This weeks episode is up:

Episiode 17: Color Grading in Final Cut Pro with Magic Bullet Looks

In this Episode, award-winning director, Philip Bloom walks you through the process of color grading his film “Return to Dungeness” in Final Cut Pro, using Magic Bullet Looks.

You can watch it here.

And, of course, you can get a great discount on MB Looks just for watching. Get that here.

Sorry about the lack of episode last week. We are gearing up for some major stuff at NAB, and when all is said and done, I’ll have been on the road for 3 weeks straight.

But rest assured more content is coming, and not just from me. A lot of people are sending along cool episodes for us to share with you. And I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

But, for now, you just have me, so here goes:

Episode 16: Better Compositing with Light Wraps

In this Episode, I’ll show you how to get better compositing results with Light Wraps – an effect used to blend the background light and foreground elements more convincingly during a composite.

I know I’ve talked about light wraps before, but I’ve been using them almost every day lately – so I’ve picked up a few new tricks…

You can watch the tutorial here.

And just for watching, you can get a discount on Key Correct Pro here.

I am here…just kidding. I am not Aharon but Sean Safreed, Product Director at Red Giant Software. I want to share a few details about the upcoming Particular v2 and our policy regarding upgrades.

Particular v2 is coming along nicely and Peder has added some killer features. But before I lift the veil on one of the many features in this new version, I want to let our customers and the community know our upgrade policy. If you buy Particular 1.5.1 after April 7th, 2009, you are entitled to a free upgrade. In fact, our policy across the board is to give a free upgrade to users that purchases a Red Giant product when the next major version has been announced but hasn’t shipped. In general, we only charge for major updates that involve significant development effort. The upgrade to the new version of Particular will be $99.

Now, I can’t say exactly when Particular v2 is going to ship because Peder is still busy adding features and fixing bugs but I expect that this version will be out in the summer, maybe sooner. I can say that Peder has listened carefully to a group of beta testers and users to push the boundaries of what is possible in After Effects (as he always does .

Here is a taste of one of the features in v2. The feature is natural particle shading and it responds to After Effects lights in 3D space:

Particular v2 offers much more realistic shading of particles

I know users are going to love this feature along with the vastly expanded controls. For the rest, please come to NAB to get the full scoop and see Peder Norrby demo in person.

Just some stills from a presentation I’m doing for Red Giant @ NAB, focusing on Trapcode Form -although it also uses particular, warp, and knoll light factory. Of course, the women in the image are courtesy of  Crowd Control.

I’ll be presenting this at 10:00AM on Tuesday Apr. 21, at the Red Giant Software booth SL2529H. Hope to see you there.