Become a Super Manager. Lynda will mentor you.

Many people know Lynda.com has hundreds of training videos for you to master the latest software. What is sometimes overlooked is that it is just as valuable a resource for sharpening your business skills. For example, Management Fundamentals with Britt Andreatta is a two hour course which covers all the essentials of good management - hiring, coaching, motivating and delegating. Lynda.com has dozens of training courses like this, taught by professionals in the field. 

As a current AU student, faculty or staff, you have access to all of Lynda.com's tutorials and resources. First, go to www.american.edu/lynda and log in with your AU credentials. It may be the first step on your remarkable business career.

Learn Photoshop like a preschooler — with puppets!

The end of the semester is upon us, which means that term projects and presentations are rearing their ugly heads. If the activity in the New Media Center is anything to go by, professors from across campus are now expecting students to use media in their presentations. This is expected for graphic design, film, and communications classes, but for a political science student who's never touched Photoshop, it can be intimidating.

If you're new to the world of media software and need someone to explain it to you like you're a toddler, look no further than "Fafa's Photoshop Tutorial," a video tutorial on the basics of Photoshop as presented by puppets. It's equal parts adorable and informative for first-time users.

Remember that if you need personal, human help with media software, the New Media Center staff are available to help out whenever we're open.

The semester is over when? I need software training QUICK!

Lynda.com can now be accessed from this url: http://www.american.edu/lynda
This is the fastest way to get to all the Lynda.com resources. It's an easy to remember address and gives all the information a user would need - login requirements, products available, tech support information, mobile access, sample videos, and links to Lynda's newest tutorials and newsletter. AU students, faculty and staff have access to ALL the resources at Lynda.com. Just go to the url above not to www.lynda.com.

Green Screen in Final Cut Pro X

Are you looking to move to the next level in Final Cut Pro X? Here's a great Youtube tutorial on using green screen effect in Final Cut Pro X.



Final Cut Pro X - Chroma Key Green Screen

1. Place Video to be green-screened in the timeline
- Tip: Object to be green-screened should be placed in front of a flat green space

2. Crop out part area of video that is not green with the crop tool in the viewer

3. Open Effects Browser in Toolbar - (shortcut F5)

4. Go to Keying - Keyer - apply to video
- Applies green screen keying right away

6. Open up Inspector (Cmd 4)

7. Refine Tool for specific edges
- See inspector for specific tools to assist in image
- Final Cut does a really nice job of eliminating any winkles, edges, etc.

Lynda has a new Foundations of Audio Series + more new audio courses!

Lynda.com has announced the release of many new Audio courses to help you create songs, soundtracks, and voice recordings while learning the basics of audio software.

New courses for beginners include Audio Mixing Bootcamp, GarageBand ’11 Essential Training, and a brand-new Foundations of Audio series, including EQ and Filters and Compression and Dynamic Processing. Use these courses to produce audio tracks for both personal and professional projects, including home movies and slideshow presentations.

View a list of audio courses.

Excerpted from Lynda.com

New URL creates easier access to Lynda!

Lynda can now be accessed from this url: http://www.american.edu/lynda
This is the easiest way to get to all the Lynda.com resources. It's an easy to remember address and gives all the information a user would need - login requirements, products available, tech support information, mobile access, sample videos, and links to Lynda's newest tutorials and newsletter. Check it out!

Learn how to do an Earth zoom in After Effects

This 23 minute video tutorial from Video Copilot teaches you how to do an Earth zoom from San Francisco all the way out to space. Check it out here.

Lynda.com - + new features, - confusing interface

For a number of years, Lynda.com's online tutorials have been AU's primary resource for software training. These excellent online training tutorials offer thousands of hours of instruction for AU faculty, students and staff. AU has a multi-year license to provide these, free of charge, to the AU community, whether they are on campus or off.

Recently Lynda.com changed their interface as they introduced their Lynda Campus product. The good new is that for the first time this lets users track which videos they have watched, bookmark videos to review later, and save certificates of completion when they finish tutorials.

Unfortunately, to do this Lynda.com makes it mandatory for users to create a personal login before they can go to the tutorials. Poor design makes it look like a user is signing up for an individual account with Lynda.com. Don't worry, once you create a login, you will still have access through your AU affiliation and there will be no charge.

For information about accessing Lynda.com, you can search ALADIN for Title = Lynda.com.

Remove Scratches from DVDs with Liquid Metal Polish

The Consumerist blog lead us to an old post on the Wise Bread blog which discusses several interesting methods for removing scratches from CDs or DVDs. Suggested methods include using tooth paste, a banana, chewing gum, and most effectively - Brasso, or any liquid metal polish.

This video shows you how it's done, but as a reminder, never try this at home with an American University Library Media Services DVD. Just return and report any problems you have, and leave the repairs to the trained professionals: us!

DMS Help: The "Sin City Effect"

The so-called "Sin City effect" is a color-correction technique in which a range of colors is left saturated with color while the rest of an image (can be still or video) is completely desaturated to black and white. The effect is called the "Sin City effect" because it was used widely in Robert Rodriguez' film "Sin City."

But you don't need a Hollywood post-production budget to do it. In fact, all you need is Final Cut Pro and a few minutes.

Check out the video below and stylize your next project:

DMS Help: Learn Any Adobe Product on Adobe TV

Need to learn how to use an Adobe product fast? No problem. Just tune in to Adobe TV.

I know, sounds weird right. But it's not. In fact, it's really quite awesome.

Adobe TV is a massive online repository of videos about Adobe's multimedia production software. Not only are there a HUGE number of tutorials spanning beginning to advanced techniques, there are also tons of instructive interviews with industry professionals on a wide variety of topics like video production, photography and web design.

Check out Adobe TV. You won't be disappointed. Especially since it's all free!

