How to Perform Special Effects

In this episode of Red Giant TV, Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how to create the effect of text (or a logo) dissolving to sand and blowing away. You'll also learn how to reverse the transition, so that sand forms into text. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, ...more

In this video tutorial, CreativeCOW leader, Eran Stern demonstrates using paint strokes brushes to automatically morph between path shapes. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and media production professionals in broadcasting, motion graphic ...more

In this 2 part video tutorial, Eran Stern shows you the first step to create a retro design title animation for a fictional sci-fi movie. In Part 2, CreativeCOW leader, Eran Stern takes the next step in the science fiction classic and finalizes the promo by projecting graphic ...more

In this Red Giant tutorial, Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how to create a realistic traffic pattern backdrop - great for a scene in which the camera overlooks a low lying, but developed area - perhaps looking down from a high hill onto a residential neighborhood. Creative Cow i ...more

This is a fun trick to perform on your friends, anywhere. First, explain to your buddies that your deck of cards is special and acts just like an ATM. They'll naturally be confused and ask you to prove it. That is when you take a low number card from your deck, swipe it, and t ...more

In this video tutorial, Creative Cow leader Tony Ross demonstrates how to create a simple multi-video player in Flash using Actionscript 2. Also learn to have several videos use a single flv player. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and med ...more

In this Apple Color tutorial, Richard Harrington along with color expert Robbie Carman create the Pleasantville effect in Apple Color. Using the secondary curves, specifically the saturation curve, to isolate just the yellow in a taxi cab everything else in the video clip can ...more

This two part episode shows you how to use Trapcode Form to create a dramatic transition where footage breaks into binary code, and re-forms as different footage. In Part 2, Aharon shows you how to improve on and finish the binary transition project by working with Time Remap ...more

In this Episode, you will learn how to set up a seamless looping particle system. We will be using Trapcode Particular and Starglow to create a stylized holiday snowstorm, but the concepts can be adapted for anything from backgrounds to lower 3rds. Creative Cow is a support c ...more

In this Boris FX video tutorial we show you how to use an After Effects mask to define custom extrusion curves as well as the baseline for text characters in Boris Continuum Complete's Extruded Text filter. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, ...more

In this tutorial, Richard Harrington uses the patch tool and healing brush tools to teach patching, healing and the vanishing point in Adobe Photoshop. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and media production professionals in broadcasting, mo ...more

In this episode of Photoshop for Video, Richard Harrington takes a look at a new feature in Adobe Photoshop CS4 called content aware scaling. This feature allows a user to define a region or a graphic to scale or not to scale when the image is resized, giving tremendous flexib ...more

In this episode of Final Cut Help, Richard Harrington takes a look at keyframing the three way color corrector in FCP. As details change in a movie clip you can have the filter adjust its values over time. This example uses a video of a bird starting in a bright sky and ending ...more

In this Final Cut tutorial, Richard Harrington discusses the common problem of backlighting, exposure and what can happen when shooting video outdoors. Proper exposure of all elements in a shoot can be a pain to achieve with a bright sun and blue sky but using the three way co ...more

In this Photoshop tutorial, Richard Harrington takes a look at the auto blend command that allows you to merge multiple pictures together into a single larger document. When you have a large scan and you have to scan it in multiple pieces and then stitch it together or if you ...more

In this Final Cut tutorial, Richard Harrington discusses what to do to correct your film when you shoot footage with the wrong white balance setting. This is a common problem if you step outside after shooting inside and you forget to rewhite balance. Richard uses the three wa ...more

In this Photoshop tutorial, Richard Harrington takes a look at balancing out exposure issues inside of Photoshop CS4. Mixed lighting on a photo can cause portions of the image to be too bright or too dark, fortunately Photoshop gives us some great tools to take care of these t ...more

In this Final Cut Pro tutorial, Richard Harrington take a look at the elgato turbo.264. This is a USB add on device that accelereates the h.264 encoding you can do on your Mac. The turbo.264 comes with its own compression software with presets for iPod, iPhone, Sony PSP, Apple ...more

In this video tutorial, CreativeCOW contributing editor, Nelson Fernandes demonstrates a method to obtain a quick and dirty mask using the find edges effect combined with the auto-trace feature. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and media p ...more

