You can watch the video below… but here’s the just of it:

Bandwidth settings:

• Peak Rate: 1500 kbit/s
• Average rate:  1200 kbit/s
• Frame skip probability: 0
• VBV buffer size: 5
• VBR strength: 50 (but grayed out)
• Profile settings: Vp6-E

Encoding settings:

• High Quailty
• 2-pass Encoding: yes (checked)
• 2-pass Mode: CBR
• Sharpness: 5

Frame Rate:

• Frame Rate: 29.97
• Type: fast
• Fraction: 1/2
• Framerate Type: Upper limit
• First Interlaced Pair: Frame 2 and 3

Deinterlace:

• Field Order: Automatic detection
• Creating New Fields by: Edge detecting interpolation
• Deinterlace Type: deinterlace interlaced frames (automatic)
• Threshold: 6
• Deinterlace Chroma: 1
• Double Frame Rate: 0

Resize:

• Width: 640
• Height: 360
• Top: 0
• Bottom: 0
• Left: 0
• Right: 0
• Display Ration Compensation: Assume 16:9
• Aspect Mode: Letterbox (pad)
• Interlace Handling: Progressive output
• Interpolation mode: Automatic

Think this stuff is hard? I’m going to convince you in the next 15 minutes that it’s not. Your 80-year-old grandma can do this, even your 6-year old brother could do it. And now, you’re going to do it.

We’re going to assume that most of you are using a Windows computer. But just in case, we’ll get you set up on both Windows and Mac. And just to make sure we don’t lose anyone, we’ll go through it twice.

For Windows users, do the following:

1. Click on the Start button (lower left), and go to Accessories, and choose Notepad. I’ll wait while you do that.
2. Stretch your box out so it covers the screen this way. We’re doing this because we’ll need to have another window open right next to it.
3. Now open your Internet browser, either Firefox, or Internet Explorer. Once it’s open, do the same thing with this window. Stretch it out until the two windows are sitting side-by-side. Just make sure you can still see a little bit of your desktop. Notepad on the left, and your web browser on the right

For Mac users, do the following:

1. On your desktop, double-click on your hard drive icon (usually at the top right). Next double-click on your Applications folder. Inside that folder, you should see a program called TextEdit. Double-click and launch that program.
2. Once TextEdit is in position, click once in the middle of that window, and then go to the menu at the top, choosing Format. Select the option “Make Plain Text.”
3. Stretch your box out so it covers the screen this way. We’re doing this because we’ll need to have another window open right next to it.
4. Now open your Internet browser, either Firefox, or Safari. Once it’s open, do the same thing with this window. Stretch it out until the two windows are sitting side-by-side. Just make sure you can still see a little bit of your desktop. TextEdit on the left, and your web browser on the right

Lesson 2: Your first web page

So, first things first… we need a place to save our future website.

• Create a new folder on your desktop (or wherever your teacher wants it) and give it a name. Need help creating a folder? Click somewhere on your desktop. Right-click and choose “new” and then “folder.” Type in a name, like maybe website project, and that’s it!
• Click in the middle of your Notepad (or TextEdit) window, and type this in:

    My first web page.

• Now go up to the File menu (top left), and click on File, and then click on Save from the drop-down menu.
• Save the file as myfirstpage.html. It’s important that the “.html” is at the end. Web browsers know how to open these kids of files.
• Now click on your web browser, then click on the File menu, and then Open (Ctrl+O does the same thing, and much quicker). Now find the HTML file you just saved, and double click on it (or choose Open).

(SOUND THE TRUMPETS)

You just did it! Your very first web page, and all it took was typing a few words. See how simple that was?

Now, don’t get me wrong. Your page is cool and everything … buuuuut it could be a lot better, don’t you think? So lets’ move on.

Before we get started, let’s go back a few years.

Some internet history

In August of 1962, computer scientist J.C.R. Licklider (yup, that’s
him above) came up with a concept that he called the “Intergalactic Computer
Network.” A strange name, right? His idea was to connect computers through
phone lines across the country. The problem? These computers were all
different, and even used different languages.

Yet, Licklider figured it out, and connected computers in Santa Monica,
California, The University of California at Berkeley, and a computer at
MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This formed the basis
of what they called the ARPANET, what we now call the Internet.

The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (commonly called the Web) is a bit different from the
Internet. The World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Sir Tim
Berners-Lee (above), while working in Geneva, Switzerland. While the
Internet is a network of computers that are linked together, the World Wide
Web is a network of documents, photos, sounds and video that you can access
ON the Internet. With a web browser, a user can view web pages that may
contain text, images, and other multimedia, and then navigates between them
using hyperlinks.

Hyperlinks

Have you ever noticed how when you go to Google, Cartoon Network or MySpace,
and there’s a word on the web page that’s blue, and underlined? Sure you
have. We know these are links, and when you click on them, they take you
to different pages, or pictures, music .. whatever. These are officially
called hyperlinks. Hyperlinks don’t just have to be underlined words. Images
can be hyperlinks as well (click on Tim’s photo to go to his Wikipedia
page). Your phone number is sort of like a hyperlink when you think about
it. Someone punches in the right numbers, and somehow they get connected to
you. A web page is similar. If you type in
www.google.com, that name is actually tied in to a specific computer
number, or address … so it then takes you to some computers in, say,
California, and there’s your Google page!

