Outside Help with Edit Original

Now that I've told you how to use Premiere's Adobe Title Designer, the next thing I'm going to tell you is that you don't have to use the Adobe Title Designer. Confused? You'll see. If you run into circumstances where you need to move above and beyond what Premiere can do, you'll need to look for outside help. I don't mean hiring freelancers or subcontracting other talent. I mean incorporating the power of other products such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects. Why am I bringing this up in this chapter? Although the Adobe Title Designer inside Premiere has many of the features you need to add titles to your program, you might want to look at the advantages these other applications offer in order to add a more professional touch. And it's easy.

note

Many other third-party plug-ins and applications can be used with Premiere. In regards to seamless integration when making changes, Adobe products seem to offer the most benefit while being the easiest to use.

Premiere has a feature that lets you import files from other programs, edit them into your timeline just like any other media clip, and maintain their relationship with the original authoring tool. This function is called Edit Original. In the past, after you imported a file into Premiere, it was converted into a native Premiere file. If you wanted to make any changes, you had to export it, make the changes, and possibly even reimport it into Premiere. Now, as long as you have the application you originally developed the file in on your computer, you can edit those files inside that application without having to export and reimport with Premiere. Almost all Adobe programs integrate seamlessly with one another.

Let's look at a quick example with Photoshop. You will see how you can create the same types of titles in Photoshop as you can in Premiere, but then you can incorporate some advantages offered in Photoshop that the Adobe Title Designer doesn't offer. This is only the tip of the iceberg. If you really know the ins and outs of Photoshop, Illustrator, or After Effects, you can go wild and create unbelievable titles. The following example discusses how to work with titles, but these tools can be used beyond just text.

In case you're unfamiliar with Photoshop, I'll give you the 3-second tutorial. To integrate outside applications seamlessly within Premiere, do the following:

1. Launch Photoshop, and create a new file by selecting File > New or by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-N (Windows) or Command-N (Macintosh).

2. In the New file settings window, shown in Figure 9.16, enter the values to match the size of the video frame you'll be editing in, such as 320 x 240 for multimedia or 720 x 486 for NTSC video. (See Chapter 2, "Source Material: Getting It into Premiere," for more information on choosing the size of your project.) Set the Resolution to 72 pixels per inch, and set the Mode to RGB Color. Click OK.

   Figure 9.16. The New file settings window in Photoshop.

   

3. Select the Type tool from the Tools window. The Type Tool window appears.

4. Begin typing your text, and apply any attributes as desired. (Here's where you need to know a bit of Photoshop to get creative.)

5. When finished, save your file by selecting File > Save or by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-S (Windows) or Command-S (Macintosh). I recommend saving it as a native Photoshop document (.PSD). This way, you can maintain and adjust any layers independently if you need to make changes later in your project.

   Note that if you're creating a 720 x 486 D1 file, you are working in a slightly different aspect ratio (square pixels versus a .9 pixel aspect) when put onto tape. This in effect makes your image look more squashed vertically than it actually is. Be aware of this as you create your graphics, especially if you are creating circular designs.

6. Launch Premiere, and select the bin where you want to import your text.

7. Import the file you created in Photoshop by selecting File > Import or by right-clicking (Windows) or Option-clicking (Macintosh) in the Project window. Select Import from the pop-up menu.

8. Select File from the submenu (or Folder if you have created and saved multiple files in one folder and you want to import them all at once).

9. The Layered Selection window appears. Select Merged Layers if you want all the layers as they appear together, or select the individual layer you want to import. Click OK.

10. Edit the file into your timeline as you would any other media clip, as shown in Figure 9.17.

    Figure 9.17. Using Photoshop or other third-party software to create text for Premiere.

    

Now, when you need to make changes to that file, you can directly from the timeline:

1. Right-click (Windows) or Option-click (Macintosh) the text segment you created in Photoshop.

2. Select Edit Original from the pop-up menu. This automatically opens Photoshop.

3. Make all necessary changes, such as adding soft drop shadows, a blur filter, and so on.

4. When you're finished making changes, save the file.

tip

With text, you might want to just select the layer that has the text, because it is ready to be edited over other video tracks without your having to apply any transparency effects.

When you return to Premiere, any changes you made to the file in Photoshop are automatically updated in Premiere, as shown in Figure 9.18. Keep in mind that you might need to render the clip or hold down the Alt key to preview the changes in your timeline. This flexibility to use the power of Photoshop (or any of the other Adobe design products) allows you to create any type of professional titling in your project with virtually no limits.

Figure 9.18. Use the powerful attributes found in Photoshop to create more professional titles than what's available inside Premiere's Title tool.