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Flickr to Twitter

DigMo — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:54:17 +0000

The ability to tweet photos as part of your 140 characters is nothing new for Twitter users but what is new is now you can tweet from flickr. Popular photo sharing website flickr now offers the ability to easily tweet photos directly from your photostream. The process could not be easier and it only takes about 60 seconds to set up.

Step one, log in to flickr account and select any photo from your photostream. Along the toolbar (above the photo) you will see a ‘Blog This’ option. Click this button. (We have highlighted the button with the number 1).

If you have previously set up the capability to post your photos to other blogging services then a list of your blogs should appear. If not, and this is your first time clicking the option you should be met with a configuration option. Click the “Do that now” hyperlink.

Next, select Twitter from the list of compatible blogging options. As you can see from the screenshot flickr is compatible with a wide range of blogging platforms and services.

Clicking Twitter will take you to the Twitter authorisation stage of the process. Unlike some other services you don’t need to give Flickr your Twitter username and password.

Instead Twitter authorises Flickr access to your account and this authorisation can be easily revoked at a later date if necessary.

If you have already logged into Twitter you simply have to click the authorize button, if not you will have to provide Twitter with your username and password. Once authorised Twitter will send you back to flickr where you can tweet your first photo.

Now you are set up tweeting photos is quick and easy. Click on an image in your photostream, this time when you click the ‘Blog This’ button your Twitter account name should appear on the list. Click this to tweet the image.

flickr enters the title of the photograph automatically but you are free to use up the remaining 140 characters with an optional message.

Clicking ‘Post Entry’ sends your photo and message to your Twitter followers. You will notice Flickr uses its own URL shortening system Flic.kr which offers Twitter users the ability to recognise tweeted photos in the Twitter feed.

The tweet I sent in this post can be viewed here.

Links:
DigMo! on Twitter

Top Pro Photography Tips

DigMo — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:16:22 +0000

DSLR cameras are becoming more and more affordable. The Canon 500D even enters multi lens High Definition video capabilities but it is very easy to be “All the gear and no idea(r)” Steffan Hill is one of Belfast’s top professional photographers focusing on portraiture, film stills and reportage. Steffan has taken time to offer up his top tips for those learning the art of photography.

1. Always shot RAW format files if your camera can. This is the ultimate format which gives you incredible control over your shots. With memory cards much cheaper and with more capacity there really is no reason to not shoot raw. Programs like Adobe Lightroom make processing raw a breeze.

2. Keep the sensor clean, a little bit of maintenance will save a lot of time later on the computer trying to remove dust spots. Never use a brush or compressed air like Kenair to clean the sensor, as propellent can mark it. I use a thing called a rocket which is ideal. When cleaning, hold the camera body with screen facing up and sensor facing down so as dust can fall out easily.

3. Always hold the camera with 2 hands, sounds silly but the amount of times I see people with a compact camera’s snapping away with one hand. If you are using a slow shutter speed, tuck your elbows into your body for support, or lean against anything to help you keep steady.

4. To make a great photograph think about the 2 most important elements, composition and lighting. You can be in the most beautiful countryside, but on a dull grey day you won’t get a nice shot. You don’t need bright sunshine, dramatic lighting works just as well, but avoid flat lighting!

5. When composing follow the Rule of Thirds but don’t be afraid to break it now and again! Be aware of what is in both your foreground and background. If shooting a portrait make sure that a tree or lamppost is not protruding from your subjects head. If shooting a landscape, remove the crisp packet or other such litter that is just visible in the foreground.

6. Think about depth of field by using a large aperture on a long lens as a way to isolate and emphasize subjects.

7. When using a camera with auto focus, don’t forget to focus first and then re-compose the picture, especially if you are taking a snap of family or friends.

8. Think about using a slow shutter speed for effect, like moving water of traffic at night. It’s very easy to experiment now with digital to work out the best exposure, but don’t forget to use a tripod!

9. Use fill light when there are harsh shadows, say when photographing a portrait in bright sunshine. Turn the subject with their back to the sun and either use flash or something white/silver for a reflector. This will also stop them from squinting. Try not to use direct flash, try bouncing it off something white.

10. Be quick and try to capture ‘The Decisive Moment’ as defined by Henri Cartier-Bresson : “Photography is not like painting, there is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative, once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

A massive thanks to Steffan for taking the time to give us his top digital photography tips. Why not visit his website / portfolio at http://www.steffanhill.com/

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Glossaries in Moodle

DigMo — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:38:28 +0000

Over the last few weeks we have been exploring some of the less obvious yet massively advantageous activities available in Moodle courses. One of my personal favourites is the brilliant Glossary feature. The glossary allows teachers (and students) to build up definitions of key terms used within the course.

The benefits don’t end with a simple alphabetic list in fact Moodle offers massive value for how the terms are used. Firstly lets look at how to set up a Glossary within a course. Log in to your course and ‘turn editing on’. Click the ‘Add an Activity’ option and chose ‘Glossary’. Once you have named your glossary you are met with a number of options that offer a brilliant range of custom features.

You have to decide how you want the glossary to work. You can limit it so that only course editors can add entries to the system or alternatively you can allow students to enter definitions (that can then be approved my editors).

You can offer a rating system for definitions and even limit the rating so that only teachers can reward the entries.

One really nice feature is the ability for Moodle to analyse your resources (web pages, text files and forum posts) and if it finds words or terms in your glossary it will create a hyperlink to that actual glossary entry.

Personally I restrict glossary entries to the teacher user level. I started with only ten definitions and as I updated the VLE course I updated the glossary as I went.

I now have nine pages of definitions that your pupils can print, learn and I have opted for a term of the day on the front page of the course.

This is one of my favourite features. As you can see from the screenshot to the right we have an ICT term of the day.

The BBC Tech is an RRS feed directly from the BBC Technology pages but under this is a daily glossary entry. You can complete control over how regularly the definition updates (and the title) but it is a really nice way of offering the definitions to the students and a great question to ask “Anyone know what the ICT term of the day is ?”

This encourages students to check it out each time they visit the course.

In Moodle Glossaries can also be exported to XML which means you can share your work with other schools or course leaders. How great would it be if we shared our Glossary exports ?

Glossary units are really easy to set up and a definition of the day will work with any number of entries. A year of adding new definitions has resulted in a really useful resource for students especially when it comes to exam revision.

The glossary can also be printed for revision purposes although one thing to note is the user must click the ALL view option (see the screen shot above) for the entire glossary to print, otherwise it simply prints the first page.

Anyone made their glossaries available to share ?

Apple Motion : Drop Zones

DigMo — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:51:25 +0000

Anyone with in interest in Moving Image or video graphics will have at some time considered having a go at Apple Motion.

It is no easy beast to tame, thankfully though Jerry Leer from www.motiontemplate.co.uk has produced a special video tutorial for DigMo! readers that covers interacting with dropzones, cloned layers and text objects within a template in Apple Motion.

The Motion Template used in this video tutorial is available to download from the Motion Template Site. Check out our previous Motion tutorials here.

Jerry is an Apple certified trainer and Adobe certified expert with over 15 years experience in post production and training.

He is currently presenting on Propeller TV (Sky 195) and is head of training for video and motion graphics for Corps Business, a leading training company.

5 reasons for AppleTV

DigMo — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:41:35 +0000

I have been asked a few times, and most recently via twitter about how to get the most out of the Apple TV. With the dawn of Boxee many multimedia fans are looking at the Apple TV device in a whole new light. I am going to concentrate on how to get the most out of the Apple TV (but without the Boxee hack). Read our initial review of the Apple TV.

There is little point in covering the main features of the device as we all know what it can do.

You can buy music, TV, and Movies directly from iTunes (including rentals and HD). You can watch YouTube video and look at Flickr photographs but where we get the best from the device is through integration with our very own iTunes library. I don’t use torrents for TV or movies so on the whole I am hoping all the processes described are above board and legal.

