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

Importing still images


Making a movie isn't always about using moving images. There are plenty of instances where you need to use still images, whether for a slideshow, b-roll, documentary, or some other purpose.

How to do it...

  1. 1. With a project of your choosing open, click on the Show/hide the Photos Browser button in the toolbar, indicated by the camera icon:

  2. 2. The window, shown in the following screenshot, is broken down into two pieces. The top half shows what sources of photos you have to select from and the bottom half displays the photos in the source selection. Depending on what photo software you use, you may see iPhoto, Aperture, and/or Photo Booth listed in the source window. To easily dig deeper into the iPhoto or Aperture libraries (which are likely to have hundreds or even thousands of images), click on the disclosure triangle next to each to display a list of your albums, events, projects, and so on. You may also use the search box at the bottom of the window to narrow down your images:

  3. 3. Find the image you are seeking, and click-and-drag it into your project's timeline. If you drag it to the end of a project, it will add it to the primary storyline. If you drag it above any clips along your timeline, it will connect itself to that clip as a connected clip. In the following screenshot, the image was added as a connected clip over two other clips:

How it works...

When you drag an image file directly into a project, a duplicate of the file is added to the project's default event (set when you originally created the project). That means, even if you deleted the song from iPhoto, Aperture, or Photo Booth, it will still work fine in your project (assuming you have set FCPX to copy all imported media into Events).

There's more...

Import now, use later

If your project hasn't really taken shape yet, but you know you want to import photos from the Photos browser to use later, you don't have to drag a photo or photos directly into the timeline. Instead, simply click-and-drag them from the Photos browser to the event of your choosing. They will copy into the event in the Events browser and stay there until you are ready to use them. You can also apply keywords and make them favorites as well!

Selecting more than one image at once

If you were creating a slideshow, this would seem like a pretty painful process if you had to drag 117 images into your timeline! Luckily, you can easily drag two or more images into the project by one of two methods. Once you've selected an event or album in the Photos browser, you can do any of the following:

  • Use the command key to select multiple images at once and drag them into your project

  • If you simply want the entire event or album, click-and-drag the icon of the event/album itself into your project (or FCPX Event of your choosing) to add every item at once

Even if you're not going to use every image, sometimes this is a faster workflow so you can just easily delete the few images you don't want in your timeline as you go.

Importing images not in Apple photo software

Some Mac users don't use Apple's various photo offerings, which is fine. Perhaps your photos are simply residing in a series of folders somewhere on your computer. You can import images using the File | Import command and choose an event to place them in. You can even drag images directly from their folder in Finder into the FCPX interface and drop them on top of the event of your choice as well!

See also

So, what can you do with photos once you've got them imported? Try reading some of the recipes in the Chapter 8, Get Your Movie to Move such as Panning and zooming over a photo or clip with the Ken Burns effect, Creating a video wall, and Cropping or trimming a clip.

Clicking and dragging is easy, but not always the fastest or more accurate way to add a file to a project's timeline. Read the Creating connected clips, Appending, inserting, and overwriting clips to a storyline recipes in Chapter 3, Basic Editing Mechanics to learn about the different types of edits in FCPX and how to use keyboard shortcuts to quickly add clips (both video and audio) to your timeline in different ways.