Interactive Media: Flash, pt 5 - Getting Started with Action Script

Action Script 3.0 (AS3) is Adobe's programming language. It is used in the applications Flash and Flex to develop interactive web applications, interactive animations and games.

AS3 is a complete and fully functional object-oriented programming language which can handle a vast array of interactivity-related tasks such as handling key stroke and mouse click events to playing video and audio to handling AR input via a webcam. Moreover, since AS3 is part of the Flash platform it is fully integrated with Flash's drawing and animating capabilities and therefore allows referencing pre-made art and objects in your very simple.

So what's the catch, you ask? The catch is that AS3 is not the easiest programming language to learn. But never fear, Adobe is here for you.

One of the very best places to begin learning AS3 is a series of videos presented on Adobe TV: Actionscript 1:1 with Doug Winnie. In nearly 50 short videos, Doug takes you through AS3 programming step-by-step. By the time you're half way through you'll know enough to begin developing your own games. Check out Doug's videos and start creating your own interactive media.

Interactive Media: Flash, pt 3 - Get Started with Flash

Once you've found yourself a place to work with Flash, either here in the DMS or at home on your brand new copy of Flash, you need to learn how to use it.

Before you can animate or make games, you need to learn how to draw in Flash. Games and animation require characters and backgrounds.

As it happens there's an excellent hour-long tutorial on just this subject.

Most of the tutorials on CartoonSmart cost money, but not this most basic one on drawing in Flash. Watch it and you'll be ready to roll for the next step in no time.

Todd's Tips: The Best Format for Apple Video Editing Software

Apple video editing software loves .dv files.

A .dv file is a fairly uncompressed video format which is commonly found on the Macintosh platform. Despite its size it works seamlessly with both iMovie and Final Cut Pro.

By seamlessly I mean that it is not necessary to render your footage in Final Cut Pro and cuts take no time at all in iMovie.

How do I get my footage into .dv format you ask? Not a problem, you'll use Visual Hub of course. And here's how:

DMS Help: The DMS Welcomes the iGrabber

Geniatech's iGrabber is one of the more revolutionary gadgets to come to the DMS in a while.

The iGrabber is a video capture device which allows users to capture video from camcorders, VHS tapes, DVD titles and TV. Simple to use, it will make class clip-mash up projects simpler than they ever have been.

These excellent little devices have been, along with their easy to use software package, installed on all 8 DMS macs.

Stop by and try one out for yourself. You won't be disappointed.

Also, for those of you who are less familiar with video capture technology in general, here's a handy video tutorial which will show you exactly how to use it.

DMS Help: Getting Started in Adobe?

Just getting started with using Adobe's creative suite? Always wanted to learn Photoshop?

Here's a way you can get some lessons for free.

Around the time Adobe released CS3 there was a huge boom in tutorials on the internet aimed at Adobe beginners. One site, TechTutor TV is still up and running.

While the tutorials are done in Adobe CS3, the techniques, and in many cases even the application layout, is still the same in CS5, Adobe's current version.

So check out the site. There are a huge number of tutorials available and they are all free!

DMS Help: Media Services Serves Up Math Help. O rly??

Ok, so math tutorials are not really DMS Help, but this particular website certainly is worth knowing about for a couple of reasons.

For those who don't know, Salman Khan is the MIT-educated creator of the not-for-profit educational website Khan Academy.

Salman, or "Sal" as he likes to be called, began developing video tutorials to help his nephew with math. His site now houses more than 2,100 tutorials on a wide variety of subjects both in and out of the mathematical realm: basic algebra, calculus, differential equations, biology, chemistry, astronomy and physics to name a few.

While Khan Academy is certainly a great place to get help with your homework and study for exams (there are a huge number of practice problems on the site as well), there's something relevant here for media-makers as well.

One of the things one notices right off is that these are LOW-tech videos. He's using a simple screen-capture software and hand-writing all of the work he does. And despite this, his website has amassed over 58 million video views. Some schools are even using Khan's videos as supplements to their instruction. With that in mind it's worth considering the notion that a simple and solid concept is often much more effective than a sparkling execution.

Multimedia Resources @ AU

Whether you are putting together a slide presentation, creating a video assignment, or working on your film thesis, there are a host of resources available at AU to both students and faculty. Unfortunately these are scattered all over campus – in the Library, in the New Media Center, in the School of Communication. Until now it has been difficult to find information about what resources are where. There is now a webpage which is one location for information about multimedia production resources all over campus-
http://www.american.edu/training/multimedia/index.cfm
• Looking for a Mac lab? The webpage has information about the main multimedia labs on campus, their hours, facilities, and restrictions.
• Tracking down the specific software application you need can be difficult. The webpage has a matrix of what software is in each of the major labs. It also lists which version of each application is available so you don’t get caught by incompatibility problems.
• Where can you borrow a tripod to shoot your video assignment? A list of circulating hardware is included as well as user manuals for cameras, audio recorders and, yes, tripods.
• Getting started. The webpage has information about software specific training sessions held in the multimedia labs. There are also links to comprehensive online training sites like Lynda.com and AdobeTV. Before you begin a video project, you might want to look at “Getting Pro Results from a Compact Camera”.

You can find the Multimedia Resources @ AU webpage linked from the www.american.edu/training pages and from the www.american.edu/library/mediaservices pages.

Dreamweaver CS5 Tutorial: How to Design a Website

Although we always recommend you use lynda.com when you may have questions on Digital Media Studio software, here is a tutorial for Dreamweaver CS5 on how to design a website.

Dreamweaver CS4 Tutorial: How to Design a Website

Although we always recommend you use lynda.com when you may have questions on Digital Media Studio software, here is a tutorial for Dreamweaver CS4 on how to design a website.