1. Working with TV
Given the Apple TV is designed to sit in the living room the most important issue is watching recorded TV. The current AppleTV doesn’t offer any direct TV service other than buying direct from iTunes.

To get TV to the Apple TV we go via an external aerial connected to a TV device such as Tubestick (Full review) or Elgato TV device (Read our full review). This device is then connected to a Mac that does all the recording via a software application. Sounds complicated ? well the process of getting programmes broadcast on any digital freeview channel to the AppleTV is actually view easy.

As well as the benefit to the AppleTV the devices also offer the ability to watch and pause live TV and the ability to export to a range of formats including iPod, iPhone or DVD.

I have asked about my personal workflow for getting recorded TV to the Apple TV and the easiest way of demonstrating this is a flowchart (of sorts). The chart tracks the TV from source though to the Apple TV (or iPhone device). Download the chart in a viewable (PDF format 1.7MB) Here.

For a text tutorial on removing ad breaks using EyeTV 3 click here or for a video tutorial click here.

2. Home Video
Most families have an array of home video. Birthdays, Christmas, School plays all get recorded and generally don’t get too far beyond the tape or editing process. It is amazing how boring these videos are at the time of production yet view them in five years time and they have a whole new meaning.

The Apple TV offers a great showcase of home movies. If you edit the films in iMovie you can share them directly with iTunes and there is even a preset for Apple TV viewing (Share menu in iMovie). If you have already made the films and they are not ‘Apple TV ready ‘then there are a few ways you can remedy this.

Firstly if you still have the amazing VisualHub application you can drag the films into this application and select the AppleTV setting.

VisualHub has been discontinued but if you are confident there are instructions on how to build it using the Techspansion open source code (here). This will not only convert the video it will also automatically add it to your iTunes library.

The second option is a Turbo.264 device, (read our review of the HD model and our review of the SD model )again a simple drag and drop process will have your video converted quickly thanks to the additional hardware acceleration. Finally, the third option is to import the movies into iMovie, re-render and export to AppleTV.

It might sound like a bit of hassle but you will appreciate it in ten years when you are watching life experiences you had completely forgotten.

3. Family Photos
It is funny the number of people who talk about backing up their digital photos. They are probably the most precious data on their computer yet when asked if they ever look at them the reply is always the same “I really must print them out”.

I won’t get into the brilliant photo books that can be created directly from iPhoto but the Apple TV is one of the main ways we view our photos. The Apple TV can store photos synced from your iPhoto (or Aperture) library.

I prefer to set up a smart album within iPhoto that generates the photos that are displayed on the Apple TV. Photos are the only media type that can’t be streamed to the Apple TV so these will always have to synced and stored on the device.

Not only will the Apple TV use the photos as a screensaver it will automatically display the images when you are playing music. It is a great way to remember experiences while listening to your favourite tracks and the Apple TV also displays the photos in a range of exciting ways.

4. DVD and Films
The biggest wrecker of DVD disks is kids. The disks get slapped into the player, they never return to their box after being viewed and if you can find a disk 3 months after your bought it you are lucky. Welcome Handbrake. I am not sure of the specific legal issues of using this process but I personally don’t think it is wrong to Handbrake DVDs that you own.

Insert the DVD into your Mac and let handbrake do the rest. There is even Apple TV preset making the process even easier. Once the conversion is complete you need to double click the file it adds to your desktop, this will add the film to iTunes where it can then be synced with the AppleTV.

5. Streaming Media
Should you go for the larger Apple TV or stick with the 40GB. To be honest I think I could cope with the 40GB version as the Apple TV can stream TV, films and music directly from any iTunes library on your LAN.

You can only sync with one library but you can stream from any, this useful if you have a few family members with Macs and a diversity of musical taste. Setting up a share is really easy and the Apple TV Movies, TV and music automatically populate with the content.

Five key benefits without even counting YouTube, Flickr, MobileMe and the ability to rent movies in HD directly from the iTunes store. You can also control the Apple TV via the iPhone or iPod Touch remote app. Available from the iTunes Apps store (Free)). Watch Automated Home’s video review.

Click here for more information on the Apple TV.

Auto Start Apps in Leopard

DigMo — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:58:50 +0000

If you are like and prone to a little laziness fueled efficiency then having Leopard load your key applications is definitely going to be a benefit. Apple OS X has the ability to auto-run any application on start up, this video tutorial will show you just how easy it is to use.

This video is also available on our YouTube Channel.

Click on the on the  (top right of the desktop). Load the System Preferences.
Now click on the ‘Accounts’ tab. You may need to enter your password to unlock the ability to change these settings. Now lick ‘Login Items’

Adding (or subtracting) applications to this list is really very easy. Click the + button to add an application and yes, you guessed it the – to remove an application from the list.

Note : It is possible to add more than one application to the list by holding down the CMD (⌘) key while clicking on the name of the applications.

Very easy and very useful especially if you set your computer to auto boot in the morning (see the tutorial on how to do this). It means you mail, latest tweets, and RSS items can all be downloaded and waiting for you each morning.

A Greener Leopard

DigMo — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:34:16 +0000

Leopard comes with a number of energy saving options built into the operating system. This tutorial will show you how to customise these options and even set your Mac to startup in the morning as you get up and automatically shut down when you go to bed.

The energy saving options are in the System Preferences (click the Apple () on the top left of your screen).
The main window allows you to control the time at which the computer and the screen go to sleep. It is important that the screen sleep time is greater than the time limit on the visual screen saver. Leopard will warn you if this is the case and will allow you to adjust it appropriately. I have my screen saver set to load after 5 mins, screen sleep after ten and then the entire Mac goes to sleep after 15 minutes.

Even sleep mode uses up energy and Leopard offers the ability to shutdown and startup the computer at set times. This means you can have your computer turning on at 7am ready to check your email, RSS and twitter and then shutdown at 11pm that night when you are asleep.

To set these times click ‘Schedule’ at the bottom of the Energy Saving window.

Set both times and hit OK. Remember the computer still needs to be plugged in to the wall with the wall switch on to work. With a bit of tweaking you can easily have your Mac working with you in a much environmentally friendly fashion.

Right Click on Mac

DigMo — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:39:26 +0000

One of the biggest problems users switching from PC to Mac face is the perceived one button mouse. Daily I see people with crossed arms trying to hold down CTRL and click to activate contextual menus. The reality is the Mighty Mouse is considerably more than a single button mouse and right click is just a few clicks away.

The mouse options are available through the System Preferences menu (click the  on the top left of the desktop screen). Click the Keyboard and Mouse button and finally the ‘Mouse’ tab.

As well as the scrolling options you have control over 4 mouse bottons. Activating the ‘right click’ is easy, click on the right drop down and select ‘Secondary button’.

As you can see from the drop down you are not limited to just using it as a secondary button and any of the buttons can be used to call dashboard, Application Switcher, Spotlight and Spaces.

Try out a few of the options and before long you will have your mouse customised so you can jump around the operating system in seconds.

iTunes DJ Hands On

DigMo — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:43:43 +0000

One of the most interesting updates to iTunes 8.1 is the addition of the iTunes DJ playlist. Currently my iTunes library contains over 4000 songs. Instead of culling the songs I don’t listen too or don’t even like over the years I have expanded my storage.

As a result I find I use the ‘Party Shuffle’ playlist while I am working to throw up songs I haven’t heard in a while. When Apple released the iTunes remote I felt I had taken a technological leap controlling my music with my phone. That leap has taken a stride further with iTunes DJ.

Basically the iTunes DJ offers any iPod Touch or iPhone user the ability to queue up songs in the playlist. Guest users can vote for songs and the song with the highest vote gets played next.

