Dum-Dum-Da-Dum! Man, if they had Magic Bullet Looks when I got married 11 years ago, I might actually watch my wedding video occasionally. Because frankly my wedding video sucks. It looks like it was filmed on a video camera under harsh lights, and has all the artistic flare of a security camera. These days, with the right tools, you can do a lot with what’s shot on video. Even so, I still see a lot of HandyCam wedding videos (don’t ask me why my “friends” make me watch these things).

The good news is, you can save someone (including yourself) from the same fate. Simon Walker has created a well thought-out Guru Preset pack for Weddings and Events. With special attention paid to the types of environments and clothing worn on a couple’s special day, these looks really bring out the emotions of the day. If you are an event photographer or videographer, Simon Walker’s Weddings and Events for Looks is a must have.

Just a few of the 30 Looks in this Guru Preset Pack.

Any host app that can run Magic Bullet Looks, Magic Bullet Quick Looks, or Magic Bullet PhotoLooks, can use the presets. This includes some versions of After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, Avid, Motion, Photoshop. Visit: Magic Bullet Looks Compatibility,  Magic Bullet Quick Looks Compatibility, Magic Bullet PhotoLooks Compatibility.

I probably won’t bother transferring my old VHS wedding tape to a digital format to fix it up with these looks. But I am considering it for the VHS tape of our subsequent Elvis wedding:

Yes. It's real. (Although I cannot vouch for "The King")

Disclaimer: While these looks can give you some nice visuals to impress your clients (the bride and groom), it cannot save them from that embarrassing speech the bride’s uncle gave, comparing her to a used car. As an editor, use some judgment for heaven’s sake!

Great news to light up your summer! We have just released Knoll Light Factory 2.7. This important update includes support for Adobe CS5/64 bit processing along with new tools that make this industry standard plug-in even more amazing.

Even better, if you already own Knoll 2.5-2.6, you are elligble for a FREE update! (SEE BELOW)

Buy Knoll Light Factory 2.7 now for $399 or upgrade for $99.

What’s New?

• New Lens Designer for Adobe CS5
• 10 new custom lenses
• Knoll 3D Flare to easily create Lens Flares in After Effects 3D space (tutorial here.)
• Knoll Unmult for removing black backgrounds and generating mattes
• Support for Adobe CS5 and native 64-bit operation

The new Knoll Lens Designer for Adobe CS5

Free Update for Knoll Light Factory Pro 2.5 and 2.6 Users

If you own a license of Knoll Light Factory Pro version 2.5 or later, you qualify for a FREE update to Knoll Light Factory 2.7! This is our way of showing you how much we value your business and to thank you for being a loyal and devoted customer.

• Download the FREE Update (IMPORTANT: This will  only update Knoll Light Factory 2.5-2.6 to 2.7)

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a lot of time in my day. Still, I try to watch tutorials as often as possible. But maybe you’re not able to sit down for a 45-minute lesson in creating an awesome effect. Maybe you only have 5, 10, or 20 minutes to learn something new.

Well, gosh, I’m glad we thought of that. In addition to the powerful extended tutorials you’ll find at Red Giant TV, we’ve also sneeked (snuck?) a few short, easy to digest tutorials under the radar. And by a few, I mean 19, so far. Check out our Red Giant QuickTips Channel on Vimeo for concise and interesting info that will really help you up your game and work faster. I happen to be a really big fan of this short tip by Harry Frank:

Mattias Peresini (AKA Mattrunks) has posted 4 really cool FREE Trapcode Presets up on Red Giant People – Our community site for sharing presets and templates. Thanks for Sharing Mattias!

Get the Orgasphere Preset HERE.

Get the Nebula Preset HERE.

Get the Falling Text Preset HERE.

Get the Dynamic Pulsation Preset HERE.

If you watched episode 47 of Red Giant TV, aside from being humbled by the amazingness of Tiny Inventions, you may also have caught a notation about Knoll Unmult – a  free plug-in for removing black backgrounds and generating mattes. Here is a 3-minute excerpt from the tutorial that explains what it does and how it works:

iPod/iPad-Friendly version on Vimeo.

