Category Archives: 2D

Ramblings, Tips and Tricks around 2D drawing apps such as Photoshop, Manga Studio, SketchBook and the likes.

How to export multiple timelines at once in Premiere

2D

I recently had the need to encode several audio clips I had edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5. That’s easy if you export one timeline at a time, by selecting the sequence, then click File – Export – Media. 

But this principle doesn’t work if you have several sequences that need to be exported. 

An article in the Adobe Forums suggests how to do this using After Effects as an intermediary, but it seemed very convoluted and a total hack. Besides, I don’t have After Effects so that’s not really a solution.

Convinced that there had to be a better way, I had a quick fiddle – and lucky for me I’ve discovered an easy workaround that I’ll share with you here. I’m using Premiere Pro CS 5.5, so I’m assuming it’ll work in later versions too.

Continue reading How to export multiple timelines at once in Premiere →





How to pixelate text in Photoshop

2D

In this screencast I’ll demonstrate how to pixelate or obfuscate text in Photoshop.

I usually use Skitch for such things, but one day it wasn’t working, and all I had to hand was Photoshop – so I hunted around and found that it works just as well. It’s just knowing what to click. Once I figured that out, I thought why not share it with the world.

Here are some written instructions, just in case you’re not a video person.

Using the rectangular marquee tool (M), draw a selection around the area you’d like to pixelate. 

Now head over to Filter – Pixelate – Mosaic to bring up a little dialogue box.

Here you can select the Cell Size, meaning how pixelated you’d like the selection to appear. Photoshop even gives you a preview option – how nice is that?

When you’re happy, click OK and Photoshop will burn your pixelation into the selected layer. Press CMD+D to deselect the marquee, or head over to Select – De-select. Next, share your anonymous masterpiece with the world.

Happy pixelating!





How to run Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 in 2017

2D

I had some editing to do the other day that, for one reason or another, I wanted to do on my Windows machine. I tried several open-source utilities, but none of them can cut the mustard like Adobe Premiere Pro can.

However, the only legitimate version I have is Premiere Pro CS3, vintage 2007, purchased for good money back then (which I’ve all made back, thanks to a three-day editing job I got for BBC interactive, literally a week after I bought it). Those were the days before Full HD video was commonplace, and way before anyone dared to mention the idea of 4K. But I digress.

So I tried to install Premiere under Windows 10, and to my surprise all worked rather well – until the registration part came and told me that this app could no longer be activated. 

Let’s see how we can bring this version back to live in 2017. Continue reading How to run Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 in 2017 →





Handy Keyboard Shortcuts in Adobe Premiere Pro

2D

Here’s a list of handy keyboard shortcuts for Adobe Premiere Pro. I keep forgetting these little helpers every 6 months or so… 

By no means an extensive or complete list, here are the ones that I like using:

Timeline

  • SPACE – Playback at 100%
  • K – Stop
  • J – Play 100% backwards (multiple presses accelerates back)
  • L – Play 100% forwards (multiple presses accelerates forwards)
  • Left Cursor – step forward one frame
  • Right Cursor – step back one frame
  • \ (Backslash) – toggle between zoomed in and full view of the timeline
  • Fn + Up (or Page Up) – jump to the next edit point
  • Fn + Down (or Page Down) – jump to the previous edit point
  • Fn + Left – jump to the beginning of the sequence
  • Fn + Right – jump to the end of the sequence

Editing

  • V – Selection Tool
  • B – Ripple Edit Tool
  • N – Rolling Edit Tool
  • X – Rate Stretch Tool
  • C – Razor Tool

Import / Export

  • CMD/CTRL+M – Export Media
  • CMD+I – Import Media

Create your own Shortcuts

Premiere has a handy menu in which we can lookup existing shortcuts, as well as setup our own. There are so many functions, and not all of them have pre-defined shortcuts. Head over to Premiere Pro – Shortcuts and save whole sets of shortcut setups.

Needless to say, we can also change existing shortcuts to something more personal here.





How to create a Bokeh Effect in Photoshop

2D

Photoshop has an interesting set of filters that let us turn ordinary images into fascinating Bokeh Effects. Those can be useful as a nice alternative for gradient backgrounds due to the elements of randomness they can bring, or for foreground effects akin to those created with plastic cameras. 

The above uses a Bokeh Effect as additional foreground pattern. Let’s see how it’s done. Continue reading How to create a Bokeh Effect in Photoshop →





How to mute the mic voice when recording a voice over in Premiere Pro

2D

I recently recorded a quick voiceover in Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5, but I ran into an issue for which the fix wasn’t exactly obvious. Here’s the problem:

When you mark a track to record some audio and start the recording, the full mix is being played back through your speakers (or headphones). This includes your own voice with a small delay which is useful in a studio setup, but not so much when you’re the only operator on the setup.

How can we turn it off? Turns out there is, as always, a solution to the puzzle.

Head over to Preferences – Audio and find an option that reads Mute input during timeline recording. Once checked, your own voice will still be recorded, but no longer played through the mix at the time of recording.





How to open and convert multiple raw images in Photoshop

2D,

Opening several JPG or PNG images in Photoshop is the easiest thing in the world: just select several in the Windows Explorer or in the Mac Finder, right-click to choose Open, and Photoshop brings in each image as a new document.

But when we try the same with raw images, it won’t work: although Photoshop shows us the raw processing dialogue for all our chosen images, and lets us make individual changes, as soon as we hit Open at the bottom, only the current image is opened as a new document.

What gives? How can we open and convert several images at once? Continue reading How to open and convert multiple raw images in Photoshop →





How to draw with an image in Photoshop

2D

Sometimes we want to reproduce an image using a brush stroke. It’s a handy way to replicate a 2D object along a path for example. Using the standard brush for this though, we’ll find that we can only reproduce a single colour image. But what if we want to reproduce all colours in our image?

Enter the Mixer Brush Tool. Here’s how to sample an image and draw with it in Photoshop. Continue reading How to draw with an image in Photoshop →





How to create a drape effect in Photoshop

2D

It’s easy to create an effect of draped cloth in Photoshop, like in the image above. We can do this with the Gradient Tool. It’s the icon with an actual gradient on it, sometimes hiding behind the Paint Bucket or 3D Material Drop tool (if you don’t see it, left-click and hold for about one second for the multiple icons to appear, or press the keyboard shortcut G repeatedly).

Once selected, choose Difference as the mixing mode at the top left of the screen, and make sure that the colours are set to back and white (other colours can give “very creative” effects shall we say).

Now start moving your cursor in short strokes from left to right, then right to left. Every time you change direction, the image is inverted. Add a diagonal stroke in every so often. You’ll create magnificent drape effects in no time!