.deepspaceweb.com
http://www.toolsfortelevision.com
http://www.webteknique.com

If your edit system supports layered files, you’ll have to flatten your layer styles if you want to import the PSD document. I usually do this on a copy of the project, so I can go back to the original and make changes. The following steps can be saved as an action. Highlight the styled layer; then record the following action.

1. Create a new layer and name it Flat. (It will be created by default right above selected layer.)
2. Press Option+[ (Alt+[) to select the layer below to be flattened.
3. Link to the layer named Flat.
4. Choose merge linked from the palette’s submenu.
5. Press STOP. (You can choose Option (Alt)+Merge Linked instead for targeted flattening).

#7 – Make it Readable

Video type needs to be big. When you are sitting less than two-feet away from your computer screen, 20 –point type looks great. When you are sitting 20+ feet away from the television, it’s worthless. Use bigger type. Here’s a simple test.

1. Choose View> Actual Pixels.
2. Press the F key twice to go to Full-Screen mode.
3. Press Tab to hide your palettes.
4. Stand up from your computer and look at it from the far corner of the room. How’s it look?
5. Press the F key and tab to return to normal.

#8 – Make it See Through

Okay, you’re almost done. You just need to save the graphic for your edit system. Te best way to make sure everything comes in properly is to use a single layer graphic with an alpha channel. Depending on your edit system, you may need a PICT file or a TARGA file (check your owner’s manual).

There are several methods for creating alpha channels. In my opinion, this is the fastest and easiest.

1. Turn off all layers you don’t want in the final graphic (including the background or placement image). Create a new (empty layer) and highlight it.
2. Hold down the Option (Alt) key, choose Merge Visible. A composite layer is now created.
3. Turn this layer off by clicking on the Eye icon.
4. Hold down the Cmd (Ctrl) key and click on the layer name in the layer’s palette. The marching ants should encircle the layer.
5. Switch to the Channels palette and click on the Save Selection as Channel button. Only have 1 alpha channel per document or your NLE will get confused.
6. Choose File>Save As to Save A Copy as a PICT or TARGA with an alpha channel included. Photoshop 7 users who need TARGA files should download the free update to fix a bug with transparency

Instructor Richard Harrington shows you how to use Photoshop to make simple but effective storyboards.

Learn how to use the Shape Tools to create dynamic motion graphics elements. This tutorial was recorded as part of a session at the 2007 NY Post Production Conference (www.nypostconference.com).

I was over at YouTube posting a new tutorial.... came across a great clip that mixes multiple animation styles… this is VERY cool.  It’s nice to hear the man so off-the-cuff… yet wise.
“In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.”
Learn more about it here (and yes… I missed this one somehow).

I was interviewed by MacEditionRadio.com about Photoshop and creating a portfolio. Here it is.. enjoy.

“At the 2007 Photoshop World in Las Vegas, I sat down with Peachpit Press and Focal Press author Richard Harrington, and we discussed the issues involved in creating DVDs that make your photographs look their best. If you have ever been confused about the proper resolution to prepare files for DVD, television, or video projection, then Richard’s Tips and Tricks will fill in the blanks! Rich is the author of “Photoshop for Video”, and “Understanding Adobe Photoshop: Digital Image Concepts and Techniques.” and if you are working with digital photography, Photoshop, or Lightroom, and need to show others your photos then listen in to this interview! Recorded at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals Photoshop World Conference, in Las Vegas, in September 2007 by Harris Fogel. Posted 6/28/08 (24:09)”

What would happen if you locked Bill Gates and Steve Jobs in the same apartment (like Big Brother)? Well you get the risque comic strip – The Silicon Apartment (PG-13). The strip is really quite good and skewers both sides.