Hello Hello. It’s been quite some time since my last blog post. Work has been busy, but it’s finally back to a manageable pace. I’ll kick off my first blog of the year with a tutorial covering static graphics made in Photoshop that are intended for use in Final Cut Pro.

First, create a new Photoshop project. The canvas should be the same size as your video frame and consistent with the pixel aspect ratio. In this example, I’ve got my project set up for SD Widescreen video:

Then make your graphic. Here I just made an ugly smiley face, but you may have to export a still image from FCP to use as a place holder in Photoshop if you’re creating something like a lower third. Notice the transparency around the smiley face and also notice the drop shadow. I’ve simply made my graphic the way I want to it appear on in my video.

Next we have to add the Alpha channel. The Alpha channel is what allows FCP to know that there is transparency. Without the Alpha channel, FCP would replace the transparency as solid white.

Go to the toolbar at the top of your screen and go to Windows > Actions. Now look for a folder called “Video Actions.” If it isn’t there, go to the top right corner of the Actions window and click on the tiny icon that looks like three horizontal lines. In the menu that opens, you’ll find “Video Actions” at the bottom. Once you’ve opened the Video Actions folder, click on “Alpha Channel from Visible Layers,” and then click the play button at the bottom of the Actions window.

A menu will pop up warning you that the alpha channel will be created based on the visible layers. So be sure any layers you don’t want in the final graphic are not active in the Layers palate. Then click continue.

You have now added a perfect Alpha channel. You can go to the Channels palate and turn it on to see how nicely it came out. Notice the perfect ramp transparency in the drop shadow (actually, that will be more obvious when it’s over top of video).

The last thing we have to do is save this as a .tiff file. I like .tiff because you can maintain the layers. So if later I find I need to modify my graphic, it’s as simple as opening it in Photoshop, making the changes, recreating the Alpha channel, and then saving. The file will update automatically in FCP.

The reason why I don’t like bringing .psd files into FCP is because they want to open in FCP as their own sequence with each photoshop layer on its own video track. Then you have to copy/paste all those layers on top of your other video tracks. It’s much messier in my opinion.

Go to File > Save As. In the dialog box, change the format you’re saving to as TIFF. Give your file a name, select where you’d like to save it, then click Save. Another dialog box pops up. Select the options I chose here, but notice I DID NOT select the “Save Transparency” option. This will actually confuse FCP if you choose it.

Click OK and your graphic is good to go. Import it into FCP and see how it came out.

As you can see, this is an award-winning graphic. Just look at that perfect drop shadow. Who woulda thunk making graphics for FCP was so easy?

As usual, feel free to email me with any questions. If it’s a good one, I may use it for a tutorial.