DIGITAL SANKALP

Making Scanned Documents Searchable and Editable

Making Scanned Documents Searchable and Editable

When you scan a document directly into a PDF file, Acrobat captures all the text and graphics on each page as though they were all just on...

3:09 am

Making Scanned Documents Searchable and Editable

Making Scanned Documents Searchable and Editable

When you scan a document directly into a PDF file, Acrobat captures all the text and graphics on each page as though they were all just on...

3:09 am

Using Alpha Channels with Photoshop 7

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"> </h1> You use alpha channels to make and store selections that you make with the selection tools, such as the Lasso or Magic Wand. You can also use alpha channels to edit selections. An alpha channel is a type of mask. Masks can be thought of as selections using some or all of the 256 available levels of gray, instead of a selection outline. Alpha channels define a selection in black, white, and varying shades of gray pixels. In other words, alpha channels store selections as 8-bit grayscale images. In alpha channels, selected pixels are white, black pixels are unselected, and anything in between is partially selected or partially unselected depending on whether you think the glass is half full or half empty. You can create a mask by duplicating a color channel and then editing the channel by using painting and editing tools and filters. Most graphics geeks refer to this as a channel mask. If you create an alpha channel from a saved selection, the channel most likely consists of just black or white pixels. If you have a feathered or even an anti-aliased selection, you may have a few gray pixels. If you create an alpha channel by duplicating and editing a color channel, your alpha channel most likely contains varying shades of gray pixels as well. <h2 style="margin:0.25rem 0px 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Modifying an alpha channel's options</h2> To modify the options for an alpha channel, follow these steps: 1. Select the channel and then choose Channel Options from the palette options menu. 2. Enter a name for the alpha channel.3. Specify the color and opacity of the overlay. 4. Specify whether you want the masked area (what the overlay will cover) to include the Masked Area (the unselected area), Selected Area, or Spot Color. 5. Click OK to close the Channel Options dialog box. You can also simply double-click the channel thumbnail to bring up the Channel Options dialog box. Then follow Steps 2 through 5.<h2 style="margin:0.25rem 0px 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"> Saving a selection as an alpha channel</h2>One of the great things about alpha channels is that you can save them and then retrieve them time and time again. This can be especially handy if you've taken a lot of time and effort to create the selection. Why reinvent the wheel if you want to select the element again in the future? Sure, you can create a mask using Quick Mask Mode and Color Range, but those masks are only temporary. The hardest part about creating an alpha channel is making the initial selection. After that, it's a piece of cake. Follow these steps to create an alpha channel: 1. Make a selection in your image. 2. Choose Select --> Save Selection.You can also click the Save Selection as Channel button (a circle on a square icon) at the bottom of the Channels palette. A new channel appears with the default name of Alpha 1 and bypasses Steps 3 through 6. 3. Choose a destination image in the Document pop-up menu. You can choose your current image or any other open image with the same pixel dimensions. 4. Choose a destination channel from the Channel pop-up menu. You can choose a new channel or any existing channel or layer mask. 5. If you choose New, name the channel.6. If you choose an existing channel or layer mask, select your desired combination. Replace, Add To, Subtract From, or Intersect With are the self-explanatory options. 7. Click OK. Your alpha channel is complete and appears in the Channels palette.Here are a few closing alpha channel tidbits: <ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>Try showing the alpha channel along with the composite channel. That way you can see how clean your mask is.</li> </ul><ul class="Remember article-ul-indent" style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Note that when you display them both, the alpha channel appears as a semitransparent color overlay.</ul> <ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>You cannot add channels to images that are in Bitmap mode. That's because all pixels in a Bitmap mode file are either black or white. No intermediary shades are supported.</li> </ul><ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>You can convert alpha channels to spot channels.</li></ul><h2 style="margin:0.25rem 0px 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"> Loading an alpha channel</h2>No doubt if you've gone through the trouble of creating an alpha channel, it's because you want to be able to easily load, or access, the selection again and again. To load an alpha channel, use any one of these many methods: <ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>Choose Select --> Load Selection. Select your document and channel. Click Invert to swap selected and unselected areas. If your image has an active selection, choose how you want to combine the selections.</li> </ul><ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>Select the alpha channel in the Channels palette, click the Load Channel as Selection button at the bottom of the palette, and then click the composite channel.</li> </ul><ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>Drag the channel to the Load Channel as Selection icon.</li></ul><ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"> <li>Ctrl+click (Command key+click on the Mac) the alpha channel in the Channels palette.</li></ul><ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>Ctrl+Shift+click (Command key +Shift+click on the Mac) to add the alpha channel to an active selection.</li> </ul><ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>Ctrl+Alt+click (Command key +Option+click on the Mac) to subtract the alpha channel from an active selection.</li> </ul><ul style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>Ctrl+Alt+Shift+click (Command key +Option+Shift+click on the Mac) to intersect the alpha channel with an active selection.</li> </ul>Adding channels can start to bloat your file size, so use them, but use them judiciously. The Photoshop native format and TIFF format compress channel information and therefore are good file formats to use when working with a lot of channels. The only formats that preserve alpha channels are Photoshop, TIFF, PDF, PICT, Pixar, or Raw. A single image can have a maximum of 24 channels.

