The other day, I was inspired by the movie, “Chronicle” to reproduce the titles shown at the end of the movie in Sony Vegas. It’s a very simple effect yet adds a nice little pop to titles and credits. In a nutshell, you’ll learn how to mask media events to make them transparent so that we can add any image or video behind them. Be sure to watch the video tutorial above to fully understand the power of masking.

In this written tutorial, we’ll mainly focus on how to mask text to reproduce the effect from the movie, “Chronicle“.

Step 1: Add Background Elements

Before we add any text, lets add what we want in the background.

You can use anything you want here like some digital glitch footage or even a still image. I provided a short clip of digital glitch from which you can download below.

[button url=”https://s3.amazonaws.com/robertsproductions/downloads/Glitch_Footage.zip” size=”medium” variation=”green”]Download Digital Glitch (42.9MB)[/button]

[highlight1 variation=”green”]Windows Media Audio/Video file (.wmv) 1280 x 720 42.9MB Length: 00:01:00[/highlight1]

If you added a still image, you can make it move by adding the TV Simulator and Film Grain effects using the following settings.

[tabs_framed] [tab title=”TV Simulator Settings”]

[/tab] [tab title=”Film Grain Settings”]

[/tab] [/tabs_framed]

Step 2: Add Text

Under Media Generators in Vegas, add your preferred text preset whether it’s the ProType Titler or the standard Titles & Text. I found the standard Titles & Text Default preset worked best since I didn’t need anything too fancy.

Be sure to keep your text “White”.

Step 3: Composite Mode

Change the Composite Mode for the track with the text media to, “Multiply (Mask)”. Your text should now be transparent and should show the background footage.

You’re free to animate the text however you’d like. I made it zoom in a bit for each title.

Note: Everything under the Masked track won’t be visible unless there’s footage to mask. Place any other media in a track above the Masked track.

Change Mask Background Color

To change the masks background color we need to add some media in an entirely new video track below everything else.

Once added you may not see the color or video clip appear right away. This is because we need to parent the glitch footage with the text. You can do this by clicking Make Compositing Child on the glitch video track.

Now you should be able to see the background color you added.

Alternate Way of Masking Text

If you want to make the area behind the text a different color, change the text color in the Generated Text Media to transparent and the background to any color of your choice. You don’t need to change the composite mode for this method. Just leave it at, “Source Alpha”.

That’s it! You’ve just learned a few masking techniques in Sony Vegas. You can do this to anything as long as the area to be masked is white.

This written tutorial was mainly focused on masking text. What are some things you’ve done to make text stand out more? Leave your response in the comments below!

The post Sony Vegas: Masking appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

The other day while stepping on the scale, I first thought, wow what did the Holidays do to me!? After my brief moment, I then thought it would be cool to make a Digital Liquid Crystal Display like on the scale or gas pumps in Photoshop. A few days later, here I am writing this tutorial! Let’s begin!

Video Tutorial:

Written Tutorial:

 Open up Photoshop and create a new document. File > New. We can name this, “LCD Display“. I set the size to 800x300px for the width and height. With a White background, Click OK.

In our new document, grab the Rectangle Tool() and draw out a rectangle. Name it, “LCD BG“.

You can CTRL or Command click to select the Background layer and with the Move tool() selected center it Horizontally and Vertically by clicking the appropriate buttons on the toolbar.

Now that we’re all centered, lets add some layer styles to the LCD BG layer. You can double-click the LCD BG layer to open up its layer styles or go to Layer > Layer Style > Gradient Overlay. We need to change the Gradient colors to the following, c0c8ad, and bcbfa1.

Lets also give it a stroke (not the medical term). Size: 6px and Position: Inside.

If you’d like, you can even add an Inner Shadow to this with any settings you prefer.

Alright we’re halfway done! We now need to create the LCD text. But before we do this, we need to download the font. I got my font from Dafont.com. I’ll use the font called DS-Digital which you can get from here. Click the links to learn how to install fonts for Windows and Mac.

Select the Text Tool() and choose the font you’ve just installed. I used a font size of 190 pt and choose White for the color making sure it’s Right-Aligned.

Click a little off the LCD BG layer to place the text so Photoshop doesn’t think we’re trying to type inside that layer. Type 888.8 and position it in the center of the LCD BG layer following the same methods we used to center the LCD BG layer.