The more users with iPhones you have the more it is going to be voting for the next track, but the tool is even useful for single users.

To set up iTunes DJ, click on the playlist on the left hand menu of iTunes and then settings along the bottom right of the main iTunes window.

The following window should now appear :

You can control the automatically generated playlist as well as setup access for guest users via the iTunes remote application (available on the iTunes Apps Store). You can set a custom greeting, offer the option to allow users to vote for the next song and if you want to add a little security you can password protect the iTunes playlist. This would be useful for larger parties where only 2-3 people are granted permission to control the music.

When a user loads up the iTunes remote application on their iphone they will not only see each iTunes device on your network (AppleTV etc) they will also see the DJ playlist greeting.

It should be noted that all users need to be on your wireless network and I am not sure I would grant everyone at a party access to my broadband internet connection.

Clicking on the iTunes DJ playlist displays a list of tracks that can be queued on for playing after the current track.

Once you find the track you want to play (and select it) the iTunes remote will display the upcoming tracks together with the current vote count.

Users can add and vote for as many tracks as they like and obviously the more votes a particular song gains the faster it moves up the playlist

In this example we voted for the Pixies ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’ that can now be seen as the next track to be played.

Songs that you have personally voted for appear with a little heart icon beside them.

Back in the iTunes desktop application you can see the playlist change to reflect our Pixies vote. You will also see a bizare mix of upcoming tracks.

This is a great addition to the iTunes system and would be great in a public setting (legalities pending) where you have a larger group of users. In the domestic setting though you may think twice about opening up your network to everyone with an iPod Touch or iPhone ?

EyeTV: Removing Ad Breaks

DigMo — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:42:52 +0000

So you have an AppleTV and you record television to your Mac via the great Elgato EyeTV software. One of the minor annoyances I find with the Apple TV is trying to rewind or forward when watching a video. If you record with EyeTV and export direct to iPod or AppleTV format you will have felt the frustration of trying to forward through ad breaks and not miss 3-4 minutes of the film.

The good news is EyeTV allows you to easily remove the Ad breaks (and the footage at the start and end of your recording).

Once your programme or film has finished recording, right click on the programme’s icon in the ‘Recordings’ section of EyeTv and select ‘Edit’. I always make sure the ‘Fine’ option is click for greater accuracy in removing the ad break and thus not chopping bits off the recorded programme.

Once compacted you can export the recording to whatever format you require using the main interface of EyeTV. The results are seamless and if you have ticked the ‘fine’ option you shouldn’t even be able to spot where the breaks were in the first place.

Obviously this adds a bit of time between recording a programme and being able to watch it. EyeTV can automatically add recorded programmes to AppleTV a short time after they have been recorded.

That said we find this step of removing the Ads makes for much less painless viewing experience, especially if you are like us and can not really get to grips with that little white Apple remote.

For a text version of the complete process visit this previous article.

Creating Screen Grabs in OS X

DigMo — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:46:03 +0000

Taking screen shots in Apple’s OS X operating system really could not be easier. This video tutorial takes you through three simple keyboard shortcuts that offer different ways to capture elements on your screen.

A quick video tutorial on how to take screen grabs using the OS Shortcuts. The three shortcuts covered :

⇧⌘ 3 for a screen shot of the entire desktop.

⇧⌘ 4 for a set of crosshairs that allow you to select the area of the screen you want to grab.

⇧⌘ 4 (Space) grabs only the window the user clicks.

Final Cut – Reversing Clips

DigMo — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 13:33:40 +0000

This quick tutorial covers how easy it is to change both the direction and speed of a clip in Final Cut Express. The tutorial is aimed at anyone making the leap from iMovie to Final Cut Express.

To reverse and change the speed of a clip in Final Cut Express. Click on the clip you want to alter and then click on the ‘Modify’ Menu. Select Speed (or use the ⌘J shortcut). A window will appear giving you the option to reverse and set the speed of the clip.

Reducing the 100 makes the clip slower, increasing it makes the clip faster. Therefore if you want the clip to play at double speed set the number to 200(%).

Note this will alter both the video and audio tracks. If you want to remove the audio, click the video and click ⌘ L. This will unlink the audio and video thus allowing the audio track to be removed.

Very easy when you know how.

Alpha Tool Tutorial Keynote 09

DigMo — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:20:12 +0000

Last year we published a quick guide on the Alpha tool that first featured in the great iWork 08 release. The tutorial remains popular and there appears to be a stack of people searching for a guide on how to use the tool via Google.

This Screencast introduces not only my first ever screencast with a voiceover but a quick guide on how easy the Alpha tool is to use.

The Alpha tool is very simple to use :

To remove unwanted elements:

Select the image.
1. Click Alpha in the toolbar (or choose Format > Instant Alpha).
2. Click the color you want to make transparent, and then drag slowly over it.
3. As you drag, the selection grows to include the contiguous area that uses similar colors. You can control how much of the image is selected by dragging less or more.
Repeat these steps as many times as is required.

Better still the shadow tool now works perfectly on your new cut out shape. The Alpha tool is very easy to use and my advice is to drag the wheel slowly at first and experiment with the amount of colour being removed.

The text version of this guide is available here.

How to Burn a CD Using OS X

DigMo — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 03:12:51 +0000

For some this may appear to be a task you never expected to see a tutorial for, yet I know for some getting your head around a new operating system can take a little bit of effort. This simply screen cast takes you through the basic step in writing to data to CD/DVD.

The first time the Vimeo video plays it seems to be double speed. Click play, then pause, wait for the entire video to load and then re-click play.

1. Insert a blank CD.
2. When the dialogue box appears click ‘ok’ (CD window will appear).
3. Locate the file(s) you want to burn to the CD.
4. Drag the files into the CD window. You can repeat this stage if the files are in multiple locations.
5. Name the CD & click burn.

I predict that someone will point out that theoretically there are 6 steps (if you count relax). Just beating you to it.

For YouTube fans the video is also available here.

EyeTV Smart Guides Tutorial

DigMo — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:47:15 +0000

One of the new features in Elgato’s latest version of EyeTV 3 is a series link style system called ‘Smart Guide’. The system is not only particularly useful but it is also sophisticated enough to find missing episodes and ignore those you have already recorded.

[NOTE: I have noticed the first time you watch this video it plays fast. When it starts to appear hit pause and restart the video] YouTube Version.

The system has thrown me a couple of times as it is not obviously available from the main TV Guide view in EyeTV. If you click to record an episode and then try and add the Smart Guide the service almost appears hidden.

This 30 second guide serves as an easy to follow video tutorial on how to get the best from Smart Guide. You may need to pause the video or watch it a few times as it fast going.

The text boxes are a more pleasant alternative to a voice over but in time I will add a few more video tutorials and will venture into adding voice.

I have also decided to use the Vimeo video service for the tutorial rather than the traditional YouTube route. I don’t know if any of you have used this service but any comments would be appreciated. I do think Vimeo video’s look sharper and have more embedding options. Perhaps there is a downside I haven’t discovered yet ?

Time Freeze in Final Cut

DigMo — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:42:47 +0000

As you know we are massive fans of Daniel Wallace / Tim Burton’s Big Fish film. One the scenes we attempt to replicate in teaching basic Final Cut techniques is the time freeze scene. This the point in the film with Edward Bloom sees the love of this life, see below.

The scene is brilliant and uses a bit of CGI for the popcorn etc but it is possible to recreate this concept on a basic level using a mix of careful production and post production techniques. Obviously we won’t have the popcorn or accurate masking but it is great start if you are new to post production with Final Cut or Final Cut Express.

The first stage in creating a time freeze is the careful planning of the scene. I aim to have the main character who will interact with the frozen objects in the centre of the frame for the first attempt at using the technique. As you grow more confident you can move the character to obey the rule of thirds etc.

