We put the band back together and we’re headed out on tour! Jason Levine, Paul Trani, myself and several other Adobe Evangelists are headed out on the ALL NEW Adobe Create Now 2014 World Tour. We’ll kick things off with a LIVE event in New York that will be webcast worldwide. and then immediately after we’ll be heading to a city (hopefully) near you.
Tune in Wednesday, June 18th, 2014 at 1PM ET to see “What’s Next in Creative Cloud” You can sign up right here.
Then starting on Thursday, June 19th we’ll hit the road and visit several cities around the globe. This will give us the chance to go deeper in the products and show you even more. You can find out where we’re going and register for the one closest to you right here. If by chance you’re not near any of those major events, we’ll also be doing several more tour stops here. As usual you can see my upcoming events right here on the right sidebar of my blog (or at the bottom of this post if you’re looking at this on a smartphone.
Paul Trani and myself on stage during the Create Now 2013 Tour in Chicago
I look forward to see you all! This should be a lot of fun (saying that now of course before all the travel. 😉 )
As a photographer I’m always looking at the latest and greatest lighting gear. Most of the lighting I buy is geared towards professional photographers and videographers. However, today I’m reviewing a product that is geared towards non-professionals. Just about everyone takes pictures and videos with their smartphones and point-and-shoot cameras. However, most amateurs rarely think about lighting until after the fact. Also most smartphones and small cameras don’t really do well in low light settings. Therefore, off camera lighting is nice to have, but rarely convenient or cheap. This is where the Kick LED Full Color Video Light comes in. Beyond being a nice, small, light-weight, bright, battery powered LED light, it has a built-in WiFi network. You can control it with the free Kick App for your iPhone and Android smartphone. Not only can you control the brightness, but you can also control the color too. There are even special effects such as strobe effects and effects that will continuously change the hue. You can even use the camera on your device to sample the color of the walls or lights around you to have the Kick automatically emit the same colors.
Rather than tell you more about it, I’d rather show you in this video:
Sample photo taken before adding the Kick lightSample photo taken after adding the Kick light
In this episode of Adobe Creative Cloud TV I show just how easy it is to edit video in Photoshop CC even if you’ve never edited video before. Adobe Premiere Pro CC is Adobe’s award-winning, industry standard video editor. However, there are many Photoshop users out there who aren’t professional video editors, but know how to use Photoshop. That’s why Photoshop has a very capable video editor built right in that takes advantage of all your Photoshop skills.
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See more of my Adobe Creative Cloud Videos on my Adobe Creative Cloud TV and get the App below. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App! My iOS App is a Universal App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I also have an Android version on the Amazon App Store:
I’m a fan of water and water sports. I love to swim and I love to snorkel. One of these days I’ll take the time to get certified for scuba. Last year I got a chance to do some snorkeling in the Virgin Islands and I remember feeling so unprepared to capture all the underwater beauty that I was seeing. I had no underwater camera of any kind with me. I remember my colleague at the time Greg Rewis telling me about his recent sailing experience and once I spotted the Liquid Image Scuba Mask Series, I knew that it would be on my list for the next time I headed out to a nice area to dive/snorkel. I got the mask and couldn’t wait to try it. The obvious advantage is that this mask has an HD camera in it that records to a micro-SD card (4GB supplied, supports up to 32GB). You can shoot video or stills. This means that your hands are mostly free and where ever you look that’s what you’re shooting. (1080p @ 30fps, 720p @ 60fps, 5MP Still sensor/ 12MP interpolated)
How does it work?
I really wish I had taken the time to familiarize myself with the mask more than just a few minutes the night before. I set it up, loaded the memory card and batteries and then took it out for a try the next morning. While I understood the basic operation of the mask, a little more testing up front would have made me feel more comfortable with it. The mask runs on 4 AAA batteries and depending on which model you get you’ll either get 4 rechargeable batteries or 4 Energizers. The memory card is a 4GB card, which is rated at being able to capture up to 2 hours of video. Going in I had no idea how much recording time I had or how long the batteries would last. Again, I could have read all this before hand, but I didn’t. Totally my fault. This made me a little anxious since I was going out with a group, I wouldn’t get a second shot at this (at least not on this trip). I was more interested in capturing video than stills, but wanted to try both. Overall the mask performed as advertised. I was actually very impressed with the quality of both video and stills. I bought and used their optional red and blue filters. The shots here were with the red filter. I meant to use the blue one, but grabbed the wrong one.
I got a few questions regarding my setup for recording my last Adobe Creative Now Tour Event.
Here’s what I used:
I did the presentation on my MacBook Pro 15″ Retina. I was connected to the 1080p in house projector via the built-in HDMI port. I had my Wacom Intuos 5 tablet plugged into one USB port and my Logitech C920 HD Webcam plugged into the other one. While the Mac has a built-in FaceTime HD camera, it’s only as good as the angle of your display. By using the C920 I’m able to put it on a tripod and therefore position it anywhere I want.
Networking
I always travel with both a MiFi and AirPort Express. This way I can create my own network either by using the venue’s ethernet cable or via 4G. This is important for when I show Touch Apps and DPS SE so that I can mirror both my iPhone 5 and iPad to the same screen as the audience is seeing AND being recorded with Screenflow. I used Reflector on the Mac to Airplay from both my iOS devices at the same time.