Using Alpha Channels with Photoshop 7

You use alpha channels to make and store selections that you make with the selection tools, such as the Lasso or Magic Wand. You can also ...

12:17 am

Using Alpha Channels with Photoshop 7

Using Alpha Channels with Photoshop 7

You use alpha channels to make and store selections that you make with the selection tools, such as the Lasso or Magic Wand. You can also ...

12:17 am

Creating Text with Final Cut Pro HD and Adding It to a Video

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"> </h1> The following steps use the Final Cut Pro HD generator called Text, which is the quickest, easiest way to get basic, static text up on the screen. However, these steps work the same way if you want to apply other text generators. If you mess up any of these steps, don't worry about it! You can always undo an action by pressing Command+Z. 1. Open the Viewer window by choosing Window --> Viewer from the main menu. You can also press Command+1 to open the Viewer. 2. Click the Effects tab in the Browser window.3. Twirl down the small triangle next to the Video Generators bin, and open the Text sub-bin, which contains the text generators. 4. Double-click the generator named Text (which looks like a small clip with some color bars on it) to open it in the Viewer. After you open the Text text generator in the Viewer, you can see white text that reads SAMPLE TEXT on the Viewer's Video tab; the Viewer window also sports a new tab titled Controls. 5. Drag the Viewer Controls tab outside the Viewer so that it opens in its own window. This new Controls tab window lets you type text and edit it, but the Video tab in the Viewer is where you see what the text actually looks like while you finesse it. By dragging the Controls tab outside the Viewer (so that it's in its own window), you can tweak the text and see it displayed in the Viewer's Video tab at the same time. 6. On the Controls tab (now in its own window), replace SAMPLE TEXT and make changes to your text. To do so, highlight SAMPLE TEXT in the Text field on the Controls tab window and replace it with your own text. For example, you may want to type The End. 7. Tweak the other settings on the Controls tab, if you want. The other settings in the Text generator Controls tab work like a basic word processor. For example, you can change the font by using the Font pop-up menu. You can also change the location where your text appears on-screen by clicking the Origins cross hair in the Controls tab. Your mouse pointer becomes a cross-hair symbol, and you can then click anywhere in the Viewer window to reposition your text at that spot. Unfortunately, the Achilles heel of the standard Final Cut Pro Text text generator is that it doesn't let you apply different settings to different parts of the text. All the text has to be the same font, size, and style. When you make changes, you should see them reflected in the Viewer Video tab. If not, click the Viewer window once, and this should wake it up so that it shows changes while you make them. Then go back to the Controls tab window and tweak away! 8. Change the duration of the generator's text. By default, all generators create a clip of text that lasts for 10 seconds (after you add the generator's text to your Timeline). To change this setting, highlight the timecode in the Duration field (located in the upper-left corner of the Viewer Video tab) and type a new