Who has never dreamed to print his trademark on his videos to show since the first seconds who is the producer ? You can of course try to tame a Lion like did Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924, or filming the Earth from space like Universal Picture, but it may present some difficulties
You'll learn to customize the montage themes #239 to #242 to create a globally unique introduction, that you can even adapt with images of each of your films.
This introduction will stage your logo or visual identity that we will make partly transparent, and an animated mosaic of video sequences. Different animations are available in themes #239 to #242 to provide you more flexibility
To achieve this, the harder will be to create or adapt your own logo or visual signature. To do this, we will start looking how to exploit the richness of Paint.net tool.
Looking for Paint.net plugins !
Paint.net is a free, open source tool. As its source code is brought to the attention of all, it is possible for a skilled programmer to develop additional modules which, as we shall see can be particularly useful ! I will not spent time to explain how to install Paint.net.We rather look at how to install the necessary plugins.
To illustrate this tutorial, I'll take the example of my own logo shown below :
As you can see, my logo does not present any transparent areas needed to display the mosaic of video sequences through.
Ideally, I would make transparent location corresponding to drop zones in my logo...
We can use the "magic wand" to select these areas, but I found that the result was too "binary" and lacked of style. In addition, if your logo is more complex, this can quickly become very tedious.
I have therefore asked myself whether if by chance, there wasn't a plugin that would allow to apply a proportionate transparency either to luminance or chrominance of the image...
To do this, simply go to the list of plugins. Start Paint.net, then go in menu Help then select plug-ins ...
Make your choice !
Clicking into this menu will launch an internet connection to the official website of Paint.net and will make you redirect into the plugins home page.
At first glance, this page looks quite deserted, but this is only an optical effect :
Plugins are listed alphabetically, but the different sections of the list are hidden by default. Therefore, click on "show" to see the containt !
Spoilt for choice!
Then we can understand why the list is hidden. In fact you will find hundreds of plugins, and it is somewhat difficult choices despite the explanations given to each.
Fortunately, names are roughly well-chosen and 3 plugins have names starting with Alpha. Reading their descriptions therefore leads me to download them...
With Internet Explorer, you will choose directtly the destination location of your download. With Firefox, this directory is defined in the menu tool > Option on the General tab. Plugins are packaged into .zip files.
Once the downloads performed (which is very quick, the files are of only a few kilo bytes), we will have to install files in the right location... To do this, start by opening the .zip file (personally, I use 7-zip which is another open source free software, ultra efficient that I warmly recommend)
Inside the .zip file, you will find a .dll file which is the plugin itself. Just kake it (right click + copy) and copy it to its target (right-click in the directory below + Paste) directory :
C:\Program Files\Paint.NET\Effects
Here is what you will get after this operation :
Ready to modify your Logo ?
At this step, all the necessary plugins are installed into Paint.net. So we can start ..
First of all, you should re lauch Paint.net to make your installation taken into account. Once done, load your logo image ...
Take care when neede to crop your picture to adjust its size in the format of your video (16:9 or 4:3), otherwise it will be distorted by montage theme to fill the screen !
For some reason that escapes me, different plugins are not all accessible from the same menu. Some will be into the menu adjustments, and other into menu effects.
After a few attempts, I found the plugin Alpha Transform well suited to what I want to do.
Within seconds, I find the settings that are exactly what I wanted to do. This largely compensate time spent to install various plugins
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Pinnacle\Content\IMG-Templates\20cents Signature\-Assets\Your Mask.png
To save your logo mask, just follow the 4 steps below. in "Save as" menu :
select the file path mentionned above (screen copy below shows example for Windows Vista or Seven. If you uses XP adapt this path as descibe above )
your file name will be Your Mask.png
choose "PNG (*.png)" as file type
finally click on Save button
Take care of saving Transparency information !
Little important detail, we bring in this operation a component of transparency to our image. It must therefore be absolutely save it in a suitable format. To be compatible with my montage themes, we have choosen format 32-bit .png (8 bits for red, 8 others for blue, 8 for green, and last 8 for transparency!)
It's finished !
This operation will overwrite my Logo, which was given for example only, by yours which will be much more useful !
Beware however also to save it in another directory (for backup purposes), because if you inadvertently decide to reload the Signature series, you may overwrite your file with my example
You have just now to open Signature montage theme series into Pinnacle Studio, choose the one that please you, insert photos, videos, or titles in drop zones, put a sound background, and it's done !
Let's see the result :
It's to you, be courageous !
Do not hesitate to send me your video signatures so that I could complete this topic with
31th January 2012, Corinne unveils her video signature !
Following this tutorial, Corinne has realised her own original video signature. In addition, she added an animated gif representing a nice fairy using the free online tool proposed on this site
let's see the result :
Good job Corinne !
10th February 2012, It's now to MDamien to show us his signature !
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Thierry Philippon, who manages www.magazinevideo.com has created two training DVDs (the only existing in Europe) offering to video amateur examples and practical techniques for their families and travel movies. Entitled "The best technics of professionals for your stories and movies travel", DVDs are available in Beginner & Intermediate or Advanced level. These DVDs are made for video enthusiasts who have some basic video skills and willing to progress but also to those who use a camera or iPhone, and want to discover the video capabilities of their device. Thanks to the contribution of the moving image, the container and contents are in line here. The same situation is sometimes approached with the "bad" example in addition to "good" example. The location of the cameras or the cameraman, making of is also presented when needed.
A free module is available to give you a better idea of the content of these DVDs.
Web site of the month !
Original motion backgrounds for your DVD menus and montage theme animation
Dreamscene.org propose you many free high quality screensaver. Even if these files were made to be used as PCs screen saver, their installation kit content .wmv video files that you will be able to import into Studio, either for your DVD menus, or, after some adaptations, in my montage themes ...
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Signature Series