Audio
As my buddy Jason Levine would say “It doesn’t matter how good your video is, if your audio sucks no one will care about your video.” This means using either a really good USB tabletop mic OR a audio recording device. In Cleveland I used a Blue Yeti USB mic and the audio was good. However, I had a Zoom H4N on order that arrived in time for Detroit and I decided to use that instead since it has legendary audio quality. As a backup I had Screenflow recording from the built-in mic on the MacBook Pro since I hadn’t used the H4N before. The H4N records to an SD card in WAV format or MP3 at various quality settings. It uses 2AA batteries and can also be mounted on a stand/tripod. I mounted it onto a Gorillapod and set it on the table.
We see camera bodies go on sale all the time. Heck we even see great bundle deals, however we rarely see lenses themselves go on sale. For the next two weeks you can save on some really good Nikon glass. Check out the deals here.
I get this question at least 2-3 times a week: “Hey Terry, I really like your video/tutorials what software do you use to record them?” The answer is Screenflow by Telestream. I’ve been using this software to record my Adobe Creative Cloud TV Podcast for a couple of years now and from time to time I even use it to record product demos. After the intro, which was created with Adobe After Effects the first thing that usually catches people’s eye is the image of me in the corner while the computer display is large and angled off to the side. This is a native feature of Screenflow and was one of the reasons I settled on it a couple of years ago. Over the years Telestream has continued to bolster the feature set making it pretty much a total solution for not only recording, but editing and distributing screen recordings. While Adobe Premiere Pro CC is my video editor of choice, I find that I can do the simple edits I need to do for my episodes right in Screenflow.
I record my screen in 720p HD (Update: I’m now doing 1080p) and the resulting export from Screenflow looks really good. From there I use the Adobe Media Encoder to go out to the other formats and sizes I need. However, I typically upload the Screenflow exported movie right to YouTube for my YouTube Channel so that my viewers there can enjoy the content in HD.
Screenflow 4 adds even more…
The image of me in the corner shot on green screen with the Muse artwork applied to the background in post.
The latest version of Screenflow even adds 64bit support as well as Chromakey effects so that I can shoot myself on green screen and then superimpose whatever imagery I want behind me. I’m stilling working out the lighting aspects of this in my office that I record from, but the results have been good all things considered. They also including nested clips, closed captioning and several other editing features to make it even easier to edit your final product right in Screenflow.
How do you show your iPad or iPhone or both on your computer screen?
I use a great software product called Reflector. It uses AirPlay and as long as the devices are on the same WiFi network they will show up to Reflector running on your Mac or PC.
Also in Mac OS X 10.10 Mavericks you can show your iPad or iPhone on your Mac screen natively. Here’s how:
What equipment do I use?
Update: Note that Screenflow now allows you to connect your iPad or iPhone directly to your USB port using your Lightning sync/charge cable and it will record directly from the device as a separate video track.
Since I’m typically doing these recordings alone I need everything to just work! I’m using a Logitech C920 HD webcam on a tripod to record the image of me and
Currently Screenflow is a Mac only product. If you’re looking for a solution on the Windows side (or another choice for Mac), then I’d also suggest you take a look at the new Adobe Captivate.
In this episode of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast Terry White shows off What’s New in Photoshop CS6 for Adobe Creative Cloud Members in this December 2012 update. He also shows off the Retina Display (HiDPI) Support for Mac users and for all Photoshop CS6 users.
Are you missing out on my Bonus Content?
See more of my Adobe Creative Suite Videos on my Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and get the App here. It features EXCLUSIVE CONTENT that no one else gets to see. This episode has a BONUS CLIP that is available only in the App! My iOS App is a Universal App for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. I also have an Android version on the Amazon App Store:
Each year I put together my picks for the best Gadget Gifts to get that special someone on your Holiday Gift List. This year I decided to practice what I’ve been preaching and I’m releasing the guide as an iPad App as well as the web version. I built the App using Adobe InDesign CS6 and Adobe Creative Cloud. It’s interactive with videos, links and animation. The iPad App is a free download and while it’s focused on my top picks, you can access the full guide in the App as well.
Download it here:
I’ll be releasing the full version of my 2012 Guide on the web next week.
A couple of years ago I started posting more to my YouTube channel and more often. My thought back then was that while my award winning “Adobe Creative Suite Video Podcast” was doing well, why not broaden my reach? I figured that if I was already taking time to record video tutorials and making them freely available, that it wouldn’t hurt to put them on YouTube also. That bet paid off big time as I just passed the 30,000 subscriber mark this past weekend to my YouTube Channel and I’m nearing the 10 million view mark. Back when I started the podcast in 2007, YouTube’s quality was severely lacking. Of course that all changed and they now support full HD 1080p content.
My Creative Suite podcast and My App will always be the best way for viewers to watch offline and get bonus content, but it’s clear that people are finding me on YouTube that otherwise wouldn’t know that I exist.
THANK YOU for being a subscriber and if you haven’t subscribed to my channel yet, you can do so here.
