AV News Magazine | Page 23

AV News 196 - May 2014 Referring to software review sites can create further confusion. Different reviews offer different recommendations and list entirely different pros and cons for the same software package. Fortunately those lucky enough to own Adobe Photoshop CS5 or CS6 Extended versions already own high quality video editing software. This is incorporated within the 'Photoshop Extended' version package along with 3D capabilities. CS6 launched in May 2012 included improvements to the video timeline engine previously used in CS5, and is now more than a match for many of the specialist stand alone editing software packages currently available. As you would expect Photoshop Extended version handles numerous video file formats including the most popular AVI, DV, FLV and F4V, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, plus some formats not quite so popular. Files can be imported using the file open command or simply by dragging and dropping video files directly into Photoshop's Timeline. A rendered video can be exported in formats that include DPX (Digital Picture Exchange), MOV (QuickTime), and MP4 (Moving Picture Experts Group) these include dozens of pre-sets for particular applications including H.264, YouTube, iPhone, Android phone, Quicktime, and many others. Above is a full screen view of Photoshop Extended showing its Video Timeline. When importing or opening video clips this timeline view will appear automatically, you can however open the timeline from the 'Window' option by ticking 'Timeline' in the drop down menu. The large top image is a movie preview of the active video clip. In this example three videos named Clip 1, 2, and 3 are loaded into a 'Video Group' on one line, i.e. the purple (active clip) and two coloured blue. Note 'Video Groups' combine multiple clips and other content such as text, shapes, still images, fades, cross fades etc on a single track in the timeline. Also in our above example another video clip named Clip 4 Overlay sits outside this group above the others Page 21