The frame should be thought of as three separate sections.

A will be our base video layer and it will be this layer that will freeze. B is our main character layer that will be on top of layer A and will be in motion throughout. The image below shows how this will work in Final Cut.

The two white vertical bars are your safer areas. It is important to concentrate throughout recording on these areas that no movement crosses (or enters) these lines.

One technique is to mark the areas on the monitor while recording. If action crosses these lines it will be cropped out in post production. For example if the main character’s hand crosses the safe area it will inevitably be cropped in the final edit.

To make the most of the technique it is important that your freeze layer footage is as active as possible. Freezing a few people standing around isn’t going to make for a good scene. As you can see in Big Fish the use of jugglers enable items to be held in midair and then released again at the end of the scene.

Depending on what you are doing in the scene you may need to capture the scene either as a single shot in which the main character is recorded at the same time as the footage that is to freeze or you may do it in two separate shots. Lighting becomes an issue if you shot two separate shots as changes in the light levels become apparent when you get to the overlay stage. That said it is relatively easy to adjust the brightness of the footage to compensate.

Once you have shot the scene you should now capture it into Final Cut / Express. Drag the base clip (A) on to the first video layer. Then drag the character clip (B) on top (second video layer). If you have shot it as one single shot the B level is simply a duplicate of the original clip.

The first thing we are going to deal with is the audio. We are only going to need one sound line for scene so I suggest removing the audio line of sequence B. Remember that each video line as 2 audio lines for left and right audio and both the L and R lines should be removed.

Click on the top video layer and ‘unlink’ the audio by pressing CMD L. Now select just the audio layer for the sequence B and delete it (delete key).

The next stage is to crop the top video layer to our safe area lines. This enables us to see the layer below that we will freeze.

Double click on the top layer and it will appear in the middle clip viewing window (as well as the sequence window). Click on the ‘Motion’ tab along the top of this window.

In the Crop section drag the left and right sliders to point you think are the safe area lines (this can be tweaked later if necessary).

The top layer will now look something like the above picture. The black areas either side of the main character will reveal the video layer A below (I have hidden this layer for the sake of showing how the crop worked).

Next we have to freeze time on our base layer. Double click on this video layer so it appears in the clip window. Drag the timeline to the point at which time should freeze and cut the video using the razer blade tool (-b). Drag the right most clip to create a space the duration of the freeze.

Ensuring your timeline marker is on the last frame of the first half of the clip (where we made the cut, see above). Click on the Modify Menu and click ‘Freeze Frame’ the shortcut for this action is SHIFT N.

You can now drag the frame in the viewer window on your time time as a still. Click anywhere on this window and drag the image down to the space created on the timeline.

The freeze frame will probably not fill the entire time needed. Simply click on the end of the clip and drag it to fill the time.

This results in a sequence where time is moving, freezes at first cut and then comes alive again at the second cut. At the same time the top video layer is in motion throughout.

It is definitely worth experimenting with the technique a few times to get the best outcome. Quickly shoot 20-30 seconds of footage to experiment with and build up your confidence in the post production Final Cut stage. Once you have grasped the post production stage it will allow you to be more daring the production scene design aspects of the process.

To get the best from the technique aim for something daring, this some be something about to fall on the main character, time freezes, he/she gets out of the way and the item them crashes down. The more confident you are with the technique the more daring you can become.

Big Fish is a fantastic film, please don’t be tempted to try and watch the film on movie sharing sites as these really won’t do the film any credit at all. The DVD can be bought online for under £4 why bother with low quality, small screen sectioned alternatives ?!

Keeping Facebook Private

DigMo — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:15:44 +0000

More and more people are venturing their way on to Social Networking sites such as MySpace and Bebo. Facebook is a big favourite with many of the people I know, and some would suggest Facebook is the realm of the more mature surfer, I’m not risking any comment ! Most people don’t realise just how public their information is when they sign up for a Facebook account.

I have found family members who were completely unaware that their dozens of holiday photos were on show to just about anyone on Facebook including the big night out and the tragic morning after.

Obviously there are plenty of people out there who couldn’t care less who sees their profile or photos but equally there are users who need to protect who can see their current status and latest photo album. Thankfully Facebook makes profile privacy a very simple process, you just have to know it is there and activate it.

To lock down your profile, log on to Facebook and click the ‘Settings’ menu on the top right of the screen. It should be just right of where it says your name. In the drop down click the “Privacy” option. There are a number of privacy options but we are going to focus on locking down profile privacy.

Click on the option for profile. We have marked it with the number 1 but the word profile probably would have been enough. This will display two main privacy areas. Basic and Contact information.

It is important to read through each of the options carefully. Facebook offers an impressive level of customisation in terms of the level of privacy available and allows users to assign different privacy levels to different aspects of their profile. For example you can let only friends see your info but friends of friends see your profile.

As you can see from the above screen capture, in this example we have locked down most areas so that only our friends can see the information.On less crucial aspects such as Wall Posts we have allowed our friends to post to the wall but only friends and their friends and see wall posts we leave.

The second area is contact information. We have locked this area down by firstly not putting personal information on to Facebook in the first place and by locking the essential information down so that no one can actually see it. We are working on the premise that most of our friends will have our email address and phone number anyway.

I always think it odd when I see new items appearing on Facebook telling us someone’s new phone number or address, this way we can control who actually sees the information. We are not Facebook security experts by any means but following this mini guide will ensure only you (and your friends) see your private information or the photo from last Saturday night’s over indulgence.

We were tempted to show actual examples of our own friends but thought better of the idea!

Creating a Gravatar

DigMo — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:52:18 +0000

If you visit a number of blogs regularly and ever comment on posts you will know that some users have images appearing beside their comments. These images are known as avatars and most blogs use a global system known as Gravatar.com to call a user’s avatar image. Many of the users commenting on DigMo! don’t have an avatar so I thought I’d cover how easy it is to set up and create your very own globally recognised avatar image.

Like most users you are probably a little nervous entering your email address into a website you haven’t used before. To reassure you, I have been using the service for a number of years and have yet to have a single email from them. Getting your globally recognised avatar is really simple.

Head over to www.gravatar.com and click “sign up”. Enter your email address into the form and Gravatar will email you to verify you own the address.

Once your account is activated you can set up a number of different email addresses and a number of different avatar images. Gravatar can take images from your computer, the internet and directly from a webcam. Once uploaded, size the image as appropriate and hit save.

You now need to rate your image according to its appropriateness, mine are all rated G.

It can take ten or fifteen minutes for the system to update but once it does your wordpress comments both on your site and others will have your great new gravatar. Note: If you are commenting on blogs you must use the email address associated with your account on Gravatar.com for the images to appear.

How to create a Simpsons Style Avatar
If you are stuck for an idea for an avatar then why not get started with a Simpsonized version of yourself ? Firstly you will need to take a photo of yourself, if you have an Apple Mac with built in iSight this is ideal. Using photobooth take your photo. The image must be better than 640×480.

Head over to http://simpsonizeme.com/and upload your image. The site will ask you some questions about your age, hair etc but the process is very quick. Once complete you can tweak your design and look. Once you are happy with the Simpsons version of yourself you now need to set the image as your Gravatar by uploading it at Gravator.com

Show off your latest avatar by commenting below.

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Customising Apple Motion Templates

DigMo — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 09:40:37 +0000

Jerry Leer from the Apple Motion Template website MotionTemplate gives DigMo! readers an exclusive and easy to follow guide to customising templates in Apple Motion. This easy to follow tutorial will introduce the basis of the templates window, project pane, dropzones and editing text in Apple Motion and is a great start to new users of this motion graphics application.

Why start with a template?

There are a couple of reasons why it is easiest to start with a template, 1 it saves a lot of time, 2 if you don’t know how to create the motion graphics but can edit them you will get the job done and learn in the process how all the elements came together.

