Trash 2 (Review)

Trash 2 is a rebirth of the classic distortion plugin used by musicians and filmmakers alike!

Nearly 10 years ago, iZotope released a product called Trash, an audio plugin that gave users a wide array of tools to distort and mangle audio. It has been heavily used by bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Garbage, and Sigur Ros and has served the music and film industry well over the years. Just a few months ago, iZotope released the rebirth of this classic plugin now called Trash 2, and it’s better than ever. Whether you are a sound designer mangling sound effects or a filmmaker looking to add some grit to some background music in your next short film, Trash 2 has an application for everyone in the music and film industry.

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Alloy 2 (Review)

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Alloy 2 gives filmmakers and sound designers seven stellar tools to shape and form audio, arguably one of the most important and yet most ignored parts of a film. Assuming a basic knowledge of mixing, users will love Alloy’s user-friendly interface, wallet-friendly price tag and reliable performance. If you take Alloy 2 for a test run, be sure to pair it with a trial of Ozone 5 and let these products speak for themselves.

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Photoshop Elements 11 (Review)

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Instead of a magical “instant fix” in the Quick path where there are few choices, or an overwhelming list of options in Expert, the new Guided Edits path lets the creative side of the user flow as you do things like add depth of field or a high key effect to a photo. In the Guided area, you are led step-by-step through each phase of adjustment, using your eye and goal for the project. What you get is rather impressive, even if you are an amateur photographer using a point and shoot camera.

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Premiere Elements 11 (Review)

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However, PRE11 seems to be much cleaner and faster. There is very little lag in response time and my old problems of dropped frames, uneven pans, and errors have vanished. To get an accurate preview of the edited video you have to render the Timeline, which used to be a slow process and not always successful. Now the Render tab is on the top of the Timeline and is much more responsive and effective. The preview plays accurately and there are no unpleasant surprises by the final product during publication.

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Reason 6.5 (Review)

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Hailing from Sweden, Reason 6.5 is a music creation program for the Mac and PC. Reason supplies users with everything necessary to create film scores and sound effects from scratch—everything from synthesizers and sampled pianos to drum kits and orchestral strings. Unlike SonicFire Pro, the ability to write music is a prerequisite for this program, and those familiar with playing a musical instrument (preferably the piano) will find this program much easier to navigate. The quality of the sampled instruments is quite good for the price, and the possibilities to create new sounds with digital synthesizers are endless.

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Corel VideoStudio Pro X5 (review)

VideoStudio Pro X5

Corel VideoStudio Pro X5 is a surprisingly powerful video editing tool given it’s really low price tag. While it’s geared towards new editors, or those that just like to “dabble,” there’s a lot to this package that professional editors typically pay a lot more for.

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InDesign CS6 (Review)

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One of Adobe’s established programs has become even easier to navigate, giving novice and advanced users alike the ability to create the marketing pieces they need to professionally sell their products. At first glance, InDesign may seem like a program only for creating print pieces such as flyers, magazines and books. But InDesign CS6 is so much more.

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Story Plus CS6 (Review)

Story Plus Review Cover

Many of us have had the opportunity over the past year or two to beta test Adobe Story as a screenwriting program that allows you to collaborate online with other writers, producers and directors. Taking in much of the user feedback, Adobe has released Adobe Story PLUS with its latest creative suite.

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Dreamweaver CS6 (Review)

Dreamweaver CS6 Cover

Dreamweaver CS6 is another solid, stable and innovative release from Adobe. While there certainly isn’t a major jump in new features when upgrading from Dreamweaver CS5.5 to CS6, fluid grid layouts and the ability to integrate PhoneGap and Business Catalyst will be enough from some viewers to spend the money on the upgrade. If you have never purchased Dreamweaver, now is as good of a time as ever to enter the world of web design and app development (Dreamweaver has now made these two creative endeavors one in the same).

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Gimp 2.8 (Review)

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A new feature with version 2.8 is the single window mode. Found as a toggle option in the Windows tab, the single window mode allows for a more cohesive, less cluttered, working environment. Open images appear as thumbnail tabs top center, with dialog boxes affixed to the left and right of the main window. I found this option to be an improved working environment.

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Autodesk Maya 2013 (Review)

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This version of Maya will be more of an advantage to a film crew or microbudget filmmaker. Whether you’re a large production house or a small group of indie filmmakers, it’s a good idea to get familiar with these tools and build on this innovative trend for digital immersion, especially if you intend to make forays into stereography.

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After Effects CS6 (Review)

Adobe After Effects CS6

After Effects is a pretty essential tool for most filmmakers who are incorporating any type of graphic treatment to their work, and this latest update is a major one specifically designed to increase the speed at which you can create, without waiting on your computer. This alone makes this update more or less essential for anyone who relies on After Effects as part of their normal work-flow, but the addition of the camera tracking feature and extruded text are also HUGE.

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Flash Professional CS6 (Review)

Flash Professional CS6

Today, though, despite what Flash has done for the internet and its builders, the climate has drastically changed presenting a frigid reception to the once indispensable toolset. New media devices, like the Apple iPad (with its huge adoption rate), have decided to freeze out the plugin from being used and in so doing splinter the market on utilizing it in production. On top of that, the rise of HTML 5 has finally brought a way for developers to create rich media without having to depend on complicated scripting or purchased software. These big changes beg the question “Is Flash still relevant anymore?” In Flash Professional CS6, Adobe has made some integral additions to answer that very question.

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Premiere Pro CS6 (Review)

Premiere Pro CS6

Editors new to Premiere Pro will find a lot of great features, and for previous users (especially those who held off on getting Premiere Pro CS5.5 because of the relatively few updates over CS5) now may be the time to upgrade, as Premiere Pro CS6 offers up many new slick features designed to speed up your work flow.

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Twixtor V5 (Review)

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It’s a plug in designed to blend frames, and it has enough options to keep you happy. It’s not just about slowing down or speeding up. You can change frame rates in general, taking 30fps footage and getting a better 24fps output is certainly a great option, this should work for converting any frame rate you require. As far as I know, the amount of frame rate changes you can implement to clip is limitless, given your OK with waiting for a long render to create new frames. The amount of controls given to each keyframe is pretty impressive.

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Monsters GT v7 (Review)

GenArts Monsters GT v7

Monsters is a pretty high-end set of plug-ins. Atmospheric effects like Raindrops for example are meant to seamlessly integrate with live-action footage and give the impression that you rented a $10,000 rain machine on your low-budget shoot. Everything here looks pretty convincing, and unlike many other plug-in sets, there are very few “throw away” effects. GenArts clearly spent a lot of time making these look great.

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Photoshop Lightroom 4 (Review)

Lightroom 4 Box Cover

Lightroom 4 is a bit of a different upgrade to the popular platform. For the first time we see significant shifts from the editing and workflow side to the distribution, social media, and print side. The interface has largely stayed the same, save minor additions and new modules. This installment doesn’t bring significant changes in editing performance; it expands your options regarding how you want to edit your pictures.

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