I am going to break down every App and tell you what i like about it and such and hope as always this information will be useful in your daily work flow.

Effect Editor – Peacock

I am starting with this App first because I am so amazed with what Peacock is. Peacock is a Node Based Effects Editor for the common man, AND IT IS FREE. A while back the great flocks at dvGarage brought the power of node based image editing to Photoshop in the form of a plug-in called conduit, today The great people of Aviary gave us Peacock.

Image Editor – Phoenix

Phoenix is basically a online version of Photoshop nothing much to tell all the standard futures all thou one thing in particular  my attention and that was the fact that you could make a peacock layer in phoenix kind of like dynamic link layers in after effect and Photoshop orPremier

Audio Editor – Myna

Myna is my second Favorite after Peacock its a fully functional audio editor. You can record tracks right into the web app you can save sessions and even export wave mixdowns. The interface reminds me of audacity a bit but it has functional short cut keys and space bar is play and stop like mostly common in this type of app

There is a lot more that the Aviary Tool set can offer you They have a Color suite similar to Adobe kuler and a Vector App and a simple version of there image app. Go and Check them out you wont regret it

www.aviary.com

The links for Series 2 (covering compositing, keying, tracking, paint, and rotoscoping presented by Ron Brinkmann, Stu Maschwitz, and Scott Stewart) are below; watch them while you can:

Masters of Visual Effects 2.1 – Compositing Concepts 1 from Matt Silverman on Vimeo.

Masters of Visual Effects 2.2 – Composting Concepts 2 from Matt Silverman on Vimeo.

Masters of Visual Effects 2.3 – Keying from Matt Silverman on Vimeo.

Masters of Visual Effects 2.4 – Tracking from Matt Silverman on Vimeo.

Masters of Visual Effects 2.5 – Paint from Matt Silverman on Vimeo.

Masters of Visual Effects 2.6 – Rotoscoping from Matt Silverman on Vimeo.

from VideoPro Coalition

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

A FULL-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects
are already-built spaces. Sometimes in an abstract way. Sometimes surreal.

Credits:

CG

|Modelling – Texturing – Illumination – Rendering| Alex Roman

POST

|Postproduction & Editing| Alex Roman

MUSIC

Sequenced, Orchestrated & Mixed by Alex Roman (Sonar & EWQLSO Gold Pro XP)

Sound Design by Alex Roman

Based on original scores by:

.Michael Laurence Edward Nyman. (The Departure)
.Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns. (Le Carnaval des animaux)

Directed by Alex Roman

Done with 3dsmax, Vray, AfterEffects and Premiere.

EDIT: Original MP4 torrent if you’re interested. Thanks to Brennan

temporarygate.com/TheThird&TheSeventh.mp4.torrent

thirdseventh.com/

Compositing Breakdown (T&S) from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Exeter Shot — Making Of from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

The VFX Show Podcast on AVATAR is a must [hear]

Avatar’s VFX Master: Weta Digital’s Joe Letteri interviews [here]

FXGuide Red Center : on the Cameron 3D camera [here]

For thous of you with much nerdiar tendencys like myself the movie was screened using RealD in Imax this wiki is very informative on the subject. Cinefex , the world leading print resource for anything VFX has a very in depth looks at this masterpiece you can pick up a copy (print or digital) [here]

that is all i got for now i will keep at it and will inform you when i come across new information

on a side note this probably wont ever happen but if Mr. Cameron ever reads this id like to say :

“Hello Sir, i wanted to tell you to keep making epic sagas that changes peoples lives and you have changed my life in siginficant way also if you happen to be hiring for the next bigest movie of all time i am your man. “

First let me apologize for not posting in a while,

<usual excuses> work has been crazy, no time , moving , packing and my building got hit by a meteor</usual excuses>.

Now that’s done with here is what’s new. I just wrapped up an animation project that was quite long, no mere 30 seconds or 1 min but a full 3min:40sec of motion graphics. Now in our Mograph world that is a lot, (too much in fact) and i noticed something very interesting; my animation is all the same. I don’t mean the look of my animation, i mean the way small background things behave, like having clouds animate in the background and using “wiggle.expression” to animate them instead of using  keyframes. Or when i animate fractal noise to drive a texture i just go in quick and dirty with a “time*45.expression” and leave . Now don’t get me wrong, these ways of animating have their place but here is where i came across my problem: when you have 30 seconds of sky and you throw a wiggle.expression on there and move on it works, but when you are looking at 4 min of sky all of the sudden you see the impersonal machine behavior of expressions. I started seeing  noticeable patterns for all my animations. All the little things i stopped doing like animating evaluation values or complexity and substituting it by the exact same time*15.expression.

Now it may very well be that i don’t know any other expressions so all of them look the same but i figured a computer has a set number of rules it works by and no matter how you dress it up it will end up using the same set of rules to apply it. So i set out to modify my project from machine driven monotone animation to something with a bit of personality, and let me tell you it was hard going from  this :

expression from Motionscript.com

to this:

But it was well worth it. My animation took on character and a life of its own. Which made me feel more accomplished (and much cooler).

I did not go to traditional animation school however and the core principals of the art was something i needed to understand well before i could apply them to my animation. Here are some of the resources i found and used to make a learning curve a bit less curvy (?), than it could have been.

