Web and Video

The Cafe Townesend tutorials, much loved in Dreamweaver 8, have been updated for Dreamweaver CS3 by Jon Varese. You can find it in the Dreamweaver Developer Center here, starting with part 1:
Part 1: Setting up your site and project files

This is a five part tutorial, so it’s very comprehensive and a great place to start if you’re a web designer starting to work with Dreamweaver.

Here are the other parts:

• Part 2: Creating the page layout
• Part 3: Adding content to pages
• Part 4: Formatting your page with CSS
• Part 5: Publishing your website

Big shout out to Jon for his great work updating this series!

(19 votes, average: 3.95 out of 5)

 Loading ...

One of our readers let me know about a new site they have created that’s dedicated to Flash and math. You can find a whole bunch of excellent tutorials on using ActionScript 3.0 with Flash CS3. One such tutorial focuses on using the display hierarchy, the Stage, and depth management in ActionScript 3.0/Flash:

The types of display objects, the display hierarchy, and the depth management are very different in ActionScript 3 from the earlier versions of the language. In this tutorial, we talk about display objects, parent-child relationship, the Display List, and the mysterious Stage in AS3. We will illustrate the concepts using a simple example of an animated “solar system”.

And you can find it here: http://www.flashandmath.com/intermediate/children/index.html

But seriously - check out this site for a whole bunch more really useful tutorials on ActionScript 3.0 and Flash. It’s a great place to go if you’re new to and/or nervous about using or updating to AS3. Lots of samples, source files, code snippets, and hands-on steps to make things work.

(11 votes, average: 4.64 out of 5)

 Loading ...

This article outlines some of the key tasksfor editing audio in Soundbooth. In the words of the author (Jan Ozer):

In this tutorial, I’ll provide an overview of Soundbooth’s interface and then focus on how to accomplish common tasks like normalization, noise removal, and audio compression.

This article provides a solid and useful overview of various features such as the Record dialog, about removing random and consistent noises from a track, adjusting volume, and applying compression. If you’re unclear whether Soundbooth is for you, this article gives you a good idea of what the various features do, what they’re called, and what they look like. I believe it will give you a better understanding of what you can use the tools for, and if it’s enough to accomplish what you need to do with your audio files. It’s not exactly a tutorial, but it is a helpful overview article, and great if you’re new to Soundbooth (or say, got it in the Production suite and haven’t really used it yet).

You can find the article here on the Event DV website:

http://www.eventdv.net/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=38085

And hey, while I’m at it blogreaders - know of any good Soundbooth tutorials?

(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)

 Loading ...

I found a good tutorial on YouTube by Chad Perkins (of the brothers Perkins …) - it tells you how to export your video from Premiere to iPod.

If you want to put your video on an iPod or cell phones or YouTube, you’re one of those cool podcasters, just own an iPod and Premiere, whatever - this is a good tutorial for you:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1PmGWji4Szk

Chad also outlines how to export from After Effects too, and shows you some of the differences between the two programs.

I like his source footage too. Gotta love that actually-good free domain stuff. Good clip, Chad.  And a good video tutorial.

(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

 Loading ...

If you haven’t used CSS before, but want to start taking advantage of it in Dreamweaver CS3, this is the tutorial for you. It walks you through the fundamentals you need to start styling your documents.

This is what they say:

“This tutorial is designed to introduce the concepts of using CSS in Adobe Dreamweaver and HTML for web designers who are not familiar with CSS in web design.”

You will create a new file and add some styling, images, and even a menu to the page using the features found in Dreamweaver CS3.

If it’s for you, you can check it out here - CSS Basics in Dreamweaver

(11 votes, average: 4.45 out of 5)

 Loading ...

One of the funnest.. ahem… most fun new features in After Effects CS3 is the Puppet Tool. It makes animation incredibly easy. If you’ve tried to do character animation before.. especially with something like Flash.. you’ll know how hard it can be to create all those keyframes and then add motion tweens and shape tweens and try not to break them down the road and so on and so forth.  But the Puppet Tool makes it much easier - you’re pretty much clicking and dragging to make things happen, and often you can end up with something that looks really cool.

We already have a couple tutorials on using the Puppet Tool, but another one can’t hurt.  This one combines Motion with After Effects to create an interesting result.

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/geduldick_jim/Motion_AE.php 

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

If you want to know more about audio in Premiere Pro, then check out this good video tutorial (podcast) from Aanarav Sareen over  at Creative Cow.

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/sareen_aanarav/aud_channel_mapping.php 

Aanarav covers some of the new things you can do with audio mapping introduced in Premiere Pro CS3, and he covers some of the changes you’ll find in the new version of Premiere. It’s short and sweet too, so head over to Creative Cow and check it out

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

This tutorial covers the essentials of motion tracking in After Effects CS3. You learn how to select a region to track, and then you learn how to have an object follow that region. In this tutorial, you have a block of text follow a sailboat that moves across the screen.

It’s a basic concept to learn, but very handy in creating neat effects in your compositions. Head over to the DVPA site and check it out:

http://www.dvpa.com/public/537.cfm

(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

 Loading ...

DigitalMediaNet has an interesting tutorial on using the auto compositing feature in Soundbooth CS3. You learn how to create variations on a single theme sound using the slider tools in the Soundbooth interface. You learn how to use the Intensity, Melody 1, Melody 2 and Volume functions in the Tasks panel.

This is a very simple and short tutorial to follow, a great start to Soundbooth if you haven’t used the program before:
http://digitalprosound.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=96225-0 

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

 Loading ...

Another good tutorial from the Vineyardesigns site, this time on getting started with Fireworks CS3. They have broken down the steps for creating and slicing a simple website layout into four easy-to-follow tasks.

http://www.vineyardesigns.com/resources/fireworks/index.shtml

If you have never used Fireworks CS3 as an image editor, or if you haven’t used an image editor before at all, this tutorial seems like a good place to start. Fireworks is really making itself into a good, full-fledged, prototype-making machine. If you’re creating sites, or prototyping apps, Fireworks is a good tool … and this tutorial is a good place to start.

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

 Loading ...