In this tutorial, Creative Cow contributing editor Carl Larsen shows you how to remove chromatic aberration from your footage using Adobe After Effects. If you are wondering what chromatic aberration is, don't worry he explains that too. Creative Cow is a support community fo ...more

In the Photoshop tutorial, Richard Harrington takes a look at making an alpha channel based upon the luminance in an image. Alpha channels allow you to store transparency in a graphic and transfer that transparency to another non-linear video editing program or compositing app ...more

In this Final Cut Pro tutorial, Richard Harrington takes a look at the gradient wipe transition. The gradient wipe transition is a highly customizable transition using greyscale patterns to create your own custom wipes. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, v ...more

In this Apple Color tutorial, Richard Harrington along with color expert Robbie Carman teaches how to use tracking to have vignettes follow a person around the screen to simulate a spotlight effect. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and med ...more

BCC Smooth Tone is an image restoration filter that smoothes out skin imperfections while maintaining image detail and contrast in areas such as hair and eyes. This video tutorial from Paul Ezzy goes over the basics of applying the filter to a clip in AE and provides a brief l ...more

In this video tutorial, Creative Cow leader Tony Ross demonstrates how to create a simple multi-video player in Flash using Actionscript 3. Also learn to have several videos use a single flv player. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and med ...more

In this episode, Aharon shares some tips for simplifying and working with 3D compositions. You will also get a look at some cool tools designed to easily distribute and arrange layers in 3D space, and that help in creating complex 3D shapes. Creative Cow is a support communit ...more

In this Final Cut Pro video tutorial you will learn about using the 3-way color corrector with skin tones and how the color corrector behaves when adjusting the color of two subjects in identical scenes. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, an ...more

In this Episode, we will look at some very useful techniques for Trapcode Particular that will give you better control of emitter position in 2D and 3D. You will also learn how to capture the motion of your mouse (or stylus) to control emitter position. Creative Cow is a supp ...more

In this Photoshop tutorial, Richard Harrington explains how to output a DV video signal directly to a SD video monitor from Adobe Photoshop using a digital video converter via firewire and video preview controls. This is a very helpful tool for making adjustments to your color ...more

Some free tricks on how to use the color range command in Photoshop. Many people use the old method of utilizing the magic wand tool for selecting areas of color, the color range selection tool has more flexibility and control. Richard walks you through using this tool and sho ...more

In this video tutorial, Eran Stern shows you a technique to enhance your tracking and compositing results by using Mocha AE and RG Warp Corner Pin plug-in. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and media production professionals in broadcasting ...more

Exploring the problems associated with blending images that have square and non square pixel formats. Learn about how to fix some of the blunders of pixel aspect ratio mixing and how Photoshop CS4 is trying to help solve some of these pixel nightmares. Creative Cow is a suppo ...more

In this tutorial, Creative Cow contributing editor Carl Larsen shows you how to build an expression-based vehicle rig that automatically calculates the rotation of its wheels based on the movement of the vehicle chassis. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, ...more

In this video tutorial, Creative Cow leader Michael Park shows you how to recreate the opening gun barrel sequence from the two newest James Bond movies in 3d Studio Max using the default scanline renderer, minimal modeling, and only standard materials. Creative Cow is a supp ...more

In this video tutorial, Creative Cow Contributing Editor Eran Stern will demonstrate building a reflection using After Effects built-in filters. He will also explore the RG Reflection plug-in. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and media pro ...more

Native P2 Editing in Final Cut Pro with MXF4mac. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and media production professionals in broadcasting, motion graphics, special FX and film. Creative Cow hosts tutorials in a variety of softwares including Ad ...more

In this video tutorial, Creative Cow Contributing Editor Eran Stern will show you how to create a simple morph effect using time remapping and pixel motion. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and media production professionals in broadcastin ...more

In this tutorial, Broadcast Designer Jason Brown will show you how to knock out a vector logo from Adobe Illustrator into a 3D logo in Maxons Cinema 4D. The tutorial also touches on basic texturing, lighting and animation. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video ...more

In this video tutorial, Creative Cow Contributing Editor Eran Stern will show you how to create a fiery iris animation which has laser beams shooting from a girls eyes. Creative Cow is a support community for digital video, video editing, and media production professionals in ...more

The independent film Juno featured one of the most distinctive opening credit sequences in recent memory. It has a wonderful handmade look - which it turned out was created by hand! Whether you have seen Juno or not, Cow leader Simon Bonner shows a much easier way to create un ...more

