Colorista II
A first look at Red Giants anticipated new release!When it comes to a program like After Effects, competing with Color Finesse 3 (that comes with AE CS5) can be tricky, but if there is one company out there determined to do it, it's Red Giant Software and their flagship color correction application Colorista. ...Read More »
3.06 GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro
Flagship MacBook Pro does not disappointI recently had a chance to review the latest, top-of-the-line unibody MacBook Pro from Apple; with a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 8GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and many other great features, this is the fastest Apple laptop I've ever used. ...Read More »
HP Z400 workstation
On a pure price performance level, the system is hard to beatThe Hewlett-Packard HP Z400 is the company's entry level workstation. While it doesn't have the whiz bang design features of the HP Z800 reviewed in March, it still does not disappoint as the benchmark numbers will surprise you. ...Read More »
MAXON CINEMA 4D R11.5
A new version that feels like an integer releaseMAXON Computer released their newest version of CINEMA 4D, the 3D application that has quickly become the favorite of broadcast designers and animators. The name of the newest version, R 11.5 gives the illusion that the update is a minor upgrade from previous R11.2 version. However, the multitude of new features in R11.5 makes the upgrade feel like a integer release. ...Read More »
Coremelt Complete V2
CoreMelt's plug-ins are getting better with ageYou can never have enough plug-ins. Trust me, as an editor/graphic designer you always have clients that want something "cool," but have really no idea what they are looking for, so you end up finding yourself going through the plug-ins on your system to try and put something together to really "wow" them, your plug-in collection needs to have three traits. ...Read More »
Trapcode's Particular 2
As editors and motion graphic designers know, there are a lot (and I mean a lot) of plug-ins out there, and you often find the same type of plug-in across many different plug-in packages, and a very, very popular plug-in is the Particle Generator. Just about every plug-in package has one, and even After Effects itself ships with a few.
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Toolfarm's Professional After Effects Camera Training
Rob Birnholz demystifies AE's 3D CameraThe 3D world in After Effects has always been a difficult composition space to navigate. Even if you are familiar with world navigation in a 3D application, working with the camera in After Effects may not behave the way you might expect. Like any application, there is a workflow which will make working with these tools easier to understand. Toolfarm's new training shows you how. ...Read More »
Final Cut Studio's Motion 4
With all the new features in Motion (and across the the whole studio), $299 is a very affordable upgrade priceStar Wars Episode 1 and Apple's new Final Cut Studio have something in common, and that is the hype. Final Cut Studio has been hyped for more than a year, and every time someone blogged about its release coming up, nothing happened. Well, mid-way through July, Apple snuck Final Cut Studio (not called 3, just Final Cut Studio) onto its website, and needless to say, the tidal wave began. ...Read More »
Lenovo ThinkStation S20 workstation
Mid range workstation supports up to three hard drives, 12GB RAMThe Lenovo ThinkStation S20 is the company's mid range workstation that works well in a variety of creative environments, be it video and special effects creation to CAD and animation. Configured with the right graphics card, the unit will fit well in any creative environment. The S20 is larger than most mid-tower cases, and sports ample room inside for user upgrades. ...Read More »
Motion Designer's Toolkit from Digital Juice
Taking "stock" elements to a whole new levelAs editors and graphic designers know, time is our worst enemy. Clients want the best looking product (obviously) in the absolute shortest amount of time, and that's where companies like Digital Juice have helped us in the past by providing us with stock elements that we can use to not only spice up our projects, but get them finished a lot faster. ...Read More »
