Pinnacle offer a version of their software for use on your home computer
3D imaging software gives you the flexibility to create images in a virtual world
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Post Production Software
There are hundreds of different types of post-production software available, and even the highly polished professional versions come as 30 day free trials, or stripped back 'light' editions. Let's have a look at what these packages can achieve, and how they can help lift the production value of your video.
Digital Editing Software
We're all familiar with the standard suites, including Adobe Premiere, Pinnacle and Avid, each of which has a stripped back home edition for trial or free use. Whether you use them to simply stitch your scenes together, cut out the guff from lengthy shots, or weave an intricate narrative, some basic editing will make the viewing experience that much more pleasurable. You can also add transition effects, change the visual look of your scenes, underlay some nice music, and add sound effects.
They also offer the ability to capture your footage direct from the source, and output to various different mediums, including DVD, Web and back on to tape. For an overview on planning for the edit process, read our How To Guide here.
Digital Audio Editing Software
Believe it or not, you can enhance the visuals of your video by adding some really well thought out sound. While the video software above can help you lay various tracks into the mix, they are more limited than your needs might be. Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro), Cubase, and the free Audacity, give you the ability to manipulate your sound even more. Audition allows you to pull the audio from your final edit, and mix it all on separate tracks, apply complex effects, add even more layers of sound, and manipulate the audio experience in as many ways as you can imagine. It's the sound that sells the visuals - imagine Star Wars without the music.
3D Modelling And Animation Software
If you want to start being really professional, you could do worse than getting hold of some 3D software. The industry pros use 3DS Max, Maya, or Softimage, but Wings 3D is free for everyone to use, while the others do offer a 30 day trial version to evaluate. They provide the opportunity to camera match your video footage and create objects and animations to interact with what's been shot. This might allow you to add a convincing explosion, or an animated character, or if you've used green screens or the like, to build whole new environments for the action. These aren't easy tools to learn, and you could spend years trying to master them, but you can very quickly produce animated logos and titles with nice lighting effects, as title sequences for your videos.
What's more, they provide an easy(ish) way to pre-visualise your shoot - building camera angles and lights around simple human models, and moving them around is like a virtual story board. Or, you could go a whole step further, and completely produce your magnus opus inside the computer.
Video Compositing Software
While After Effects is an industry leader, you can evaluate it for 30 days. Software like this allows you greater control over compositing many layers of shots than is available in the edit software. You can overlay images in a 3D space, and use it to animate graphics, and even manipulate time - slowing it down and speeding it up. If you've been using all of the software above, compositing is a need you will have.
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There are hundreds of different types of post-production software available, and even the highly polished professional versions come as 30 day free trials, or stripped back 'light' editions. Let's have a look at what these packages can achieve, and how they can help lift the production value of your video.
Digital Editing Software
We're all familiar with the standard suites, including Adobe Premiere, Pinnacle and Avid, each of which has a stripped back home edition for trial or free use. Whether you use them to simply stitch your scenes together, cut out the guff from lengthy shots, or weave an intricate narrative, some basic editing will make the viewing experience that much more pleasurable. You can also add transition effects, change the visual look of your scenes, underlay some nice music, and add sound effects.
They also offer the ability to capture your footage direct from the source, and output to various different mediums, including DVD, Web and back on to tape. For an overview on planning for the edit process, read our How To Guide here.
Digital Audio Editing Software
Believe it or not, you can enhance the visuals of your video by adding some really well thought out sound. While the video software above can help you lay various tracks into the mix, they are more limited than your needs might be. Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro), Cubase, and the free Audacity, give you the ability to manipulate your sound even more. Audition allows you to pull the audio from your final edit, and mix it all on separate tracks, apply complex effects, add even more layers of sound, and manipulate the audio experience in as many ways as you can imagine. It's the sound that sells the visuals - imagine Star Wars without the music.
3D Modelling And Animation Software
If you want to start being really professional, you could do worse than getting hold of some 3D software. The industry pros use 3DS Max, Maya, or Softimage, but Wings 3D is free for everyone to use, while the others do offer a 30 day trial version to evaluate. They provide the opportunity to camera match your video footage and create objects and animations to interact with what's been shot. This might allow you to add a convincing explosion, or an animated character, or if you've used green screens or the like, to build whole new environments for the action. These aren't easy tools to learn, and you could spend years trying to master them, but you can very quickly produce animated logos and titles with nice lighting effects, as title sequences for your videos.
What's more, they provide an easy(ish) way to pre-visualise your shoot - building camera angles and lights around simple human models, and moving them around is like a virtual story board. Or, you could go a whole step further, and completely produce your magnus opus inside the computer.
Video Compositing Software
While After Effects is an industry leader, you can evaluate it for 30 days. Software like this allows you greater control over compositing many layers of shots than is available in the edit software. You can overlay images in a 3D space, and use it to animate graphics, and even manipulate time - slowing it down and speeding it up. If you've been using all of the software above, compositing is a need you will have.
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Back to the How To Guides