Frosty Text in Photoshop

Start by filling the background with a solid color or gradient of your choosing, using either the paint bucket or gradient tool. Next type in the text you want to make look frosty using the Text tool. (This works best if the font is really large and bold mine here is around 240px) With the text layer selected click on the “fx” button at the bottom of the layers panel to open the Layer Style dialogue box.  First thing you’ll want to do is turn...

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Track Creation Short Cuts

Taking too long to make tracks in Pro Tools? Here are a few short cuts to get your sessions up and running a little more better: 1. Instead of going to the toolbar and clicking “Track + New,” try pressing Command+Shift+N to open up the track window. 2. Need to add another track? Just press Command+Shift+N again and the track window will extend.3. If you need something other than a Mono Audio track, use Command+The Arrow keys to change what type...

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Digital Performer- How do I get sound?!

In Digital Performer, midi tracks simply record information: the keys you play, the velocity, and so on. In order to "get sound" out of DP, you need to send that information to a sound source- typically, an "instrument track." Instrument tracks host virtual instruments that generate the sound. Let's set up an instrument track by going to Project -> Add Track -> Instrument Track -> BassLine. We'll use BassLine as an example, or you can pick...

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Finale-Piano Fingering

One of the great strengths of Finale is found in its flexibility. You can put any mark anywhere you want in the score. Although the names of the tools tell you their intended use, there are other creative ways of using them to get the results you want. Let's considering piano fingering in finale. We want to put little numbers above the notes-- but how? Furthermore, how could we do this quickly? One way is to use the Lyrics tool, above the "backward...

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Setting up your “Work-Space” in Sibelius

Making your work environment comfortable is one of the most important thing to keep in mind. Often times, Sibelius’s bright sky-blue default desk color makes people tired. Check out this simple, but very useful (and fun!) feature here.Go to the Sibelius Preferences panel, then choose textures. You can set up desk color/texture, also for the paper. There are tons to choose from, or solid color if you are “Simple is the best” kind of person. Note...

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Finale Basic Tips

The end of the semester is fast approaching, which unfortunately also means the due dates for final projects are coming up.  To help you get through your projects maybe a little less painfully, here on the LC tech blog we'll be releasing a series of quick tips to help you troubleshoot some very common questions on many of the programs you'll be using.  Up first is everyone's "favorite" Finale. 1.  How do I change the page size of my Document? Select the "Page Layout" tool Under the "Page Layout" menu select "Page Size" and...

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Create a Thanksgiving Turkey in Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is Adobe Creative Suite's vector graphics program.  Vector graphics instead of creating images from pixels create images from a series of points connected with straight lines or curves.  The advantage of this is they can be enlarged and reduced and still retain a perfect line, unlike bitmap images which get a fuzzy pixelated edge when resized.  So if you are thinking of creating a design that you may need in a variety...

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Flex Time

  One of the best additions to Logic 9 was “Flexible Audio.” Much like ProTools’ “Elastic Audio,” users can now zoom in and fix any audio they want to get that performance just right. And with Logic’s user-friendly design, this feature has been made easier than ever. There are two approaches to using Flexible Audio. If you press ESC, Logic will open up a tool pop-up window listing several features. At the bottom, you will find Flex Tool...

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Adobe Bridge

Today's Blog post by lab monitor Peter B. is about a little used but very useful part of the Adobe Suite-Adobe Bridge. Have you heard of it? Most people have, but nearly all are somewhat confused and ignorant at its purpose in existence. “What could I possibly use Bridge for? All I’m trying to do is to edit some pictures for my website/facebook/tumblr/blog!” As a result, it sits and waits, unused, jealous that Photoshop keeps getting all the clicks...

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Make Your Photo’s Pop In Photoshop

We are kicking Multimedia Week off with a Photoshop post by Leah one of our fine Lab Monitor Supervisors here at the LC. While we would all love to have our pictures taken, brushed up, and beautified in a professional photography studio, not many of us can afford the cost of catalogue worthy photos and must make do with our Cannons, Kodaks, and iPhones. I'm going to show you a little tip or two that you can use in Photoshop (or Gimp!) to give your...

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