I am a big believer in templates but only if they are completely editable, if they contain graphics or movies that are the whole look and feel of the template with only a few editable elements on top then once you have used that template it would be hard to use it again.

I also like to save my work as much as is possible as templates so I can reuse it at a later date, for example if you use a piece of text that tracks and scales towards you with a blur and fade in and out why not create it and save it for later use. Very soon you will build up a catalog of your own templates that will save you time and expense doing the same thing over and over again.

Something to keep in mind is saving the individual parts of a composition for later use is going to be more usable that the whole project saved as a template. Opening a template is as simple as going to the file menu and selecting ‘open template’, or CMD shift O, I did say that it was simple.

Throughout the tutorial click on the images for a full screen view. You can move between screenshots using the full screen mode by clicking on the image.

This is the templates widow and you can see the template themes on the left with the templates available in the middle, these are all the default templates that ship with Apple Motion.

If you have saved any templates yourself or installed any 3rd party templates then these will be available in this window as well.
I have selected the theme ‘mt free templates’ from the left window which is a free 3rd party template from Motion Template.

After selecting the theme, click on a template in the middle window to see a preview in the right window and under the preview, information about that template. Our template is informing us that it is 720 X 576 25fps and 750 frames in length, so it is 10 seconds long,

You can reduce the available templates by selecting a format at the top,

it is set to ‘all’, changing it to PAL will show only the PAL templates. The theme ‘mt free templates’ only contains PAL templates so the window still shows the same templates. Click on ‘open template’ to, I guess you know what I am going to say, open the template.

Once the template opens the 1st thing to do is drag the playhead along or hit the space bar to play the template, you get a much better idea of what is going on in the template in the large canvas.

The easiest way to view all the parts that make up the template is to open the project pane, which is this button top right of the interface, F5 is the shortcut for this window.

These are all the parts that make up this template and the best way to work out what is what on screen is to turn the ticks on and off in the ‘on’ column in the project pane.

Remember that if that group is not visible until a later time then turning the layer on and off will have no effect, I usually move the playhead into the middle of the timeline when more of the parts are on screen.

If the tick is on and still grayed out in the project pane then they are not under the playhead which means that are not visible.

I always try to teach that is is more efficient to name elements as you go along than to try and do it all at the end or even worse not to bother, that makes finding the right parts to edit easier.

In this template we have a camera, a group containing the ‘www.motiontemplate.co.uk’ text, a group with 3 text layers and a group with 3 groups that contain a dropzone and a cloned layer in each.

Replacing one of the dropzones is as easy as drag and drop but 1st you need to get to the file browser. CMD1 or clicking on the file browser allows you to select media to import into your project.

I have selected ‘car clip1′ and dragged it on the canvas, hovering above ‘replace me1′ which is a dropzone, you can tell it has selected the dropzone for replacing because of the Yellow outline.

Alternately you can drag the movie from the file browser to the project pane and when the curve arrow appears it has selected the object to replace.

This is after dropping 3 movies on to the dropzones, the dropzones have changed and so have the reflections underneath.
A cloned layer is a layer that has a source that is another object, in our case the source is the dropzone, so changing the dropzone changes the clone. Changing the text is as simple as double clicking it in the canvas and typing, be sure to click the text and not the space in-between the letters or you will select the object behind the text.

Alternately if you find it difficult to select the text in the canvas you can select it in the project pane, hit F4 then click on the format tab and change the text at the bottom in the text box.

When you have made all your changes save the project, you have been saving as you went along haven’t you?
After saving it would be great if this new template was available in Motion and Final Cut Pro via the templates window, so we will save this as a new template.

Go to menu file ’save as template’ to open the save template dialog box.

Give your template a name I have ‘my new template 1′

Select a theme from the theme pop up or create your own, we have clicked on new theme and named it ‘ the best templates’.

Before hitting the save button, if the template is another format like NTSC or HD then you can set it here under format and that will aid in restricting the available templates in the open template window., click save.

Opening the template is the same as opening it in the 1st place except the theme will be different, go to the file menu and selecting ‘open template’ Selecting ‘the best templates’ theme and ‘my new template 1′ will open our recently saved template.

About Jerry Leer

Jerry Leer has been using Apple Motion since its 1st release and runs www.motiontemplate.co.uk a website dedicated to Apple Motion templates and resources.

Jerry is an Apple certified trainer and Adobe certified expert with over 15 years experience in post production and training.
He is currently presenting on Propeller TV (Sky 195) and is head of training for video and motion graphics for Corps Business, a leading training company.

Talentedpixie a training company producing dvd and screen based training use Jerry Leer for Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion and Adobe After Effects delivery. ’If you would like to have a chat with Jerry Leer, he will be presenting the ViZFx & Editing Seminars at broadcastvideoexpo Earls Court 2, London on the 17th to 19th February http://www.broadcastvideoexpo.co.uk ’

Mail in a Social Network Society

DigMo — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:24:38 +0000

If you are involved with any sort of Web 2.0 and social networking activities you will be no doubt swamped by emails. You have your blog comment approvals, Twitter follower notifications, Twitter Direct Messages, Facebook Friends requests, and Facebook event invitations to name but a few.

It is amazing just how much email social network sites can actually generate and how quickly your mailbox fills up when you add this to your other email. Smart Mailboxes in Mail.app offer a very quick and simple solution to keeping your email under control.

Smart Mailboxes work the same way as your traditional mailbox, a number will be displayed on the icon indicating how much unread email is in the folder etc. The only real difference is they appear purple in the sidebar and don’t really actually contain mail, they are like a filter for your main mailbox.

I use a number of Smart Mailboxes. I find a full inbox and a mix of read and unread email a little confusing and sometimes depressing. The first smart mailbox I set up was “Unread” but I also have smart mailboxes for Twitter, Blog Comments etc.

You can create a smart mailbox rule based on just about anything. Better still if you have MobileMe the smart mailboxes are backed up to the cloud.

Step 1

Click on the + symbol on the bottom left of the main Mail.app window.

This will give the option of creating a new mailbox, Smart mailbox or a new RSS Feed. (RSS may only appear in the Leopard version of Mail). Click on ‘Smart Mailbox’

Step 2 : Name your Smart Mailbox

Enter the name of your mailbox in the highlighted box, this could be Facebook, Twitter etc depending on the type of rule you are creating.

Step 3 : Setting the Criteria

Smart Mailboxes are well, Smart. You add different criteria and instruct Mail.app to match mail when ALL or ANY of the criterial met.

In this example I am going to set a Smart Mailbox for Facebook email and I want only email I have not read to be in the mailbox.

The Default option for the first rule is “From” “Contains” The screenshot below has been edited to show all the options available for both menus.

Create your first rule by adding “Facebook” without the ” into the first rule line (see below). Click the + on the right of the first rule to add additional rules.

My next rule is to select unread. Click “Any Recipient” and then the “unread” option.

You can add more rules and tell mail to include the Trash and Sent item mailboxes. As you become more familiar with using Smart Mailboxes you may find you only use the Smart Mailboxes to access and read your mail over the traditional mailbox route.

One you have mastered Smart Mailboxes you may venture into the realms of Mail Rules (from the preferences menu). These work in a very similar way to Smart Mailboxes but allow you to auto delete email, move it and even forward to someone else.

Smart Mailboxes are the first step to inbox bliss.

A Quick Guide to Using iWork.com

DigMo — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:26:41 +0000

There was massive speculation in the run up to Macworld that iWork was about to enter ‘the cloud’. To a certain extent that prediction came true in the form of iWork.com. This article is an easy step by step guide for anyone thinking of jumping to iWork 09 and using iWork.com. It should be noted that iWork.com is still currently in beta and therefore some of the features mentioned may change when it goes live.