duration, such as 5:00 for a duration of 5 seconds. Of course, after you place your text on the Timeline, you can also adjust the text clip's length by dragging the clip's edges, just like any other media clip. 9. Move the generator's text to the Timeline to superimpose it over an existing video clip or to make the text appear over a black background, as follows: • Superimposed over video: To superimpose the text clip over a video clip (for example, to display the name of a person who is currently on camera), first move your video clip to the Timeline, making sure that the Timeline playhead is over this clip. Next, drag the generator's text from the Viewer to the Canvas window, and then select the Superimpose option from the Edit Overlay that appears over the Canvas. The Superimpose edit places the text in a new video track, above your video clip. What's more, Final Cut Pro automatically adjusts the duration of your text to match that of the underlying video clip. Figure 1 shows a text clip superimposed in the Timeline over a video clip. <div class="figure" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><img border="0" src="http://media.wiley.com/assets/307/19/0-07645-7773-5_1303.jpg" style="vertical-align: bottom; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto !important;"></div> Figure 1: When placed on top of another clip on the Timeline, the text generator clip is superimposed on the clip beneath it on the Timeline (in this example, a plain-colored background). • Appearing over a black background:If you want the text to appear over a black background (for instance, if you're designing an opening title card), you can drag the text from the Viewer Video tab down to a video track in the Timeline. 10. If necessary, render the text and play it on the Timeline. If Final Cut Pro is set up for real-time previews of effects, you don't have to render the text to play it. If you see a thin, red bar drawn over the text generator clip in the Timeline, the text clip needs rendering. Select the text generator clip on the Timeline, and then choose Sequence --> Render --> Both from the main menu. After Final Cut Pro completes the rendering, place the playhead just before the text generator clip in the Timeline and press the spacebar to play through the text. If Final Cut Pro is set up to show real-time previews of text without rendering, the Timeline shows a thin, green bar over the text clip. The text quality you see playing from the Timeline may seem a bit soft or otherwise rough because Final Cut Pro is showing you a lower-resolution preview of the text. When you finally print the movie to tape or export it to a QuickTime digital file, Final Cut Pro renders the text. To see how clearly the text clip appears when it's rendered, select it on the Timeline and choose Sequence --> Render --> Both. 11. Make further adjustments to the text generator by double-clicking it on the Timeline. Like any clip, the generator opens in the Viewer window, and you can use its now-familiar Controls tab to make tweaks. After altering any of the text generators, you can drag the text from the Viewer Video tab back to the Browser and rename it in the same way you would rename any old clip. (This way, you have a copy of the clip to apply elsewhere in the project.) Later, you can drag this text as many times as you like into the Timeline. This approach is handy when you need to reuse the same title more than once.

