[Kevin Wood]

Okay guys, thanks. I thought I was overlooking a setting somewhere.

I put in the feature request, but for the time being, I’ll use Reaper.

[Kevin Wood]

Also, here is a brief tutorial that may make it more clear: https://www.videouniversity.com/articles/color-bars-and-how-to-use-em

[Kevin Wood]

It’s not another camera that you really need to be concerned with. It’s more for broadcast equipment – deck, monitors, vectorscopes, etc.

So if you’re dropping off your video for, say, a cable access tv program, then you’ll need them so that they can adjust their playback equipment against known good colors. If it’s a wedding dvd, probably not.

However, it’s always a good idea to use them to make sure your own equipment is working correctly, and as a color correction reference.

[Kevin Wood]

While Photoshop could certainly create the graphic, to add it to the video would really require an application like After Effects. AE would allow you to transform & animate the graphic so that it moved with the helmet in the video, making it look natural

[Kevin Wood]

When you create slice an image in Photoshop and save for the web, you cam select the type of image that is created/exported for each slice in the Save for Web dialog options. Just select the individual slice, and choose the desired format form the options.

As for linking text… the slice tool will allow you to add a URL to a slice, which is exported as a graphic, but not as text. On Windows, you can add a link by right-clicking on a slice with the slice or slice select tool, and choosing Edit Slice Options.

Note however, that in order to have a working link, you’ll need to export your slices with the html format. There is no link attached to the actual exported image, since this isn’t how HTML works. All links are created in the actual html code. So having a user open the image in some program that isn’t a werb browser will do nothing. Likewise, displaying the image directly in a web browser will do nothing. For the link to work, the user will need to open the exported html page.

[Kevin Wood]

It’s been a while since I’ve created any broadcast graphics in Photoshop, so I can’t give you the specific details. However, the thing that you’ll need to do is to create your Photoshop graphics in an NTSC-safe manner. NTSC has a few differences over DVD/HD that affect hoe the graphis are displayed.

In general, NTSC has: a limited color space that causes certain colors to look fuzzy, a limited amount of resolution that makes lines look fuzzy/distorted if to narrow, less overall resolution than DVD/HD, so you los detail, it is also interlaced which means that the picture is drawn in 2 passes instead of 1 and it draws every other line in the scans – even first then odd, and some more stuff that I’ve probably forgotten about.

I’m sure there are some tutorials on Creative Cow that show how to make the best graphics for broadcast & DVD/HD. Well, since we’re now broadcasting HD, I guess that’s not quite accurate, but look for some older tutorials or google Photoshop+NTSC. Once you get them good for NTSC, they should also be okay on DVD/HD.

[Kevin Wood]

Well, because you said “I was wondering if it’s possible to apply the same patch to every frame in one go”, it shouldn’t be too difficult.

What I suggest is the following:
1. Export a single fram of your video to a still image. Make sure it nneds the patch.
2. Import in to Photoshop.
3. In the new Photoshop image, add a layer, and use the clone tool to create your nice patch on the new transparent layer.
4. Export the patch layer as a form of image with alpha channel that FCP recognizes – PSD with alpha, or maybe PNG with alpha.
5. Import the patch image+alpha into FCP, and composite it on a layer above your video. Make sure that it has the aplha channel enabled, and stretch it on the timeline to cover your whole video segment. It should act like a patch to all frames.
6. Get a coffess or order a pizza or watch a dvd while it renders.

If your background changes underneath the patch, just repeat the process as appropriate.

[Kevin Wood]

Well, you might be able to do it in AfterEffects with a film-look type of plug-in, if that’s available to you.

[Kevin Wood]

If you’re using Acrobat, you need to find the right combo in the graphics compression settings – DPI & compression level.

I can’t comment on other PDF generators.

[Kevin Wood]

Mark,

Could you leave my name out of the credits? Thanks.

Also, you should consider creating a pdf version that you can send to potential clients. You could even combine it with a client checklist that they could use as a reference and project tracker.

Kevin Wood