[Vincent Rosati]

Canopus Video Effects is a plugin that has enhanced transition controls.
But, if you want to make your own custom wipes/transitions you could create a greyscale image in PS or greyscale video in After Effects.
I once created an animation in Poser, than saved a movie with an Alpha Channel, extracted the Alpha and used it as a transition in Premiere.
Basically, once you have your Alpha (greyscale) video layer, you might apply Effect/Alpha Adjust:(perhaps)Invert and/or Mask Only.
Than you might apply Effect/Track Matte Key to one or both of the main clips, and set both layer’s Alpha targets to the greyscale layer.

I’ve also used Luma Key Track Matte for this type of situation.

It takes some playing around, but these effects should get you moving in the right direction.

[Vincent Rosati]

Hmmm. If you get a chance, fill out your profile with your system specs; OS, ram, HD config, etc. And Apps with version #s – just like the first line on your original post.

Holy jeez’ 4GBs of RAM! I’m jealous.

You might try closing all other app’s, and system extras if you’re running any. Sometimes a fresh system restart can help.
Is it a layered file? If so, flatten the image before cropping.
I typically work with LZW TIFFs. What image format & size is the file, MB & PX dimensions, ppi, and color mode?
Can you increase your PS memory usage, just for this operation?
As I recall, back in the OS9 days you could save different system extension configurations, to address issues similar to this. You could save a configuration that could, say, devote almost all system resources to a particular app.

This is kinda overboard, but could you crop the image into four quarters, than tile/stitch into a new document?

Is this for a large format print job?

I’m unsure as to why Purge was greyed out. Let us know if you find out why.

If we don’t get any further with this, I’d start a new thread indicating that you’d like help from an OSX specialist. 🙂

[Vincent Rosati]

I agree with Richard. If you’re going to video, remove IR from your workflow and stick to AE, it’s like photoshop for video.
It has a crazy learning curve, but the results are worth the effort. 🙂
You can use Multiply, or other blending modes to knock-out an image. Plus, there are a bunch of other color keying options.
AE has a pretty easy-to-use layer mask function, it’s vector, and you can keyframe it’s motion if necessary.
You can prepare PSD files and bring ’em into AE.

Just some thoughts…

[Vincent Rosati]

Once you have the part you want to rotate selected (marquis tool, or Select/Load Selection, press Ctrl+T or Edit/Free Transform. You can than manipulate the object.

[Vincent Rosati]

If you are trying to isolate the brush stroke from the jpeg to use as your “model” brush, use the magic wand tool to select it.
Or, you could use the wand tool to select the background and Select/Inverse.
Note: there are a number of ways to actually mask/isolate a selection.
Than, Edit/Define Brush Preset. But, this probably won’t achieve your desired results, as you have a stroke as a model, and not an actual brush pattern.

Probably the most important part for creating realistic looking brush strokes is to have a pressure sensitive pen.

Further, you could do a web search for brush presets, by other artists.

Just some thoughts. 🙂

[Vincent Rosati]

This is certainly debatable, but…
If you have three or more drives…
Drive 1 OS & Apps
Drive 2 Project Files
Drive 3+ Source files

Try setting your scratch discs to discs that are not your project discs. Setting the project disc as a scratch disc is ,sort of, a last choice.

You must close PS after resetting your scratch discs for the change to take effect.

Also, the Edit/Purge option may help, just before the cropping.

Just some thoughts.
Let us know if you get it to work. 🙂

[Vincent Rosati]

Perhaps, create an Action.
Open your first image in PS, than click the Create New Action button in the Actions palette. This will record all of your actions.
You can resize your image by pixels, percents, etc.
Save and close the image.
Click the Stop Playing/Recording button in the Actions palette.

Now you can drop all of your images into the PS icon and apply your new action to each of the opened images.

Or, now that you have defined an action, you can do a batch process via File/Automate/Batch.

Or, now that you have defined an action, you can create a Droplet on to which you can drag and drop a batch of images.

I suggest you note your actions on paper/.txt file as you develop them. It helps for learning how actions work and to understand the possibilities and limitations.

Experiment and you will succeed. 🙂

[Vincent Rosati]

First, Ctrl+y – or view as outlines to make sure there are no “lost” objects or stray points on yout artboard that may be increasing the actual size of your export.
Than try, File/Save As (a new file). This will often give a slight reduction in file size.
It’s possible that you Pasted the rasters into the AI file instead of File/Place – This will make your file size larger. However, Placing the files probably won’t make a difference regarding exporting. Check Window/Links to see if the files are linked.
You could try lowering Effect/Document Raster Effect Settings, ,reducing your output resolution, or deselecting Anti-Aliasing or compression.
Can you try opening the AI with Photoshop, to rasterize. Or, File/Save As: Adobe PDF than rasterize with photoshop.

Just some ideas 🙂

[Vincent Rosati]

You could mess with EQ or Noise Gate to minimize. Is the thump combined with necessary audio or is it somewhat isolated. If so, you might be able to use the Noise Reduction filter and capture the profile of the thump to remove it. Or, and this is a long-shot, if you could accurately reproduce the thump, you might be able to capture a noise profile from it and save the profile, than apply it to your track.
Just some thoughts…

[Vincent Rosati]

If you get a chance, fill out your profile so we can see your system spec’s. I imagine, if your having problems using MOV files might be on a PC?
Do you have problems with MOV files, otherwise? Do you have Quicktime installed.
I am unfamiliar with the workings of the JVC HDD handy cam. Are you somehow directly transferring files to your hard drive, or are you capturing, via firewire, with Premiere?
It could be a codec issue. Do the files play in QT. With Quicktime Pro you could convert your MOVs to uncompressed MOV or AVI, which should import.