creativite BLOG

Today, The new Creative Suite 3 is alive on Adobe site. The first package after merging with Macromedia around a year ago. The new CS3 provides more integeration between products such as Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator and extending products capabilities such as the timeline in Photoshop and its support for 3D, and the support to output cideo files for mobile in Adobe AFter Effects.
Read more about the new CS3 here

The best resource to know about Apollo I find till now was the Labs page and Mike Chambers videos on Lynda, The Labs page gives you all what you need from documents, samples and the software itself, and Mike Dawney video which help understanding the Apollo.

-First the link to Apollo on Adobe Labs:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/apollo/

-And Mike Chambers videos on Lynda.com blog:
https://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?id=378&loggedin=true

And here it is

The latest version of Adobe After Effect includes new features that increase the capabilities to create motion graphics fast and easy, in addition to the different types of output options. Adobe After Effects enable you to create content for TV broadcasting, video, DVD, image sequence and FLV content for Flash.

The magnificent thing in Adobe After Effect that is designed to meet your needs to create video content and make this process as easy as possible. It starts with the first time to open your project by giving you the chance to choose from various types of video templates. And continue making the process easy by digging deeper in the software tools.

The timeline will make you feel comfortable working with it even when you are a beginner in motion graphic industry.

The new interface maximize the working area, instead of filling the screen with panels, the new Adobe After Effect 7 arranges the docking panels to give you more space for working area. Further more, Adobe After Effects gives you the ability to customize your workspace to meet your own needs or choose from the Workspace drop-down menu the panel arrangement order that meets your needs.

Figure01. The new customized workspace in After Effect 7

Beside the new workspace, Adobe After Effects supports you with a variety of Effects and presents that can be used either in producing video or exporting to use in Flash, the new version gives you the capability to export your work as SWF or FLV content. Although not all the features are support for SWF exporting, but I myself hope to see this featured improved in the upcoming versions to increase the integration between Adobe After Effect and Flash.

In addition to the above features that I see very interesting in the new release of Adobe After Effect, below are some other important features in version 7:

• New Graph Editor
The new version of Adobe Affects includes a new shape for the graphic editor that helps controlling keyframes and the easing effect for the animation path through the animation layers. The Graph Editor icon included timeline panel toggles between the current view of the layer and the graph editor, which helps giving more space in your work space. On the other hand the, the timeline zooming slider helps zooming on the animation path in the graph editor to reach smaller details and point of the animation.

Figure02. The Graph Editor in After Effect 7

• Animation and behavior presets
As I mentioned earlier, the Adobe After Effects 7 includes variety of animation and behavior present, which make creating eye-catching effects more easy and time saving.

• Timewarp
The time warp is a great new feature in Adobe After Effects 7, this feature is a really advantage. With the Timewarp feature, you can control the speed of your video content. Furthermore, you can reverse the animation of the video.

There are other features in the new Adobe After Effects 7 such as supporting HDV, FLV, PSD formats….etc. And for sure, it lets you work with Adobe Bridge for easy reaching assists and files.

And I think the integration between After Effects 7 and Flash is the greatest advantage for Flash designers and web designers to use the variety of the effects and presets in After Effect to enhance Flash animation. Also, Adobe After Effects 7 integrates with other Adobe products such as Premier, Encore DVD and Illustrator.

Currently, there is two version of the Adobe After Effects 7, the standard edition and the professional one. You can know the differences between each edition by accessing the following URL:
http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/newfeatures.html

Finally, Adobe site includes all the information you need to know to get start with this product at the following link:

http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/

On 27th 3:30 p.m Eastern time of this month, Adobe will do a webcast of the official launch of Adobe Creative Suite 3. I can not wait to see it, bookmark the following URL to not miss the webcast:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/launchevent/

The cinematography art is marked with the deep concern with the dramatic effect of the shoots, backgrounds, lights…etc. This concern is what makes the strong relationship between the image and the story or idea behind it.
Welcome to OZ book focuses on using the light, shadows and image contrast to produce this effect on images using Adobe Photoshop.
Based on his experience, Vincent Versace shows by example how to enhance images and edit camera shoots in Adobe Photoshop. Each chapter concern of specific effect and explain how to accomplish this effect using Photoshop tools. In his first chapter, Vincent shows how to enhance camera shoots for portrait image with editing the light and shadows and adding depth to the image. His example was his shoot to the actress Challen Cates.
The following chapter adds a new skill, which is practicing shooting multiple images for the same object and compile them to produce a final image. Vincent attached an image gallery to show how these practice affect the images and enhance the output of the normal camera shoots.
The book continues experiencing the skills with each chapter either with adding new skills or shows how to use the skills mentioned in previous chapters in a new way.
The book is great book for all whom concern with adding dramatic and artistic effect to images. I see this book is good for all who work in graphic design, photographers and photo-montage specialists.

Product Details:
Writer: Vincent Versace
Book Name: Welcome to OZ
Publisher: New Riders
ISBN: 0-7357-1400-2
URL: http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0735714002&rl=1

Reviewed by: Rafiq Elmansy