A great 3 part article from fuelyourmotionography.com about everything that i just discussed, only written by some one much more experienced than i am.

Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3

Then i came across a very  interesting video by Nick Campbell form Grayscale Gorilla about how not to let your computer animate you.

The Death of the Keyframe – How expressions are making everything look the same from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.

And finally here is a beautiful sample of how manually key-framing your animation can give you 100 times better results

CRAZY ENOUGH – Title Sequence from Jr.canest on Vimeo.

Here are some of the keyframes on that video.

So the underlying point I’m trying to make is – sure you can go ahead and use the built in preset. We all can! But if you really want to stand out from the crowd it’s best to put in the effort to keyframe your animations. After all, nothing that looks awesome was easy to do

That’s all for this time folks. As always i hope that at least one person finds this useful in some way. If you like it, hate it or find it stupid please comment.

Cheers

The non-professional photographers among us are often left with boring and flat shots from our cameras, the photos lack the flair and energy that is achieved with expert techniques and equipment. Photoshop Actions on the other hand, can help recreate some amazing photo effects, just by pressing a button! This post rounds up 20 of the best Photoshop Actions that allow you to easily spice up your photos with popular effects, including HDR, Soft Focus, Lomo, Velvia and more!

The Original

To test out each Photoshop Action, and to allow the action to be compared against other actions on the same shot I’ve downloaded this sample image, courtesy of SXC. Compare this shot with each of the following actions, which one is your favourite?

Fuji Velvia Effect

Recreate the popular photo effect originally created by using Fuji’s Velvia range of film, with this fab action from Pibweb.

Sepia Effect

Create a simple vintage Sepia toning effect with this action from 4thDynasty

Dark and Cold Photo Effect

This cool Photoshop Action from David Nanchin creates an eery dark and cold effect.

Soft Focus Effect

HD Stock’s Soft Elegance action produces a slightly blurred image with high contrast and a green tone.

HDR Effect

HDR photo effects are all the rage. Easily create your own high dynamic range photograph without any specialist techniques with this action from Forfie

High Contrast Vintage Photo Effect

Create an awesome old-time effect with this action from SD Stock. Key features include high contrast, adjusted colour balance and heavy vignette.

Cold Blue Colour Cast Effect

Produce a cold colour cast with high contrast with this second action from SD Stock.

Retro Colour Cast

Give your photos the typical retro look with this colour adjusting action from Amatorka.

Split Tone Photo Effect

Digitally create the popular split tone effect with this action from Paranoid Stock.

Retro Photo Effect

Give your shots the typical retro colour tones with this brilliant action from Marissaxxx.

Vivid Blur Photo Effect

Create vivid colour and a dreamy blur with this action from AlenaJay. Although it’s possibly more suited to portraits than landscape shots.

Grainy High Contrast Effect

This cool grainy effect was created by Alejandro Herrera to mimic the awesome filming effects used in the movie 300.

Cross Colouring Photo Effect

Create a cross colouring effect with this action from KalifBanane. Available with three various settings to provide dark, medium or light effects.

Vintage/Retro Photo Effect

This great action from Pseudonyfreak creates an old vintage/retro theme with yellows and browns.

Infra Red Photo Effect

Create the popular Infra Red photo effect without the need for specialist IR filters or film with this awesome action from Hanyasatu.

Pseudo HDR

This second HDR action produces another high dynamic range effect, without the need for multiple exposures. This action from FinesseFX provides deep colours and sharp detail.

Cross Processing Effect

Traditional cross processing effects were originally created by developing a film with the wrong chemicals, leaving a range of unusual tones and colours. This action from Mutato Nomine easily recreates the effect.

Harsh Colour Balance

This action from Shagagraf creates an unusual colour tone adustment to give a semi-retro photo effect.

Soft Black and White Conversion

This handy action from FinesseFX converts your shots to black and white, with a soft and pure glow.

Free Vector Packs:

Doodles :

[download]

Office :

[download]

Floral :

[download]

Vegetables :

[download]

Free Photoshop Brushes :

Splash :

[download]

Footprints :

[download]

Spaxio :

[download]

Grunge :

[download]

Circles :

[download]

Arrows :

[download]

Free Fonts :

Public Gothic :

[download]

Giro :

[download]

Textures :

[download]

Affecting multiple versions of Photoshop:

• 50654: When opening and saving, applications–including Adobe applications–may sporadically crash
• 51230: Images don’t open when dragged onto the Adobe program icon in the Dock

• 51220: Crash or program error occurs when using Menlo font in Photoshop and Premiere CS3 and CS4

CS4-specific:

• 51764: Only one image opens when many are dragged onto Photoshop’s icon
• 51278: Cursors don’t display correctly in Photoshop CS4
• 51339: Editing in Photoshop CS4 fails from 64-bit Lightroom in Mac OS X 10.6
• Cannot drag from Safari onto Photoshop icon (and other application icons) in Dock to open file

I have  been suffering from all the mentioned above issues since i updated. I am glad the finally fixed it so far i have not had any more problems

The O Series

Super Cool Abstract Vectors in Illustrator and Photoshop

Really Cool Eclipse Effect in Photoshop

Awesome Digital Bokeh Effect in Photoshop

Advanced Glow Effects

View Full List [here]

Virtual Photographer

Xpose

B/W Conversion

Contrast Mask

View Full List [here]