Michael Bugera
Forum Replies Created
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Yes it is possible. I’m assuming you’re treating an image or text that you want to super over something in FCP.
Make sure the background layer is black. Go ahead and treat the image or text. If you have any drop shadow or other layer effects you’ll need to rasterize the layer before export. Once it’s ready, in the Layers Palette go to your image or text’s layer and right click (control click) on it and choose “Select Layer Transparancy”. Then go to the Channels Palette and choose “Save selection as channel”. This will give you a new channel, which is your alpha. Now go to “Save As…” in the File menu and save your selection as either a PICT or TIFF. (I used to only be able to save as a PICT but with CS2 I can also save as a TIFF. I don’t know why.)That should work!
Bugsy
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I’m assuming you’ve tried all the key effects in the effects menu. I don’t know if this will work but here’s the first thing I would try.
Create a matte and color it with either the top or bottom color of your clip’s chroma info. Next, place it on top of the two clips and crop it to just beyond the black line. Now, use a chroma key effect on it (or a compoosite mode) and see if that takes it away.
Again, that’s not a proven trick, just something I would think to try. If nothing else, it keeps you from wasting your time on YouTube while waiting for a solution.
Also, try seeing if a composite mode on the original clip won’t work.Hope that helps,
Bugsy
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If “Open Last Project” was checked in the User Preferences then even if you open FCP by itself it will still try to open that project. So if the project file is corrupt it won’t open.
Try duplicating the project icon and opening the copy. This usually works for me. If that doesn’t work trash your preferences and reboot. You’ll find this under /Users/yourcomputer’sname/Library/Preferences/com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist.Hope that helps,
Bugsy -
I’ve had problems with Journaled drives. I’d start be restriping as Mac OS Extended.
Bugsy
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Just for the heck of it try something that’s become my default for things like this: try making a duplicate of the program file on your drive and open the duplicate.
Good luck,
Bugsy -
I’ve also noticed this. I noticed it when I upgraded to 5.1.2. It trashed all my shortcuts then wouldn’t assign any when I tried to re-establish. That’s not the only thing with 5.1.2 that I’ve noticed. But this one’s really annoying!
I assume you know that you can reassign using the keyboard layout function. Or using the Button Bar list to assign those effects to the button bar on the timeline. That’s what I’ve ended up doing.
Ah, progress!Bugsy
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Editing AND welding? Hmmmm…I detect a paradigm shift in the industry!
I guess what it comes down to is that the price of editing has become harder to pin down. Wages in one city can be vastly different from wages in the next city, just as attitudes toward the job can vary.
I know here in California editors get different treatment in San Francisco than they do in Los Angeles, and far different treatment than San Diego (where I’m from). The East coast has IT’S own mentality.
But then, I’m full time at a company and we see our own range of difficulties and treatments.Good luck,
Bugsy -
An interesting question…
Certainly if you’re in an area of the country where editors aren’t in big supply then you can name your price, as long as it’s not so high that it chases clients to the next county/city. Find out what editors are charging in your surrounding area. Sometimes production companies will post their rate cards online…sometimes.
If, however, you’re in an area where there’s a lot of production you may always be competing with that 18 year old kid fresh out of high school looking to make a splash. That’s what happened to my company recently. A job we couldn’t do for the money was done by an 18 year old kid for less than what it would’ve cost to rent our camera for the weekend.
My best advice is to join a local user group: production, editing, graphics… whatever’s available. The contacts you make will allow you to gauge prices in the industry so you can stay competitive and you might get to know producers/directors who will throw the editing of their projects your way.Good luck,
Bugsy -
I’m having a hard time finding any non-Intel Mac’s so I think you’ll need to get any of the number of Intel Mac’s. They all should do the job, it’s just a matter of how much you have to spend. Apple has pretty much taken care of their products being compatible with the Intel chip but if you’re going to use Adobe products (Photoshop, After Effects) you’ll want to check on their website to see if they’ve updated.
And, as always, the more RAM the better.
I’m not sure what kind of editing you’ll be doing but if going in and coming out Firewire isn’t going to be good enough check out AJA’s line of interface/capture cards. Most of them plug in to the computer’s Firewire port so make sure you purchase a separate Firewire 800 card to plug hard drives into. (mine is from G-Tech), as the AJA sucks up most of the bandwidth of the computer’s Firewire port.Good luck,
Bugsy
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Sorry for the delay.
A coworker of mine just got a MacBook Pro and FCP Studio (including Motion) work fine with it.
As far as drives, I’m not familiar with Cal Digit but I have had extensive experience with G-Tech’s G-RAID. You should consider this if you’re going to edit DVCPRO 50. It has the speed to handle it. At minimum I believe Maxtor makes drives that stripe two drives into an array (like the G-RAID) and offers Firewire 800 throughput.
I don’t edit on a laptop, but on my G5 I have a separate Firewire 800 card to plug the drive into and I use the computer’s Firewire card for my AJA IO LA interface/capture card. Otherwise the bandwidth taken up by the AJA renders your external drive useless and you’ll be crashing every 5 minutes.
Hope that begins to help.Bugsy