Once centered, lets bring the opacity of the new text layer down to anywhere between 10-15%. This is going to serve as the faded numbers you see in the background of LCD displays.

Duplicate the 888.8 text layer by clicking it and dragging it down to the new layer icon or hit Ctrl-J. Bring the opacity for that layer back up to 100%. This will be our main numbers.

Change the font color of the 888.8 copy layer to Black. We can also lock the original 888.8 layer so we don’t accidentally start typing on it. Go ahead and type in whatever number you’d like to display here now.

If the numbers don’t fit perfectly, you’ll need to create a new text layer for the particular number that doesn’t fit and position it to where it’ll fit in. I unlocked and brought the opacity up for the main 888.8 layer just to see how I could better align the number 1.

Looking good! Lastly we can add some noise. Ctrl click the LCD BG thumb to select it.

Create a new layer either by clicking the appropriate button() or by going to Layer > New > Layer.

Go to Edit > Fill and fill it in with White. You can deselect it by hitting Ctrl or Cmd-D or by going to Select > Deselect up in the menu.

Go to Filer > Noise > Add Noise. Amount: 95%, Distribution: Uniform, Monochromatic: Checked. Click OK.

Change the blend mode of this layer to, “Overlay” and bring the opacity down anywhere between 10-15%.

There you have it! A neat looking Digital LCD Display! Use your imagination and see how you can incorporate this in any of your future projects. An idea would be to make your calculator to say things such as your name.

Download LCD Display .PSD! 937.3 KB

Click here to learn how to make this Scale!

Click here for this LED Clock effect! >>

The post Photoshop: Liquid Crystal Display appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

Looking for some fun holiday tutorials? Here is a list I compiled of some pretty great holiday tutorials you can use to add some funk to your holiday projects.

Photoshop – Snow Text Effect

Photoshop CS4: Let it Snow!

The post Holiday Tutorial Roundup appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

Today, I’ll show you how to create this “Cool Blue” text effect I put together in Photoshop. You can download the PSD file below! If you like this, feel free to share it along!

How-to:

1. Start Photoshop and create a new document. I set the size to 1280px by 720px but you can make it bigger or smaller depending on the project your working on. Next I added some text with the following styles;

• Font: Impact
• Size: 274 pt
• Color: #00a9e8

2. Then I’ve added the following layer styles to my text layer.

• Drop Shadow
• Inner Shadow
• Inner Glow
• Bevel and Emboss
• Stroke

I’ve also added a nice little grey background for the text too. That’s it! You can download the PSD below and copy the layer styles from my text layer to your own!

Download

Click the button on the above to download the PSD File!

If you liked this and are looking forward to more, please post your thoughts in the comments below! I only want to create content useful to you guys so hopefully this helps!

The post Photoshop PSD: Cool Blue Text appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how you can add your very own photo inside of text in Photoshop CS5. You’ll learn the basics of using Clipping Masks.

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If you have any Photoshop tutorial requests, feel free to leave a comment below and I will try my best to fulfill those requests.

The post Photoshop – Add a Photo in Text with Clipping Mask appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

Today, VinhSon Nguyen from CreativeDojo.net is going to be taking a look at how to synchronize multiple text layers to a main control text layer for easy management and organization. This very basic, but overlooked technique comes in handy especially in motion graphics or template making.

Watch Video

The post Synchronizing Text Using Source Text in After Effects appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

In this tutorial, I will show you how you can create some realistic folded paper text in Photoshop CS5.

BG Project File: http://goo.gl/ibmQp
Final Project Files: http://goo.gl/teCf3
Get Paper Textures: http://goo.gl/MGs5u

See how to make background: http://goo.gl/OSq86

The post Photoshop – Realistic Folded Paper Text appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a cool looking alien text in Photoshop. Hope this helped. Thanks for watching.

Want to request a tutorial? Fill out the moderator section on my channel.

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Site: https://www.robertsproductions.net

The post Photoshop – Alien Text appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

In this tutorial, I show you how to create some shiny metallic text in Photoshop CS5. Thanks for Watching. Hope this Helped.

Created By: https://www.robertsproductions.net
Twitter: http://twitter.com/robsproduction

The post Photoshop – Shiny Metallic Text Effect appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.