During the Macworld Keynote there was mention of a paid subscription but I am hoping the service is included with the MobileMe service. Currently during the beta users have 1GB of data.

Sharing via iWork is a very simple process. Firstly open the iWork file you want to share. Apple are going to great lengths to promote the iWork.com service by putting the icon right the centre of the toolbar, you really can’t miss it (see the screenshot above).

The first stage in sharing is to login with your AppleID.

We used out MobileMe account to login to iWork.com and if you don’t have MobileMe then your AppleID will be your iTunes username and password. The next screen offers a range of sharing and naming options. I have opened the ‘Advanced’ settings to show what is on offer.

I think the ability to download the file in a range of formats is a really nice feature especially if you plan to share with users who are not using a Mac.

Clicking the ‘Share’ button starts the upload to iWork.com

Once the upload is complete you will prompted that the file will be available for 120 days. I am assuming this is down the fact we taking in part in a beta and would hope to be able to store files for indefinitely on final release.

Both you and the person/people you are sharing the document with will receive a similarly formated email and a link to the file.

The iWork.com offers a really nice graphical user interface. Remember though it offers the ability to share iWork files it doesn’t (at this stage anyway) offer any formatting tools so users are limited to adding comments or downloading the file to their own computer.

iWork.com responded well to changing the slides and there was little or no load time. I think I would go as far as saying that I wished my MobileMe web galleries responded equally well.

The interface itself is very like iWork so it is easy to predict we are likely to see more tools added to the interface as it develops. By visiting http://publishing.iwork.com you can view a list of the current files you are sharing and how much of the 1GB you have left.

Certainly iWork.com has limits when compared to the massive collaboration features offered by Google Docs. That said if you produce a lot of iWork documents that are shared with others this service could offer some really great potential.

There are plenty of occasions when an important Keynote presentation has to be previewed by a number of people. Now instead of having to visit people with a Macbook a single email (and the ability to comment) will make life much easier. For this reason alone iWork.com is a real benefit !

You can download a trial of the new iWork now from the Apple site or buy it (and pre-order iLife) from the Apple Store You can also get the iPhone / Touch Keynote remote application here.

Keynote 09 to YouTube

DigMo — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:00:06 +0000

Over the last few years I have tried to move away from the traditional paper handout and explore offering course material in a range of different formats. With Apple Keynote I have offered iPod / iPhone versions of presentations to download via shared areas and VLEs with the hope they would be used as a revision tool.

This week I have started to update my presentations to Keynote 09 and in doing so have discovered a number of new features when it comes to sharing formats.

Firstly the problematic export to ‘flash’ has now gone. You can still export to images, Quicktime, html and iPod but 09 introduces a new ’send to YouTube’ feature. It should be noted that the export options have also moved from the File Menu to a new ‘Share’ menu like that on iMovie.

Keynote offers massive potential in the production of teaching resources with features such as the ability to export to Quicktime, unique slide and element transitions and also the ease in which media can be managed. I haven’t even mentioned the brilliant alpha feature (see here).

I have been playing with the YouTube export settings and have concluded that presentations destined for YouTube will likely have be a slightly altered version of the original Keynote.

I haven’t quite got my head around how presentations that contain video clips will fair given the user has to set the slide time (see below) but for basic content the YouTube feature offers a whole new way to share this type of content.

The first thing to note videos uploaded to YouTube with the ‘personal video’ option ticked are set as private automatically. The private feature allows the video to be limited to 25 user accounts so this may be restrictive for some applications.

Any suggestions on how to best limit access to uploaded content (if even necessary) would be appreciated. This maybe for an entire department that has more than 25 members etc.

This is my second attempt to send to YouTube, in The first instance I had the slideshow document size set to 1024×768. For some reason this added white bars at the top and bottom of the presentation. This version is 1280×720.

I am not sure what you think of the quality of the final video. Firstly it is a particularly uninteresting presentation. Some of the smaller text boxes are a little hard to read and perhaps I would tweak future presentations for exporting to YouTube.

To be honest there wasn’t a massive jump in quality between the Mobile and Medium options and a ‘High’ option would be a nice additional feature.

That said it does offer an additional resource for anyone to share their Keynotes after the presentation.

You can download a trial of the new iWork now from the Apple site or buy it (and pre-order iLife) from the Apple Store Get the iPhone / Touch Application here.

Rotoscope with Quicktime & Photoshop

DigMo — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:31:21 +0000

Previously we published a six step guide to rotoscoping. The tutorial covered the back to basic manual production of rotoscope animation, akin to the type used in the famous a-ha ‘Take on me‘ video.

The process works well but can be challenging, prone to errors and produces a serious amount of paper. (Read it here). The following animation is by Californian based animator Benjamin Arthur and is entitled “Once upon a time in the woods”. To date this animation has been viewed almost a million times !

We are especially excited that Benjamin has agreed to talk us through the digital workflow for this animation using a Tablet, Photoshop and Apple Quicktime.

1. I filmed the scene using my canon digital camera.

The easiest part of the process.

2. I imported the footage from the camera.

The same process you would use to import any captured footage from your mini DV camera. You can import footage from DV using Quicktime (see here).

I then opened it in quicktime, then chose File>Export… then I chose to export to image sequence. You’ll need to make a folder for all the frames. I chose to export at 12 frames per second, just to make it a little easier (if you watch the Bill Plympton video on Current, he says how he animates at only 6 frames per second!).

(note: If you’re animating more than 30 seconds of footage, I’d suggest cutting it into 10-30 second clips and exporting the frames to separate numbered folders, if you have thousands of frames in a single folder, you end up scrolling forever when you go to open them).

3. Working with the Footage

Now you have to make some decisions based on how the footage looks, if it’s too bright, you’ll need to use an action in photoshop to darken it, so it’s easier to see outlines. An action in photoshop is a saved sequence of events within photoshop that you can batch to all the frames in one folder.

To create an action, first open the actions menu by choosing Window>Actions (if the window is already open, of course skip that).

(Note: You can save time if you adjust this in a video editing program, such as final cut pro or premiere before following step two. I prefer the longer way, because photoshop has so many effects it’s easier to get exactly what you want).

First, open a frame from your animation, the one the most reflects the image problems you want to fix. Create a new action by clicking the page turning at the bottom of the actions window, and it will prompt you to name it.

After you name the action, you will be recorded, so carefully edit the image to the point where you’re satisfied. I mostly adjusted levels at this point, which brings out the blacks. Then, while you’re still being recorded, change the size of the frame to the size you want the movie to be. 640×480 is what I used for mine, just make sure to preserve aspect ratio, so that the frames don’t get stretched.

At this point you can blow the image up to HD levels if you want, regardless of the size of the source video (for example, 720×480 can become 1080×720)

Next, you’ll want to create 2 layers, a layer behind your frame, which is filled with white, and a blank layer in front of it. Now adjust the opacity of your frame so it blends with the white in the background. This allows you to more easily see your drawing over the original frame.

Now you can stop recording your action by pressing the circular button on the bottom of the action menu. Close the frame you worked on, and do not save it. I would then open another frame of your animation and test your new action on it, just select the action you made and hit the play button, and everything should happen automatically.

If there’s problems with the action, or an alert window pops up, open a new frame and try again to carefully record the action – remember, every step you take is recorded.

4. Batch Processing

Select File>Automate>Batch…. The action you just created should already be there, just choose the folder you saved the frames to, and make sure the destination is save and close, then click “ok”. Photoshop should automatically begin opening, changing and saving all your frames. This could take a while, depending on your computer.

5. Drawing Time

Now it’s time to start drawing. I drew the entire thing in chronological order, which worked for me. I used my wacom tablet to draw everything. I test- drew one frame at the beginning, trying to figure out which details to keep, and which to drop. It’s important to be consistent, you can’t have objects blinking in and out, so keep track as you draw each frame.

