» Posts Tagged ‘software’
Adobe Extends 40% Discount on Creative Cloud to June 2013
So much for the deal expiring at the end of August — Adobe’s offer of their entire Creative Suite for $30/month (as opposed to $50/month) is now available until June of 2013 for current CS users (CS3 or later). You have to sign up for a full year of Creative Cloud but the savings totals $240; I myself am a satisfied Creative Cloud user, and who doesn’t like saving 40%? More »
Discounts on Final Draft Writer App and Final Draft 8 End Sept. 30
We’ve posted about these discounts before, but since both deals expire shortly, it’s worth mentioning one last time. Final Draft is selling its long-awaited Writer app for iPad at the App Store for $29.99 until Sept. 30, a 40% savings off the list price of $49.99. If you’re not a Final Draft user or you need to upgrade to Final Draft 8, The Writers Store is selling its Final Draft 8 Platinum Edition Package for $169 (32% off Final Draft 8 sticker price) and Final Draft 8 upgrades for $59 (40% discount). The Writers Store discounts also end Sept. 30, so if you’re looking to making the switch or upgrade to Final Draft 8, or add Final Draft Writer to your mobile arsenal, time is of the essence. Check out the video below for an overview of the new Final Draft Writer. More »
FilmConvert: the Best Film Stock Emulator You've Ever Seen
We’ve said a lot about the digital versus film debate, and a lot of people have a lot of different opinions. Film still had a technological advantage over digital until really the last few years or so, and now we have digital sensors which can match or exceed film stocks with dynamic range. Either way, with digital sensors being “too clean” for some people who have loved the look of film, there is a program called FilmConvert that takes the color information of specific cameras and actually uses that to determine how a specific film stock could best be represented using that sensor. Click through for some videos of the program in action. More »
Coinciding with the long-awaited Final Draft Writer app for iPad finally making its debut at a discounted price until the end of September, The Writers Store is offering its Final Draft 8 Platinum Edition Package (Final Draft 8 plus a collection of screenwriting extras) for $169 — that’s a 32% savings off the Final Draft 8 sticker price alone. For current Final Draft users looking to upgrade, The Writers Store is offering Final Draft 8 upgrades for $59, a 40% savings. The discounts at The Writers Store end on Sept. 30, so don’t miss out if you’ve been considering the switch to Final Draft or upgrading to Final Draft 8. More »
Adobe to Natively Support Apple Macbook Pro Retina Display with Software Updates
In what will surely be welcome news for those who routinely use Photoshop and Premiere, Adobe is planning to natively support the higher resolution display of the new Macbook Pro (as well as any other HiDPI displays in the future). While there are certain creative applications that immediately supported the Retina resolution with software updates (namely Apple’s Final Cut Pro X and Motion), Adobe was not able to offer this support right away. For those who are loving the extra screen resolution, it’s disappointing to then have to open Adobe products only to see them not share the same crispness as the native apps. Not all Creative Cloud applications will receive support (at least at this time), but you can read the full list of programs that will get software updates below. More »
One Week Left to Save 40% on Adobe Creative Cloud CS6 for the Entire Year
We posted this earlier this month, but the deal expires in a week so it’s worth one last notification. If you’re a current user of any Adobe software (CS3 or later), you can upgrade to Adobe’s new all-inclusive Creative Cloud membership for $29.95/month (instead of $49.95) for the first year — a savings of $240. The discount expires at the end of August, so get cracking if you’re thinking of signing up. More »
A Colorist’s Perspective: Practical Comparisons of DaVinci Resolve and Apple Color
This is a guest post by Tristan Kneschke.
With the release of Apple Color several years ago, the once-niche field of high-end color grading trickled down to the average user. When Blackmagic released DaVinci Resolve on Mac it became more obvious that color grading was the next big wave. Having already been grading professionally with Color shortly after it was released, I quickly decided to invest in a traveling DaVinci Resolve Mac Pro tower. The client demand for color grading in particular, and a traveling station specifically, has grown my business at a rate I never thought possible. Now, with Resolve 9 nearing its official, non-beta release, Blackmagic has separated itself even more from Apple’s killed product. More »
Thinking About Upgrading to Adobe CS6? Get a $240 Adobe Creative Cloud Discount This Month Only
I’ve been meaning to do this personally, but almost forgot — so here’s a reminder of an expiring deal. If you’re a current user of any Adobe software (CS3 or later), you can upgrade to Adobe’s new all-inclusive Creative Cloud membership for $29.95/month (instead of $49.95) for the first year — a savings of $240. The discount expires at the end of this month (August), so get cracking if you’re thinking of signing up. More »
Five Screenwriting Software Applications Under $50 (and Free Demos for All)
In the industry, Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter dominate among screenwriting software applications. Full disclosure: I write my scripts on Final Draft. Why? Because when I started to write scripts, you had three choices for software: Final Draft, Movie Magic Screenwriter, or Microsoft Word. Plus, as a production assistant, I was given a copy of Final Draft to type up script revisions for a writer married to his typewriter, so I had an easy entry point with the industry standard. Today, for filmmakers not willing to shell out between $190 and $250 for professional screenwriting software, here are five options ranging from free to $49.95. More »
So you just got hired onto a production as an AC or a Camera Operator, and you know that you have the knowledge, talent, and skill to produce some beautiful images. There’s just one problem: You’ve never laid a hand on the camera that’s being used in the production. It’s probably not going to look too good if you have to spend a lot of time fiddling around in the menus to find the settings you’re looking for, but not to worry. Canon just released a camera simulator for the C300, and there are also simulators available for the Arri Alexa, and the Sony F65: More »
It's Finally Here: Adobe Creative Cloud CS6 is Now Live, But Which Option Should You Choose?
