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I would like to learn After Effects and Photoshop without attending an expensive Film course. By learning online for instance. I work on FCP 7 and have a documentary project which will involve lots of old stills. Can anybody recommend a website? It looks like everybody is requiring those skills nowadays.
Thank you very much for any tip.
you can try Lynda.com. There are also many free tutorials available. All it takes is some persistant googling.
For still animation, you might also try Motion which is part of the fcp suite of apps. You can rough out your still animation in fcp and then send to motion for tweaking. Upon saving in motion, your changes are reflected in your fcp timeline.
you can try Lynda.com. There are also many free tutorials available. All it takes is some persistant googling.
For still animation, you might also try Motion which is part of the fcp suite of apps. You can rough out your still animation in fcp and then send to motion for tweaking. Upon saving in motion, your changes are reflected in your fcp timeline.
Photoshop is hard. Really hard
After Effects is like Photoshop except it moves so it's much, much harder.
When you add 3d to the mix, AE gets stupid hard.
Just search the web for After Effects beginner tutorials. You will find thousands of movies on YT that are more misleading than helpful. Pay lynda.com. Best stuff out there but it's not free because it's the best stuff out there. Consider the work you do for your clients, you charge for it. Consider the work you hire expert photographers or FCP users to do for you. They charge because they are worth it. Lynda.com charges because it's worth it. the basic course in AE takes about 18 hours to view and about 25 hours to complete. Photoshop goes on for days. Days.
If you bought Adobe's Classroom in a Book for AE or Ps, you'd spend about 60 hours working through each. And you'd be familiar with the software enough to undertake some real projects. Learning Adobe apps is a good career move but you just gotta know what you're facing.
Thank you very much Michael for your answer. I did google the subject of course, but I decided to ask people with experience of the software to prevent going down some blind alleys and wasting a lot of precious time. I have been using Motion until now, but it seems that everybody wants After Effects nowadays. I gather it might be more smooth or dependable? I don't know.
Ruth
I am going to leap to the conclusion that you already own these outstanding products. Adobe helped build Apple in the early days.
In ANY Adobe product, look in the [MENU] > [Help] pulldown menu.
You will see many "How Tos" as well as [Photoshope help...]
All of these lead to Browser-based Help files (located on your computer by the install(s) so you need not be on-line)
Adobe's help system is the best I have ever seen for any software product.
It seems that you could familiarize yourself with each product (let's use PShop as an example) by choosing [Photoshop help...] and then choose Learning Photoshop link in the TOC on the left. It's as easy as clicking next and back to navigate and you can follow the illustrated lessons by switching to PShop then back again.
After getting to know the GUI, all you need do is say to yourself "I wanna do this to that" and translate that to PSHop terms (that may be the most daunting part). People who use PShop all-day every-day don't know everything that it will do until they ask themselves the right question.
Years ago, as a new computer user (as we all were back then), I taught myself every piece of Pro Software I needed just in this fashion - some VERY much more complicated than PShop, etc.
You CAN DO IT ! Be sure to give us a link to your finished project.
CCC
Thank you so much for your support, technical and psychological!, much appreciated. No I haven't bought the products yet. I have to shop around. I understand the principle of your method but a few terms I couldn't figure out: 1) what is the "TOC on the left" which has the Learning Photoshop link?
2) What is the GUI?
Many thanks again.
Ruth
If you have FCP, you have top-o-the-line professional video editor. Photoshop, After Effects and many other Adobe products are equally the best available. If you do projects often, the investment will pay off in the end. There are other products that will probably do what you need done though**
**What IS it that you want to do with these archival photos anyway. That answer may help with advice on alternatives.
CCC
-- We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. - Aristotle
Learn After Effects and Photoshop for FCP7