Once you fully finish one frame, click the eye next to your original footage layer, and your drawing will be sitting on a white background. If you want to add color, come back through after you finish all the line-work. Once the frame is fully done, with your line-work on a white background, just save.

6. Check your Progress

To see the progress of your animation, go back to quicktime and choose File>Open Image Sequence… and open it at the frame rate you chose when you exported it.

7. Shading

To shade my animation, I took the original footage in each frame (using another action) and used the cutout filter, then de-saturated it to make it black and white. I left the opacity at around 30%.

The time needed to do this is considerable, as each frame can take from 2-10 minutes, drawing time. even if you drew extremely fast, say 2 minutes per frame, and were only doing 12 frames a second, it would still take you 24 hours of work to finish one minute of animation. My “In the Woods” animation took me about 3-4 hours a day for six weeks, so about 125 hours total.

Whew, ok, thats about the whole process, if you have any questions (or improvements), I’d be happy to address them.

Benjamin Arthur
Check out Benjamin’s site and demo reel.

Rivet : Mac to XBox360

DigMo — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:11:57 +0000

A marriage of Apple and Microsoft products isn’t really what you would expect to see in a home media system but Rivet (at only $18) offers just that. Rivet sits on the your Mac and will share your music, film and photo libraries with the XBox 360.

Setup could not be easier. Download Revit. Double click the icon to run the software and a series of windows take you through the initial setup. To be honest the double click is as hard as the setup actually gets. Within seconds we were up and running.

The preferences are also very simple to use and setup. If you have more than one Xbox360 (not too sure who has) then you can set up access controls to limit what devices have access to your shared media.

Having upgraded to the latest Xbox360 system software I went directly to video, music, and photos and my iMac was listed as a media source.

As well as the ability to share iPhoto Rivet also works with Apple Aperture. Supported formats include: AAC, MP3, WMA, H.264, DIVX, AVI, WMV, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, RAW, TIFF, PSD, PDF, and more. If you have an XBox360 then this low cost application offers a brilliant home media server system and the ability to stream pretty much everything from your Mac.

If you own a 360 give it a try now.

Removing Ad Breaks with EyeTV

DigMo — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:56:28 +0000

The first step is to select the start of the recorded programme to remove the unwanted section before the require footage starts. The easiest way to do this is to drag the timeline marker to the first frame of the recorded programme.

Then click the button at the bottom of the editing window (two triangle icon). This will put a set of editing markers under the current point in the timeline.

Drag the first (left most) yellow triangle to the very start of the recording. This marks the section of the footage to be removed.

Repeat this process for each of the Ad breaks and the end of the recording. I find the best option it click the last frame of the recorded programme just before the Ad break then drag the 2nd triangle to around the end of the ad break and then click the first frame of the continuing recorded programme.

As you can see we had a total of six sections to remove from this recording. The start, the end, and four ad breaks. Once complete click the icon on the bottom left of the editing window (with the gear icon) and select ‘Compact’. You will be warned that this process is permanent, click ‘Compact’ to continue.

Depending on the length of the recording the compacting can take ten or so minutes.

Obviously this adds a bit of time between recording a programme and being able to watch it. EyeTV can automatically add recorded programmes to AppleTV a short time after they have been recorded. That said we find this step of removing the Ads makes for much less painless viewing experience, especially if you are like us and can not really get to grips with that little white Apple remote.

Rotoscoping in 6 Steps

DigMo — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 08:01:16 +0000

Rotoscoping was first invented in 1914 by Max Fleischer, who used it in his series “Out of the Inkwell” with his brother Dave Fleischer dressed in a clown outfit as the live-film reference for the character Koko the Clown.
One of the most popular music videos of the 1980s was A-ha’s “Take on Me” video which combined the rotoscoping technique with live video. Basically any technique of drawing on a frame is given the rotoscope title. This is anyway from the full blown drawing of “Take on Me” to the adding if light to light sabres in films such as Star Wars. Recently the full feature film ” A Scanner Darkly” used software to rotoscope the entire film.

Producing a rotoscope of a clip is relatively simple but quite time consuming. Ideally select a video clip that involves a process that can be repeated such as jumping or skipping.

This guide will allow you to produce rotoscope video a little like the type used in the a-ha video and the Foy Vance video featured at the bottom of this post.

Rotoscoping : The Basics

1. Export the 2-3 second clip as jpgs. In premier elements each frame is saved as a number 1.jpg for example refers to frame 1 and so on.
2. Delete all the even number of frames (this cuts down on the time needed for tracing etc).
3. Print each of the odd numbered images in draft format on a standard laser or inkjet printer. It is advisable to number each printout as it comes out of the printer.
4. Trace each printout and again number each tracing.
5. Use a stopmotion application such as istopmotion to capture each tracing. Remember to take 2 frames for each drawing to compensate for the fact we disgarded the even numbered frames in step 2.
6. Render this footage out to a final .dv

When used as an animator’s reference tool, it can be a valuable time-saver. Rotoscope output can have slight deviations from the true line that differ from frame to frame, which when animated cause the animated line to shake unnaturally, or “boil”. Avoiding boiling requires considerable skill in the person performing the tracing, though causing the “boil” intentionally is a stylistic technique sometimes used to emphasize the surreal quality of rotoscoping, as in the music video Take on Me.

Rotoscoping has often been used as a tool for special effects in live-action movies. By tracing an object, a silhouette (called a matte) can be created that can be used to create an empty space in a background scene. This allows the object to be placed in the scene. While blue and green screen techniques have made the process of layering subjects in scenes easier, rotoscoping still plays a large role in the production of special effects imagery.

Rotoscoping has also been used to allow a special visual effect (such as a glow, for example) to be guided by the matte or rotoscoped line. One classic use of traditional rotoscoping was in the original three Star Wars films, where it was used to create the glowing lightsaber effect, by creating a matte based on sticks held by the actors.

The term “rotoscoping” (typically abbreviated as “roto”) is now generally used for the corresponding all-digital process of tracing outlines over digital film images to produce digital mattes. This technique is still in wide use for special cases where techniques such as bluescreen will not pull an accurate enough matte. Rotoscoping in the digital domain is often aided by motion tracking and onion-skinning software. Rotoscoping is often used in the preparation of garbage mattes for other matte-pulling processes.

There are many ways in which you can experiment with this technique but this is provide a good basis to work from. The YouTube video below shows a recent music video using a variant of the above technique by A-Ha

Links:
FxGuide to Rotoscoping
Rotoscoping in Flash Tutorial
Rotoscoping in Flash (2)

Make your own mail icon (.psd)

DigMo — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 04:38:25 +0000

Many of you will know that it is possible to change the default mail.app icon but did you know creating your own has never been easier ? Well thanks to John Godfrey’s photoshop template you can not create your own mail icon in a matter of minutes. Better still you can create your own custom mail style stamps to use in other projects.

The zip file contains instructions on how to insert your desired image into the template. It helps if you rotate it about 11.2 degrees counter-clockwise and resize it to a width of about 85-90 pixels.

Download an icon template in PSD format. The layers are really easy to customise to your own design. If you do want to replace your current mail.app icon then you can use a freeware utility like img2icns to convert it into an icon file.

Once you have your newly created image converted to an icon file then you can add it to your mail.app install. Go to the Mail.app icon (in the Applications folder) and right click. Click on the “Show Package Contents” option.

Within this folder you should see a ‘Resources’ folder you should see the main mail.app icon file. I would take a copy of this file before you add your custom icon, just in case you want to move back in the future.

