January 29, 2014

Cast iron seasoning: rust never sleeps

Still a klutz in the kitchen...

There's hope for the non-stickiness of my cast iron skillet, as well as less worry over the long-term about metal residues, Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. Via Sweethome, Sheryl Canter explains in Chemistry of Cast Iron Seasoning: A Science-Based How-To.

Apparently pre-heating the pan before applying flaxseed oil helps the seasoning adhere better. The low smoke-point of flaxseed concerns some, even though you'll cook with another oil, so repeat seasonings with sturdier oils might be a good idea.

Better regular care is advised for the klutz. For basics, here's America's Test Kitchen:


Update: Over at Serious Eats, The Truth About Cast Iron Pans: 7 Myths That Need To Go Away by J. Kenji López-Alt (Nov 2014) was good.

January 22, 2014

Driving Plates and Composites in Premiere and After Effects

Also known as process plates, car plates, or vehicle plates, driving plates are traffic backgrounds often used for composites of actors driving a car. Eran Stern has a new tutorial on this using for Premiere Pro, and we add a few other resources on use in After Effects as well in Driving Plates and Composites at Pro Video Coalition.

January 16, 2014

3D printing in Photoshop CC


There's a nice update to Photoshop CC now available as part of Creative Cloud for Designers, with new features also for Illustrator and InDesign. Note that there are new free trials available, if you're not a subscriber.

Please check out the two new AEP resource summaries that were posted on Pro Video Coalition:

Here's demo video of enhancements to the Pencil tool and Path Segment reshape in Illustrator CC and Perspective Warp in Adobe Photoshop CC:




40+ roundups for After Effects

I was tempted to roundup 100+ tutorials just from Andrew Kramer, but instead here's a roundup of After Effects Portal topic roundups on Pro Video Coalition. Many of them have been updated since their initial release.


      1. Easter eggs in After Effects: a new hunt
      2. Halftone techniques for After Effects
      3. Chromatic aberration: creation and fixes with After Effects
      4. Long shadows: adding body to flat design in After Effects
      5. Kinetic type in After Effects
      6. Fly around CC Sphere in After Effects
      7. Optimizing performance in Premiere & After Effects
      8. 3D from 2D images: After Effects + beyond 
      9. Driving Plates and Composites in Premiere Pro and After Effects 
      10. 3D printing in Photoshop CC 
      11. Flowchart tools in After Effects 
      12. Secondary animation and the principles of animation 
      13. Tracking gestures on iOS for After Effects 
      14. Circles in After Effects 
      15. Spirographs in After Effects
      16. Spirals in After Effects
      17. Secondary animation and the principles of animation
      18. The Ray-traced 3D renderer in After Effects
      19. Brainstorm in After Effects
      20. User interfaces in the movies and beyond
      21. TypeMonkey: a kinetic type tool
      22. Fractal Noise in After Effects
      23. Typewriter effects in After Effects
      24. Headphones: a few resources
      25. How to shoot car videos inside & out
      26. Whip (swish) pans in After Effects & Premiere
      27. HUD and UI graphics in ‘Oblivion’ + titles
      28. Slideshows in After Effects
      29. Charts and graphs in After Effects
      30. Vignettes in Premiere & After Effects
      31. Sunbursts or radial rays in After Effects
      32. Set Matte: a 32-bpc node for After Effects
      33. Volumetric lighting in After Effects
      34. The Matrix effect in After Effects
      35. Muzzle flashes in After Effects
      36. Creating Fire in After Effects
      37. Using and creating After Effects scripts
      38. Lip Sync in After Effects
      39. Remove banding in After Effects
      40. The Shatter Effect in After Effects
      41. 3D Text in After Effects
      42. Lens wacking, free lensing, and light leaks
      43. How to Light Wrap
      44. LED and Casino light text effects in After Effects
      45. Creating snow in After Effects
      46. Animate a Photo Mosaic in After Effects
      47. Lens Flares in After Effects
      48. Seamless edits for jump cuts
      49. Adding motion blur in After Effects
      50. Light Strokes and Streaks
      51. Reflections in After Effects
      52. Free Lower Thirds plus Additional Resources
      53. Animate a character in After Effects
      54. Sky Replacement with After Effects
      55. Bleach bypass, cross-process, and other looks for After Effects

      January 14, 2014

      Secondary animation in After Effects – and the basic principles of animation

      Secondary action is ancillary to the primary action of an animation. Secondary actions help to create the illusion of life, heightening interest and adding some realism – whether in character animation, visual effects, or motion graphics. Tutorials that deal with this basic idea explicitly in After Effects are rare.

      Read the rest on Pro Video Coalition: Secondary animation in After Effects.

      January 13, 2014

      January 8, 2014

      trackFinger AE: tracking gestures on iOS

      trackFinger AE is new iOS app (on App Store) that allows you to record the movements of up to 10 fingers on an iPad, and then send tracking data as keyframes in e-mail text to paste into Adobe After Effects.

      There's more on Pro Video Coalition.