In this tutorial, we’re going to create a cool texture effect using the wave filter in Photoshop. Open a new document. I have created a 800 pixel by 300 pixel image.
Again, starting off with a gradient (we keep the same colors in this instance as well), draw from the top of the document to the bottom. Now go to Filter -> Distort -> Wave.
We change the number of generators to 777. We’ll make the wavelength minimum 1 and the max up to 20. Now we keep the amplitude at 1 minimum and 999 at the maximum. For the undefined areas, we will select wrap around. This will give you a cool soundwave look with some sharp edges.
Now we select a photo to use to place this as a texture over. In this case, we use a free image from Dreamstime of a beach sunset.
Place the texture over the image, and set the blending mode of the texture to soft light. This will give you the final result you are looking for. Simple, yet effective.

With this example we have four layers with overlapping clips.

In the menu go to: Animation>Keyframe Assist>Sequence Layers:

With this dialogue you can choose to overlap the clips and how long to overlap if needed. You can also set a transition which is great for quick slide shows.

Hit OK and AE will have properly distributed your clips according to your settings.

At the bottom of the actions panel there is a tab that indicates where the current ActionScript is being applied.

Directly to the right is the “pin active script” icon:

Activate it and you focus will no longer navigate away from that current script location. This is true even if you click on other objects or frames with embedded script.

In this tutorial, we’re going to create a classic, elegant clothing ad. First we start out with an image. We’ve selected an iStockphoto.com image.
Now, we will crop the image to be 8.5 inches wide and 11 inches tall. Now that we’ve cropped the image, we want to change it to a grayscale image. Once the image is black and white, we go to Image – Adjustments – Levels (Command + L). We adjust it to where it is slightly overexposed.
We want to give it a lens blur, so using the Quick Mask tool (Q) we use a brush to draw an oval around the image, leaving the edges exposed. Now by hitting the Q key again, you should see a selection marquee going around the area you selected. To give it a lens blur, go to Filter – Blur – Lens Blur. Once the dialog box comes up, adjust the setting to your liking. Once the lens blur is done rendering, we go back to our image. As you can see, the top left and bottom right corners are blurred.
Now it’s time to add some other art elements and our text. First, draw a black rectangle. Duplicate the layer and do that consecutively to create a pattern. Once you have a pattern you like, you can duplicate the layer and stack it below.
Between the two layers, you can add your text. Make sure it is to the right of the man’s face in the blank area on the photograph. In this instance, we have selected to use a font called Kontrapunkt. We just type in a random name for effect.
Now the two pattern layers are a little too dark for our advertisement. So we keep the blending mode on normal, but change the opacity to 20%.
And finally we have a fake advertisement ready for publication.

Then in the bottom left corner of the timeline panel click on the “Expand/Collapse Transfer control panel” icon.

This will display the Mode column.

Now you can easily change the blending mode of you After Effects layers just like Photoshop.

Instead of purchasing pre-made stock vector images all the time, I decided to create my own. In this tutorial I will show you an easy way to create a single tree vector image using Photoshop and exporting the paths to Illustrator to manipulate to your liking.
I found a very nice photo from Dreamstime, and it was a free download. Opening it in Photoshop, you can see it’s already a silhouetted image, which helps out cause even more. Using the Magic Wand Tool, select the black portion of the photograph. As shown in Step 1, go to Select and choose Similar. This will grab the rest of the black near the selected portion of the photo, grabbing those small bits and pieces.
As in Step 2, go to select -> Inverse. Now hit the delete button. The background should disappear. If it doesn’t, then you need to check your layers palette and ensure the lock graphic is not on the right side of the background layer. Again, go to Select -> Inverse, so that the black tree outline is selected once again.
Once that is ready, we can move on to Step 3. Right click somewhere within the selection. Click Make Work Path. When the prompt comes to select the tolerance, make sure it is set to 0.5. With the path created, go to your path palette. Double-click on the work path and call it Path 1.
Now you can begin to export your paths to Illustrator. Go to File -> Export -> Paths to Illustrator. Name the file at your discretion.
Find the file, and open it in Illustrator. The file will appear blank. Using the mouse, click and drag to select the path. Blue dots will appear at this point. Now you can fill it with your selected color and resize.

In this tutorial, I will show you a quick and simple way to create a starburst using Photoshop.
First, start off with a new document. I’m beginning with a perfect square, 3 inches by 3 inches. Now select the gradient tool. Select your different colors. I have chosen a dark red and a brighter red for nice contrast.
Now holding the shift key, click and drag from the top to the bottom of the document. This will create a nice, even looking gradient going from the top to the bottom of the document. Now, we begin creating it into a starburst.
Select Filter -> Distort -> Wave. We will begin adjusting these particular values to get a good result in a line pattern.
For the number of generators, we have selected 69. This number can vary depending on your preference. We change our wavelength to a minimum of 17 with a max of 18. For the amplitude, we go with a minimum of 5 and a max of 999 (the biggest value). Make sure you have Repeat Edge Pixels selected along with the type Sine.
Click OK, and you should get a nice line pattern. Now we will use the Filter menu again. Go to Distort and select Polar Coordinates.
Select Rectangular to Polar. And it will give you the final result of a simple and beautiful starburst.
We will use this starburst in a future tutorial.