Since then, we’ve had a lot of requests for a CS5-ready version. So, rather than waiting until it came up in our release schedule, our engineering team got cracking, and pushed it forward – just for you! No joke.

It’s still FREE, and you can get it here.

Have fun!

If you haven’t watched our newest getting started tutorials (like the ones for Grinder, Photolooks, and many of our FCP intro tutorials) you may not be familiar with our British team member, Simon Walker,  but he’s kind of a Renaissance man. Aside from working on animation and visual effects, he’s a talented musician, photographer, father, and vigilante crime fighter (though he denies that last one vehemently).

Simon just uploaded  these 5 free Looks for Magic Bullet Looks and Photolooks, which you can find at Red Giant People, our community site for sharing presets and templates. Here are 2 images of those presets in use.

You ever look everywhere for your glasses when they’re just sitting on your head (or maybe they’re actually in place, on your face, where they should be)? Well that’s th kind of day I was having yesterday. I’ve been trying to create an old film look with no stock footage, but was finding it a bit of a challenge. But then I remembered something Stu Maschwitz said at our company meeting – “Misfire” – a term I was confused about, but which I promptly filed away under “I’ll worry about that later.”

I wish I hadn’t. It turns out I had the tools for old film looks all along. It’s not mentioned anywhere on the Red Giant site, but Magic Bullet Looks comes with a great set of tools called Magic Bullet MisFire. These tools allow you to add old film effects like dust and scratches, flicker, film noise… etc., to create an old film look.

And to save me a lot of time and trouble, I added Nick Campbell’s  Vintage film for Looks for a nice vintage coloration.You don’t need it, or course. Magic Bullet Looks gives you complete control of your looks, but this is something Nick is really good at, and there’s no reason not to at least start with his vintage look settings.

Of course, no old-school footage is complete without light leaks. I used Trapcode Particular to create those, and when all was said and done it looked pretty good.

If you want to do this, I made a tutorial that walks you through this process, and you can find that here.

Just a note on 3 awesome tutorials we posted today:

RGTV Episode 47: Tiny Inventions

Red Giant Quick Tip#16: Creating a Flare Preset Slider for Knoll Light Factory EZ

If you’ve ever wondered why our products are so good, I’m going to let you in on our big secret for supreme software awesomeness:

We use our own products.

That’s it. That’s the secret. We create products we love and use every day. And I’m not just talking about Harry Frank, Stu Maschwitz, and myself.

Virtually everyone at Red Giant is creative in their own way, but almost everyone at Red Giant has a real interest in creating art – whether it’s video, photography, or some other medium. Even our QA team and our accountant have a passion for film-making, visual FX, photography or motion design.

Case in point: Joe Kadera – QA Engineer. Below is a tongue-in-cheek, short film he worked on with a friend, as a continuation of a project they started in high school. You can see a ton of work and love went into this enjoyable film-noir short (although – warning: there is a bunch of violence in there):

iPod/iPad-Friendly Version on Vimeo.

About his job and his passion, Joe says:

“Ultimately, I want to be doing something like what I did on Joe Saturday in the movies, that is to say, everything. But I also have more fun working in a small team like I can do with my friends now than I would on a big project. Special effects in general are some of the most interesting things for me to work on.

At red giant, I get to work a lot with the same software I used when I made Joe Saturday, and work with when I do my own movie work, but I get to make sure that it is working as it should for everyone else. Most of my day consists of playing with sliders and writing up bug reports, but I’m pretty good about getting in the zone and it doesn’t bother me as it might some people. Occasionally I create some pretty cool effects while I’m testing that I am able to put into use in my own projects at home.”

You can get some cool behind the scenes footage and other info on Joe Saturday at the official website.

Hey folks – We have a new version of Plastic Bullet! It’s a free update for current customers.

Plastic Bullet Version 1.1 is a major update, with faster developing, higher resolutions, and Facebook and Flickr support! New sharing and resolution options can be accessed through your device’s Settings app.

Get it and learn more here.

Here’s a high-res photo I recently took on my iPhone 3GS (You get even bigger pictures with the iPhone 4). I took it from the balcony that Superman lands on in the original film – The Daily Planet Building. My wife works there. I swear. I love living in Metropolis… er… New York.

Click on the image to see it at Full-Res.