Getting the Most from iCal

DigMo — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:51:41 +0000

I was recently listening to a respected ICT consultant describing Apple’s iCal application as “‘too basic for business” I have come across this a few times with regards Apple products and every time it is meant as a criticism !
iCalendar is a standard for calendar data exchange. The standard is sometimes referred to as “iCal”, which also is the name of the leopard calendar program that provides one of the implementations of the standard.

iCalendar allows users to send meeting requests and tasks to other users through email. Recipients of the iCalendar email (with supported software) can respond to the sender easily or counter propose another meeting date/time.

If you have ever used iCal on a regular basis you will know that although the interface may appear simple the application is rather sophisticated. One of the best features in my opinion is the ability to easily subscribe and publish your own calendars. Better still Google Calendars can be also subscribed to directly from iCal !

The Apple website has published a large list of public .ICS calenders. Click here for the full list. There is even a website dedicated to listing public iCals. http://icalshare.com/

The great thing about subscribing to a calendar is that if the author changes an event your calendar is automatically updated the next time iCals checks it (most of my calendars I have set to refresh once per day).

Taking a relevant calendar from the Apple list, I have decided to subscribe to a Movie Release Calendar.

Clicking an .ics file from within Tiger or Leopard will automatically call iCal.

iCal will download the current version of the calendar, the following window is important if you want iCal to refresh the calendar regularly. Click the auto-refresh option to set the desired period for update checking.

In the same way you can subscribe you can also make your own calendar public. Simply create a new calendar, add events and click the ‘Calendar’ menu, then publish.

As you update the Calendar it will update the public .ics file. The down side is you need .Mac or a webdav capable server for the simple publish but it is possible to export the .ics and upload it to non webdav supporting web servers, just a little more work.

I would definitely recommend taking some time and looking at iCal if you are using an alternative system. There are also many third party applications that will auto sync your iCal to your Google account.

Teaching With Comic Life (Download)

DigMo — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:58:47 +0000

Plasq’s Comic Life is a firm favourite in the classroom. Last year all new Macs came with Comic Life pre-installed and any school lucky enough to purchase a new suite will know how much students love the power and ease of use that Comic Life brings to Digital Storytelling.

Well we have been lucky enough to be offered a teaching handout and unit of work for Comic Life. The unit designed for keystage 3 pupils (11-14) looks at the construction of a story, storyboarding, using Comic Life and also the transfer of photos from a phone to the Mac via bluetooth.

The Comic Life tutorial is pretty basic but covers the main aspects of the application and is more than enough to get your students started on their story telling projects. Please note this is a draft task and is copyright the original author. Please link to this article not the download.

Task :
In groups pupils will write and communicate a story using only eight photos and the Comic Life
Application.

Learning Outcomes:
On successful completion of this task pupils will be able to use bluetooth to transfer files to and from a computer.
On successful completion of the task pupils will be able use photos taken with a mobile phone in their own documents / coursework etc.
On successful completion of the task pupils will be able to manipulate / resize and filter their photographs.
On successful completion of the task pupils will be able to use suitable software applications to communicate in a range of different ways.

Transferable skills:
Working with others, Organising oneself, Communication, Critical and discriminating skills, Reflection and decision making skills

Resources :
Apple iMac Computer / PC with Comic Life Installed, Digital Camera or Phone.
Note : If you do not have enough digital cameras for your class it is possible to use a camera phone to take the photos and thenApple’s Bluetooth File Transfer system to send the photos from the phone to the Mac.

Download the Tutorial (3.8MB)

Buy Comic Life

If you download the tutorial please take the time to Digg the article.

Guitar and Garageband

DigMo — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:48:06 +0000

Anyone who has ever attempted to record music in a home studio via a (simple) four track will know only too well the pain and agony that runs parallel to the process. A few years ago the humble four track was the only affordable recording system for home use and computer based recording was the domain of large expensive studio systems.

For computer based recording we are massive fans of Apple Logic (Express) yet anyone who has bought an Apple mac in the last few years will have heard if not played with the iLife application ‘’. There is a natural assumption that any application that comes with the computer isn’t going to be good enough for anything other than playing with Apple loops or creating sound effects. (That said, playing with the supplied loops is great from an education point of view, it teaches the concept of tracks, levels and processing and I know of one eight year old who can use these with great success).

Anyway, any thought that Garageband is not good enough for live or studio recording is simply wrong. The massive advantage over logic is there is little or no learning curve. Connect your instrument and you are pretty much off.

Although you can use your actual computer keyboard as a music keyboard if you are at all serious about recording music on your computer we would advise you invest in an M-Audio USB keyboard (around £60) this device doesn’t need a driver and allows you to record directly to garageband using the range of built in patches.

This tutorial will not even scratch the surface of Garageband but it will certainly get you started with the basics of multitrack home recording. We are using the (expensive GT10) as one option of linking the guitar to the computer but a range of equally good solutions range from £20, this is not just for GT10 owners!

Recording Guitar requires the need of an interface device to convert the analogue guitar to digital out.

There are a range of options available :

The USB Guitar or the low cost cable. I haven’t actually tried these but the cables range from £20 to around £80.

Dedicated USB connectivity boxes such as the M-Audio devices or the newNative Instruments Guitar Rig Session systems we mentioned a few weeks back.

More and more high end guitar systems now offer direct USB audio streaming. The latest Line9 systems all offer USB out and the relatively new Boss GT10 does the same.

In the case of the GT10 you need to download the Mac USB driver from BOSS. Install and reboot and you are ready for your digital recording session.

Connect the device to your computer. Boss (in my opinion) have skimped a little by not providing a USB cable with the GT10, the good news is the connection is the same as that to your printer. We tend to just disconnect the printer when we need to record anyway via the floor unit.

If you turn on the GT10 while Garageband is open the software will sense the device and prompt to select the unit as your audio device, click yes. The next options are personal choice as the computer will now be using the GT10 for both your audio input and your output. Personally we prefer to hear the output via the computer rather than through the guitar amp. To change this click on File, then Preferences.

Click the midi tab and make the necessary changes, setting the output to ’system output’.

If you are using the system for personal practice firstly click on the eye icon and drag some of the Apple loops to the main work area. Start with Drums, then your main rhythm sound / sequence then the bass line.

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Once you have your tracks selected click at the end of the sound (on the main track) and a circular arrow should appear. Drag each line for the duration you want to record. If you want to loop the tracks indefinitely then it may be best to use the cycle tool (circular arrows on the main control bar).

You are now ready to record your guitar track. The real benefit of this way of practicing is you can play back your track and learn the good bits and ignore the bad.

Add anew instrument but this time we want a real instrument. Click the + at the bottom left of the Garage band interface. You will be met with a pop up asking if you want a software instrument or real. (click real).

You can tweak the instrument by selecting the type and you have full control over the levels and effects automatically applied. The great thing about Garageband is these can be adjusted at anytime even after your have finished recording.

Click on your real instrument track and then hit the red record button.

You should hear the music track through the computer and your guitar sound through your amp. Record your solo and hit space to stop recording. Personally I record a number of different guitar tracks (silencing the previously recorded) so that I can go back, listen to each through and learn from the best. With a bit of Garageband practice you will be able to edit the good bits of each solo together to create a masterpiece. When you are happy with a particular recording you can export it to iTunes by clicking the ‘Share’ menu.

The GT10 is ideal for recording guitar but if you want to record acoustic guitar, drums or vocals it is highly recommended you opt for a good mic and a good DI audio interface.

Perhaps were Garageband starts to struggle is when dealing with a large number of tracks. Asked if Garageband could be used to record a song with a professional enough outcome, well I know of at least 3 songs on iTunes and available on CD that started life just there. When you consider that Garageband comes with all Macs no one has an excuse not to exercise their musical creativity.

Note: Newer versions of Garageband don’t come with the full Apple loops, if you find your loops are greyed out double click and you should be prompted to download them (free) from Appke, although be warned it is about a gig in size.

Links:
Official Garageband Homepage

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