July 21, 2025

In this age of smartphones with incredible cameras, it is easy to take high-quality images for granted. But when working with older prints or slides, quality is not a given; especially for images shot by non-professionals.

In this tutorial, I show how to adjust scanner settings to rescue images and make them look great.

A recurring question I get every week is a variation of "what is the best system for video editing?" The answer, as always, is "it depends" on what you want to do, how fast you need to do it and how much money you want to spend.

But, as this commentary illustrates, you don't need to spend as much as you might think.

The Magnetic Mask in Apple Final Cut Pro provides fascinating ways to separate foreground from background, then manipulate each layer separately.

In this tutorial, I show how to use the Magnetic Mask to isolate the foreground, change the background, adjust color, and add text effects.

Last week, I wrote about how to add captions to a DaVinci Resolve project.

This tutorial shows how to animate them. You don't need to use CapCut anymore!

Turning to Premiere, Media Intelligence is new with Premiere Pro 2025. It searches “for your perfect shot using language based on imagery, spoken words, or content with embedded metadata like shoot date, location, or camera type, all at the same time.”

Here’s how it works.

Returning full circle to Final Cut, slow motion is as much a trick of the eye and brain, as it is a trick of technology. Nothing in a video actually moves, it’s our brain that adds the movement.

Here’s what you need to know to make your slomo look as good as it can and avoid hallucinations caused by AI and optical flow.

Too often, we obsess about getting the "best" or the "fastest" that we lose sight of the fact that, while faster is better, it isn't always necessary. I wrote about this last week ("Sometimes Good Enough Is Good Enough") and published a more detailed look in "Speed Requirements for Video Editing."

While there is a need for 8K video, especially for LED volumes, maybe for IMAX, and, possibly, for large digital advertising, the majority of the work we create is HD or 4K. And neither of these require state of the art tools, nor require a king's ransom to purchase.

NOTE: "King's ransom" is a 16th century term used to describe capturing a king during a war as a revenue-generating opportunity for the opposing side. Needless to say, large sums of money changed hands.

If you have an older system and are still editing using a spinning hard disk, adding an external SSD will redefine your concept of fast. Even a low cost SATA SSD has 2.5x the speed of any spinning hard drive. Use the SSD for speed and the hard drive for archiving. 

Will an SSD RAID be faster? Yes. But if you are editing HD or 4K, you don't need a RAID to improve the speed of your system.

If you are editing on an Intel system, upgrading to a recent Mac with Apple silicon with a Pro or Max chip is worth the money. I'm happily editing with an M2 Max Mac Studio - which is no longer state-of-the-art, but still really fast nonetheless.

Will an M4 Max Mac Studio be faster - or an M3 Ultra chip? Yes, but an M2 Max Mac Studio does amazing work at far less cost. And, speaking from personal experience, the M4 Pro Mac mini is stunning.

You don't need to spend a fortune to improve performance, nor buy the latest-and-greatest, to get your work done faster. 

Now, as always, there are exceptions. If you edit 4K or 8K multicam with more than ten streams, edit 8K or 12K high-frame rate media, or create highly complex renders on impossible deadlines, spending more for faster performance is required. But, for the rest of us, spending less but spending wisely will be perfectly fine.

TUTORIALS & REVIEWS

» To Upgrade, or Not to Upgrade - That is the Question (Commentary)

   » Upgrades are always a balancing act. Here's my advice.

» How to Rescue Still Images Using a Scanner (Tutorial)

   » Here's how to adjust gray-scale settings to maximize image quality.

» Two Intriguing Uses of Magnetic Masks in Final Cut Pro (Tutorial)

   » Separate the foreground, adjust colors, change backgrounds and more.

» Create Animated Captions in DaVinci Resolve 20 (Tutorial)

   » Animating captions is easier than ever - but really hard to find.

» AI-Powered Media Intelligence in Premiere Pro 2025 (Tutorial)

   » Even for the largest projects, Premiere makes it easy to find the right shot.

» Caution: Slow Motion in Final Cut Tends to Hallucinate (Tutorial)

   » Some slow motion works better than others. This explains why.

» Speed Requirements of Video Editing Storage (Tutorial)

   » We don't always need the biggest and fastest. Here's why.

TOP 4 TITLES LAST WEEK