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.

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.

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:

• Creative Cloud update: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and more
• 3D printing in Photoshop CC

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

Creative Cloud for Design January 2014

Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and more: resources listed at Pro Video Coalition.

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.

Flowchart tools in After Effects (Tab is the new Shift)

An updated post is now at the Pro Video Coalition as Flowchart tools in After Effects: Tab is the new Shift. (picture by Quba Michalski)

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.