Photoshop CS5 204: Preparing Still Images for Final Cut Pro

30 videos | 88 minutes | by Michael Wohl

Learn how to prepare crisp, clear, HD images for Final Cut Pro … Michael Wohl (one of Final Cut Pro's original designers) shows you the way!

Whether your importing still images into Final Cut Pro for titles, backgrounds, or content to be zoomed-around Ken-Burns style, you need to know how to prepare your source assets for the best possible results… and how to get the most out of Photoshop CS5. In this concise new tutorial by Michael Wohl, you'll learn how Final Cut works with still images from one of the people who created the application!

Michael starts you off with the nitty-gritty of prepping images in Photoshop, covering common issues such as file formats, aspect ratios, color modes, and frame sizes.

Next, Michael will teach you how to import layered and flat PSD files into Final Cut (there are some great tricks here!). He’ll cover how the different tools and features in Photoshop are translated when imported into Final Cut Pro and how to work around Final Cut Pro’s limitations.

Then he moves on to the fun stuff: Working with stills in Final Cut Pro. You’ll learn to add stills to sequences like a pro, and animate them within Final Cut both by adding layers over time and by keyframing various parameters, including a photograph’s center point and scale to create the popular “Ken Burns” effect, complete with “Ease in” and “Ease out” effects.

Finally, you’ll learn how to create and work with vector objects like text and shapes in Photoshop, how to properly manage transparency and alpha channels and how to interpret those elements within Final Cut Pro.

Michael brings deep insider knowledge and decades of video production experience to the table in this tutorial. You'll see how a veteran director prepares still images for complex compositing work. For a full list of topics in this tutorial, see the Outline Tab above!