Creating Text with Final Cut Pro HD and Adding It to a Video

The following steps use the Final Cut Pro HD generator called Text, which is the quickest, easiest way to get basic, static text up on the...

12:14 am

Creating Text with Final Cut Pro HD and Adding It to a Video

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"> </h1> The following steps use the Final Cut Pro HD generator called Text, which is the quickest, easiest way to get basic, static text up on the screen. However, these steps work the same way if you want to apply other text generators. If you mess up any of these steps, don't worry about it! You can always undo an action by pressing Command+Z. 1. Open the Viewer window by choosing Window --> Viewer from the main menu. You can also press Command+1 to open the Viewer. 2. Click the Effects tab in the Browser window.3. Twirl down the small triangle next to the Video Generators bin, and open the Text sub-bin, which contains the text generators. 4. Double-click the generator named Text (which looks like a small clip with some color bars on it) to open it in the Viewer. After you open the Text text generator in the Viewer, you can see white text that reads SAMPLE TEXT on the Viewer's Video tab; the Viewer window also sports a new tab titled Controls. 5. Drag the Viewer Controls tab outside the Viewer so that it opens in its own window. This new Controls tab window lets you type text and edit it, but the Video tab in the Viewer is where you see what the text actually looks like while you finesse it. By dragging the Controls tab outside the Viewer (so that it's in its own window), you can tweak the text and see it displayed in the Viewer's Video tab at the same time. 6. On the Controls tab (now in its own window), replace SAMPLE TEXT and make changes to your text. To do so, highlight SAMPLE TEXT in the Text field on the Controls tab window and replace it with your own text. For example, you may want to type The End. 7. Tweak the other settings on the Controls tab, if you want. The other settings in the Text generator Controls tab work like a basic word processor. For example, you can change the font by using the Font pop-up menu. You can also change the location where your text appears on-screen by clicking the Origins cross hair in the Controls tab. Your mouse pointer becomes a cross-hair symbol, and you can then click anywhere in the Viewer window to reposition your text at that spot. Unfortunately, the Achilles heel of the standard Final Cut Pro Text text generator is that it doesn't let you apply different settings to different parts of the text. All the text has to be the same font, size, and style. When you make changes, you should see them reflected in the Viewer Video tab. If not, click the Viewer window once, and this should wake it up so that it shows changes while you make them. Then go back to the Controls tab window and tweak away! 8. Change the duration of the generator's text. By default, all generators create a clip of text that lasts for 10 seconds (after you add the generator's text to your Timeline). To change this setting, highlight the timecode in the Duration field (located in the upper-left corner of the Viewer Video tab) and type a new duration, such as 5:00 for a duration of 5 seconds. Of course, after you place your text on the Timeline, you can also adjust the text clip's length by dragging the clip's edges, just like any other media clip. 9. Move the generator's text to the Timeline to superimpose it over an existing video clip or to make the text appear over a black background, as follows: • Superimposed over video: To superimpose the text clip over a video clip (for example, to display the name of a person who is currently on camera), first move your video clip to the Timeline, making sure that the Timeline playhead is over this clip. Next, drag the generator's text from the Viewer to the Canvas window, and then select the Superimpose option from the Edit Overlay that appears over the Canvas. The Superimpose edit places the text in a new video track, above your video clip. What's more, Final Cut Pro automatically adjusts the duration of your text to match that of the underlying video clip. Figure 1 shows a text clip superimposed in the Timeline over a video clip. <div class="figure" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"><img border="0" src="http://media.wiley.com/assets/307/19/0-07645-7773-5_1303.jpg" style="vertical-align: bottom; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto !important;"></div> Figure 1: When placed on top of another clip on the Timeline, the text generator clip is superimposed on the clip beneath it on the Timeline (in this example, a plain-colored background). • Appearing over a black background:If you want the text to appear over a black background (for instance, if you're designing an opening title card), you can drag the text from the Viewer Video tab down to a video track in the Timeline. 10. If necessary, render the text and play it on the Timeline. If Final Cut Pro is set up for real-time previews of effects, you don't have to render the text to play it. If you see a thin, red bar drawn over the text generator clip in the Timeline, the text clip needs rendering. Select the text generator clip on the Timeline, and then choose Sequence --> Render --> Both from the main menu. After Final Cut Pro completes the rendering, place the playhead just before the text generator clip in the Timeline and press the spacebar to play through the text. If Final Cut Pro is set up to show real-time previews of text without rendering, the Timeline shows a thin, green bar over the text clip. The text quality you see playing from the Timeline may seem a bit soft or otherwise rough because Final Cut Pro is showing you a lower-resolution preview of the text. When you finally print the movie to tape or export it to a QuickTime digital file, Final Cut Pro renders the text. To see how clearly the text clip appears when it's rendered, select it on the Timeline and choose Sequence --> Render --> Both. 11. Make further adjustments to the text generator by double-clicking it on the Timeline. Like any clip, the generator opens in the Viewer window, and you can use its now-familiar Controls tab to make tweaks. After altering any of the text generators, you can drag the text from the Viewer Video tab back to the Browser and rename it in the same way you would rename any old clip. (This way, you have a copy of the clip to apply elsewhere in the project.) Later, you can drag this text as many times as you like into the Timeline. This approach is handy when you need to reuse the same title more than once.

Creating Text with Final Cut Pro HD and Adding It to a Video

The following steps use the Final Cut Pro HD generator called Text, which is the quickest, easiest way to get basic, static text up on the...