Make your own backyard biodiesel with the help of Kipkay. It's easy to make a small batch that will work in any diesel engine. You won't need any special equipment--an old juice bottle will serve as the "reactor" vessel--and on such a small scale, you can quickly refine your t ...more

In this medical video, learn the process of examining the lower extremity of the body. See demonstrations of how you inspect the lower extremity, how you palpate and then perform passive range of motion of the hip, knee and ankle. John D. Gazewood, MD, MSPH, will also teach do ...more

In this two part episode, Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how to use audio to control time. You'll learn how to make your video automatically move forward in time to the beat of the music - a technique used in tons of music videos and commercials. In Part 2, Aharon continues to e ...more

In this two part Photoshop tutorial, Richard Harrington takes a look at the camera raw files and the camera raw interface. Many video professionals do not know much about the camera raw interface because it is a technology mainly used by digital photographers. The key advantag ...more

This is a two part video tutorial. Be sure to click on Chapters 2 as well to get the full tutorial. Taking a look at the popular technique of designing lower thirds and the process it takes to design these using Photoshop. Photoshop is the perfect solution for this task with ...more

In this four part video tutorial, Creative Cow leader Carl Larsen shows you how to create a 360 degree camera-aware environment in After Effects without the use of third-party plug-ins. In part two, build a title sequence within the 360 degree environment created in part one o ...more

This video will show doctors the process of examining the upper extremity of the body. When you exam the extremities or any joints, it's good to have a systematic approach to how you will examine each joint. Learn about the inspection of each joint, range of motion, palpation ...more

Impress all of your friends with some card magic, or as others like to say, card manipulation or card trick. You don't need to be a magician to learn the illusion of magic with a deck of playing cards. See for yourself how easy it is to learn... watch this video tutorial to se ...more

Indy Mogul's Backyard FX series has another great video for making high quality props and special effects. In this installment, you'll learn how to make a destructible wall, perfect for the big action sequence in your next low budget film project.

How to make scary finger for Halloween! This special effects video will demonstrate how to make a convincing nail through a bloody finger. Cool trick for halloween or your next slasher movie!

In this audio editing software tutorial you will learn how to create complex mixes and special effects using Automation in SONAR 5. Learn how to use SONAR's Automation drawing features to get more control over your mix and special effects. Originally recorded for SONAR 5

Watch this instructional special effects video on how to make a squib to simulate fired bullets striking a wall. This squib making process will not work for contact on people. Follow the step by step procedure by watching this instructional video to produce realistic special e ...more

What every indie filmmaker needs is a little program called After Effects. After effects does wonders for any film requiring a little special effects that would normally be too expensive to make "real". Like this glowing eye effect. See how to make an eye glowing effect in Ado ...more

This short video shows you how to create an animated fashion style logo in Flash. First he changes the background and frames per second to black and 24 respectively. He chooses the font for his text and then he converts the text into a movie clipping by hitting f8 and choosing ...more

Try to use the same brand of spray paint throughout the project, read the instructions, follow them. Different brands may have different instructions, this is why we advise against mixing brands. Begin by lightly sanding your project with 600 grit sand paper, anything lower ca ...more

There aren't any words in the silent instructional tutorial video, but if you watch carefully, you'll learn the exact steps necessary to create a phenomenal looking shooting star or comment with nice looking special effects that are achievable in Photoshop. First you'll select ...more

Make special effects at home using Adobe After Effects software. This simple video tutorial shows how to create a forcefield effect over a digital image. Great for action, adventure, and sci-fi movies! Create a forcefield in Adobe After Effects. Click through to watch this vid ...more

This tutorial demonstrates how Twixtor Pro can be used to create slow motion special effects when editing video in After Effects. Learn beginner to intermediate VFX, specifically slowing down footage shot at a very high shutter speed. Twixtor allows the user to manage blur and ...more

This video describes how to use the Chroma Key Effect in a few easy steps. First of all obtain a video recording that has a uniform background e.g. all blue or all green or all red. In this case, the background color is green. Now obtain the video recording that you would lik ...more

Are you still amazed by the special effects used in the movie Matrix? Now you can add similar effects to your video! Watch and see how to use some creative editing in Final Cut Pro to get it done.