Book Image

Final Cut Pro X Cookbook

By : Jason Cox
Book Image

Final Cut Pro X Cookbook

By: Jason Cox

Overview of this book

As technology becomes more and more accessible and easier to use, we are expected to do more in less time than ever before. Video editors are now expected to be able not only to edit, but create motion graphics, fix sound issues, enhance image quality and color and more. Also, many workers in the PR and marketing world are finding they need to know how to get viral videos made from start to finish as quickly as possible. Final Cut Pro X was built as a one-stop shop with all the tools needed to produce a professional video from beginning to end.The "Final Cut Pro X Cookbook" contains recipes that will take you from the importing process and basic mechanics of editing up through many of FCPX's advanced tools needed by top-tier editors on a daily basis. Edit quickly and efficiently, fix image and sound problems with ease, and get your video out to your client or the world easily.No program gets you from application launch to the actual editing process faster than FCPX. After covering the basics, the book hits the ground running showing readers how to produce professional quality videos even if video editing isn't your day job.The recipes inside are packed with more than 300 images helping illustrate time-saving editing tools, problem-solving techniques and how to spice up your video with beautiful effects and titles. We also dive into audio editing, color correction and dabble in FCPX's sister programs Motion and Compressor!With more than 100 recipes, the Final Cut Pro X Cookbook is a great aid for the avid enthusiast up to the 40-hour-a-week professional. This book contains everything you need to make videos that captivate your audiences.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Final Cut Pro X Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Creating your own Compression preset


Compressor comes with more than 40 compression presets for the most common scenarios, but sometimes 40 just isn't enough! Compressor lets you custom design your own preset if you have special circumstances for how you need to compress or convert a video.

How to do it...

  1. 1. Open Compressor. When a window pops up asking you to Choose a template for your batch, click on Cancel as the whole point of this exercise is to start from scratch!

  2. 2. In the Settings window search box, type image. Only two options appear, Open EXR Image Sequence and TIFF Image Sequence:

    Well, let's say what we actually want is a JPEG image sequence at 50 percent scale of our source material. At first, it doesn't appear to be an option.

  3. 3. Click on the close button on the right of the search box to cancel out the search and return all of the options:

  4. 4. Click on the + button drop-down menu to the right of the search box and choose Image Sequence:

    A new preset appears in the Custom folder under the Settings tab:

  5. 5. In the Inspector, rename the preset JPEG Image Sequence 50%. You can optionally put in a description.

  6. 6. In the Image Type drop-down menu, choose JPEG:

  7. 7. To ensure the smoothest, cleanest still images, click on the cogwheel button to the right of Frame Rate. This will export the appropriate number of images per second, no matter the frame rate of your source material.

  8. 8. Click on the Geometry button in the Inspector window:

  9. 9. In the Frame Size drop-down menu, select 50% of source:

  10. 10. Click on the Save button at the bottom.

How it works...

Now that we have created a custom preset, it will always appear in the Settings tab and be available for any project we send over from FCPX or for any video file at all that we drag into Compressor.

There's more...

Quick access to custom built presets in FCPX

If you have a project in FCPX that you want to be able apply this new preset to, you don't have to even open Compressor to do so! After creating the preset, open a project in FCPX and go to Share | Export Using Compressor Settings. A new window will appear that lets you choose from any of Compressor's presets, including your new custom-made one!