12:14 am

Getting to Know Photoshop's JPEG File Format

<h1 style="margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"> </h1> Photoshop supports the JPEG (pronounced jay peg and short for Joint Photographic Experts Group) format. The JPEG format uses lossy compression. Lossy is the computer nerd's way of saying that stuff is lost during the compression process — namely, some of the data that makes up your image. The good news, however, is that you probably won't miss what's not around anymore — sort of like when you were a kid and you "lost" your little brother at the park. You may notice a slight difference in your on-screen image after you save the file using JPEG, but when the image is printed, the compression is usually undetectable. JPEG compression saves you lots of disk space. In fact, a JPEG image takes up less space on disk than a compressed TIFF file — half as much space, maybe a tenth as much, depending on your settings. Although JPEG isn't supported by as many programs as TIFF, it's becoming more and more common. JPEG compression works well with continuous tone images, such as photographs. <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"> <tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="60"><img align="left" alt="icon" src="http://media.wiley.com/assets/0/27/tip.gif" style="vertical-align: bottom; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto !important;"></td> <td valign="top">So should you use JPEG or TIFF? Here's a thought: Save in TIFF when excellent print quality is vital — for example, in high-resolution printing — or when you're editing an image. Then when you think you're finished editing and you want to conserve space, save in JPEG at the Maximum setting. You generally won't see the results of JPEG right away. But editing an image can bring out its weaknesses, and JPEG definitely weakens an image. So, going to JPEG after you finish editing is usually best. </td></tr></tbody></table> Also, if you want to distribute your image on the World Wide Web, you have to save it in either the JPEG, GIF, or the new and not yet widely supported PNG format. JPEG works well with photographic images, especially people, where there is a wide range of colors. TIFF isn't an option for Web publishing. When you choose the JPEG option in the Save As dialog box and press Enter (Return on the Mac), the dialog box shown in Figure 1 appears. Here's a rundown of the options you need to worry about for images you want to print: <table style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><tbody><tr><td><img alt="figure" class="figure" src="http://media.wiley.com/assets/2/22/fg0-7645-0704-4_0603.jpg" style="vertical-align: bottom; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto !important;"></td> </tr><tr><td>Figure 1: When saving a JPEG file, select the Maximum option or, if space is limited, select the High option.</td></tr> </tbody></table> <ul class="ul" style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>The Quality pop-up menu lets you choose the amount of compression that's applied to your image and therefore the quality of your saved image. The higher the image quality, the less the file is compressed and the more space it takes on disk.</li> </ul> <ul class="ul" style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>The Quality option box and the slider bar beneath the box give you other ways to choose your compression setting. The slider bar and option box give you access to 13 settings (0 through 12), whereas the pop-up menu gives you access to only four. But, unless you're a real control freak, you can just select one of the pop-up menu options.</li> </ul> <ul class="ul" style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>Choose the Maximum or High option from the Quality pop-up menu. The Maximum option is best because it preserves the most image data, but the High option is okay if you're really short on disk space.</li> </ul> <ul class="ul" style="padding:0px 1rem;margin:0px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><li>For Format options, use the default setting of Baseline ("Standard").</li></ul> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="60"><img align="left" alt="icon" src="http://media.wiley.com/assets/0/35/warning.gif" style="vertical-align: bottom; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto !important;"></td> <td valign="top">Photoshop recompresses a JPEG image every time you save it. During a single edit session, this compression won't hurt because JPEG works from the on-screen version. But, if you close, reopen, and resave it in JPEG format, some damage, albeit small, occurs. Repeat this process over and over, however, and the damage increases each time. Some advice — apply all your necessary edits to the image, save in JPEG format, and leave well enough alone. If you need to edit an image over a longer length of time, save it in a native Photoshop format. Then save it as a JPEG only after you have completed your editing process. </td></tr></tbody></table>

Getting to Know Photoshop's JPEG File Format

Photoshop supports the JPEG (pronounced jay peg and short for Joint Photographic Experts Group) format. The JPEG format uses lossy comp...

12:12 am

Getting to Know Photoshop's JPEG File Format

Getting to Know Photoshop's JPEG File Format

Photoshop supports the JPEG (pronounced jay peg and short for Joint Photographic Experts Group) format. The JPEG format uses lossy comp...