After the software-only version was made available earlier in the week, Adobe Creative Cloud CS6 is live starting today. If the cost of owning this software has been prohibitive for you in the past, Adobe is finally allowing you to “rent” on a month-to-month or yearly basis. If you’ve never purchased the software in the past, the best deal is their plan that charges $50 per month for a year contract. If you just want to try it out on a month-to-month basis, it will be a little more expensive at $75 per month. If you are upgrading, they are doing a special promotion for $30 per month for the first year. More »
Adobe Creative Suite 6 Now Available, Here's How to Get 40% Off a Subscription
Adobe Creative Suite 6 is now available. For filmmakers, the bundle of interest is Production Premium CS6, which includes: a redesigned Premiere Pro, Speed Grade for color grading, the new log and ingest application Prelude, new versions of After Effects and Audition, and Creative Cloud integration. Creative Cloud is scheduled to launch May 11th, and will give you access to all CS6 apps for $50/month — or $30/month for the first year if you’re a registered user of any Adobe product since CS3 and use this link by August 31 (that’s 40% off). The new Premiere Pro integrates some speed-focused features borrowed from Apple’s much-maligned Final Cut Pro X, including “hoverscrub,” which was one of my favorite FCPX features; here’s a look at the new version of Adobe’s NLE. More »
Adobe has launched Creative Suite 6 and is now taking pre-orders (no word on a release date yet). This latest version of Adobe’s Creative Suite includes more Mercury acceleration, adjustment layers in Premiere Pro, Speed Grade for color grading, ray-traced extruded 3D objects and reflections and 3D camera tracking in After Effects, Creative Cloud, and more. You can also check out an overview of the new features in Joe’s post on day 2 at NAB 2012, as well as the official Adobe Production Premium video with Jason Levine: More »
For screenwriting, I’ve been a long-time Final Draft user, but I’ve never been a huge fan. It’s like the Microsoft Word of screenwriting software — ubiquitous and adequate, but not something you’re particularly excited about. I’ve been using it since Version 4, and it has definitely improved since then, but for a $250 program I’ve never felt that it has evolved as much as I’d like. What am I looking for? More structuring and outlining tools. This is where Movie Draft comes in. Note that it’s Mac only available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, it’s rated nearly 5 stars in the Mac App Store, and it only costs $30. More »
Are you ready to add Adobe software to your stack of monthly power, cable, and water bills? Announced in October, Adobe is offering an alternative to their typical software upgrade cycle — instead of buying their forthcoming CS6 suite, you can sign up for Creative Cloud, launching “first half of 2012,” for $49.99 a month. This will get you access to the forthcoming CS6 apps, their new Touch apps, and 20GB of cloud storage. They’re also killing their old upgrade policy — partially. More »
With Story and OnLocation, Adobe has been adding to their better-known video applications (Premiere Pro, After Effects) and transforming their suite into an end-to-end production solution. The latest addition is an application called Prelude, and in San Francisco they recently demoed the new software, which looks to be an on-set ingest and logging program.
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Canon’s EOS Utility software, which includes the ability to edit picture styles on your HDSLR, has not worked on OSX Lion since Apple released the new OS in July. However, Canon has just released version 2.10.4 which remedies this problem. Here’s the deal with this new version: More »
DaVinci Resolve Now Available on Windows Thanks to Free Public Beta
Just because the popular color correction software DaVinci Resolve uses a Mac monitor for its press image (at left) doesn’t mean it’s Mac only — any more. Resolve, which has a free version known fittingly as Resolve Lite, now comes in a Windows version for the first time thanks a newly-released Public Beta. If you have already purchased Resolve for Mac, the Windows version comes included, so you now have a Windows license too. More »
Celluloid is expensive. And besides, literally nobody makes film cameras anymore. But it does have a very particular aesthetic, one chief component of which is grain. There is a grit to film that today’s digital cameras lack, and while there are plenty of plugins out there to simulate this grit, there are no substitutes for the real artifacts. The guys at CineGrain took dozens of different film stocks and painstakingly scanned them in, delivering authentic grain, dirt, headers, tails, lens flares, and flash frames on a nice branded hard drive. Film grain isn’t appropriate for every project, but if you want your video to look like grainy 35mm, 16mm, or 8mm — but can’t shoot the real thing — you’ll find CineGrain to be a handy addition to your toolbox of tricks. More »
I’m not usually big on the blitz of consumerism that is Black Friday here in the United States, but as someone who just upgraded to Adobe CS5.5, I went palm-to-forehead as soon as I saw Adobe’s just-announced Black Friday deals, good until November 29. I should’ve waited! The biggest discounts as far as video folk are concerned is 30% off upgrades to CS5.5 (10% off full versions), 30% off Photoshop, $50 off Lightroom 3, and $50 off any Student/Teacher edition. If you were looking at any Adobe software and you had more patience than I did, check out the sale.
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