12:12 am

Making Your First Movie with Adobe Premiere Elements

<h1 style="font-size:20px;margin:0.25rem 0px;padding:0px 0px 0.5rem;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-color:rgb(204,204,204);color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Sometimes the best way to get to know a program is to just dig in and get your hands dirty with it, actually putting its features to use as the designers intended. If you have a digital camcorder handy with some video already recorded on the tape, and you have installed Adobe Premiere Elements on your computer, you're ready to start making movies. </h1><h2 style="margin:0.25rem 0px 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Starting your first project</h2> Your first step is perhaps the most obvious one. Launch Premiere Elements, and when the welcome screen appears, click New Project. Type a name for your project in the New Project dialog box — any old name will do, as long as it's something you will remember later — and click OK. Premiere Elements creates your project and opens to the basic Premiere Elements screen. Wasn't that easy? <h2 style="margin:0.25rem 0px 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Capturing video</h2> After you've created a new project in Premiere Elements, you need some source footage to work with. For now, assume you have a digital camcorder and you've already recorded some video that you want to edit. The process of getting video from the camcorder into your computer is called capturing. To capture some video, follow these steps: 1. Connect your digital camcorder to your computer's FireWire (IEEE-1394) port. Premiere Elements can capture video only from a digital camcorder connected to a FireWire port; if you have an older analog camcorder, you'll need to use special analog video capture hardware and probably some different video capture software. 2. Turn the Camcorder on to VTR or Player mode. If Windows automatically opens a window stating that a digital video device was detected, click Cancel to close the window. 3. In the toolbar at the top of the Premiere Elements window, click Capture. The Premiere Elements Capture window appears. You should see the words Capture Device Online at the top of the window. 4. Rewind the tape in your camcorder to the beginning of a section that you want to capture. You may notice that as you play and rewind your camcorder tape, the video image from the camcorder appears in the Capture window. 5. Click the Play button in the Capture window to begin playing the tape, and click the Capture button to start capturing some video. 6. After you've captured a few minutes of video, click the Stop Capture button. 7. Close the Capture window when you're done capturing video.You now see a collection of video clips in the Premiere Elements Media window. These are the video clips that you captured from the camcorder, and they are ready to be used in a movie project. <h2 style="margin:0.25rem 0px 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Assembling the movie</h2> After you've captured some video, turning your footage into a movie is easy. Follow these steps: 1. Make sure the Premiere Elements workspace shows the basic editing layout by clicking Edit on the Premiere Elements toolbar. If the workspace seems stubborn and won't change to the basic editing layout, choose Window --> Restore Workspace --> Edit. 2. To preview a clip, double-click it in the Media window. The clip loads into the Monitor window, where you can click the Play button to play the clip. 3. Click-and-drag some clips from the Media window and drop them on the Timeline, as shown in Figure 1. For now, just drop each clip on the track labeled Video 1, and drop the clips one after the other in the Timeline in the order in which you want them to play. 4. Click the Timeline button at the top of the Monitor window, and then click Play to preview the movie you have put together in the Timeline.<div class="figure" style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:16px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif"> <img border="0" src="http://media.wiley.com/assets/353/39/0-7645-7881-2_0114.jpg" style="vertical-align: bottom; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px; max-width: 100%; height: auto !important;"></div> Figure 1: Drop clips in the Timeline to assemble your movie. <h2 style="margin:0.25rem 0px 1.25rem;padding:0px;border:0px;font-size:18px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif">Saving your movie for the Web</h2> After you've put together a basic movie in the Timeline, Premiere Elements lets you quickly save it in a Web-friendly format. One of the formats you can choose is the Windows Media format. To quickly export your movie in Windows Media format: 1. Click Export on the Premiere Elements toolbar, and choose Windows Media from the menu that appears. Alternatively, you can choose File --> Export --> Windows Media. 2. In the Export Windows Media dialog box that appears, choose Cable Modem/DSL in the menu on the left and click OK. The exact format you choose isn't important right now. 3. In the Save File dialog box that appears, choose a location in which to save the file, type a filename for the movie file, and click Save. A Rendering dialog box appears. Rendering is the process that Premiere Elements goes through when it applies your edits and compresses a movie project into its final output format. Rendering may take a few seconds or minutes, depending on the length of your movie and the speed of your computer. 4. When rendering is complete, locate the movie file, and double-click it to open it in Windows Media Player. Congratulations! You've just made your first movie!

Making Your First Movie with Adobe Premiere Elements

Sometimes the best way to get to know a program is to just dig in and get your hands dirty with it, actually putting its features to use as ...

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Making Your First Movie with Adobe Premiere Elements

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