Bringing artistry to your imagery Never content to rest on our laurels, the NewBlue team is proud to bring you yet another creative collection for your video arsenal, NewBlue Paint Effects. This array of 12 distinct video effects will transform your scenes with artistic color and

captivating paint techniques. Plus, you'll find Cartoonr Plus, a feature- enhanced version of NewBlue Cartoonr, our popular, free plugin. We'll be releasing Paint Effects next month, so let's take a tour of Paint Effects' features:

Cartoonr Plus transforms your video image into a cartoon-like illustration by drawing dark lines around the edges of shapes, then painting in between with smooth layers of colors.

Charcoal converts your video image into a line drawing
which, unlike real charcoal, can be sketched in any color.

Colored Pencil draws the lines and details of the video image with a colored pencil, then shades in between with lighter colors.

Halovision Plus creates a halo-like aura around objects in the picture. Impressionist breaks the video image into small paint strokes, which can be manipulated to create a wide range of painting styles.

Mosaic assembles the video out of a grid of painted tiles. Mural turns the picture into a solid shaded painting.

Oil creates the look of an oil painting. Paper Collage remakes the video image into layers of colored paper.

Pencil Rubbing recreates the looks of rubbing colored pencils over an image template.

Posterize creates a print of the video image using a small set of colors. Water Color repaints the video scene so that it resembles a water color painting.

Frame Rate works in association with any of the Paint Effects to reduce the frame rate NewBlue Paint Effects will work perfectly with Adobe After Effects, Adobe Elements, Adobe Premiere, Avid Liquid, Avid Media Composer & Xpress, Corel VideoStudio, Apple Final Cut Express & Pro, Apple Motion, Pinnacle Studio, Sony Vegas, and TGV EDIUS and sells for $139.95. Be sure to watch your email box for the Paint Effects release announcement coming soon.

Preparing raw footage so that it's properly balanced and
good-looking is typically a lot of work and requires
multiple plug-ins and calibrating at minimum a dozen
controls. If only there were a one pass tool that could
quickly balance the color, adjust the light levels, tweak
the color saturation and apply film gamma so the image
really "popped"...

Enter Color Fixer Plus, part of NewBlue Video Essentials.
With Color Fixer Plus, you can quickly balance the color
then enhance the picture for the perfect look. And best of
all, Color Fixer Plus is fast. Here's how to get that
perfect look:

Let's start with a video that was shot outdoors. It's a
beautiful take, but it lacks warmth (too blue) and is a bit
flat.

Add the Color Fixer Plus effect and start with the "Reset to None" preset.

Click on the color dropper and pick something that should be white in the image. In this case, the white veil or the window edge work well. Using the color dropper tells Color Fixer Plus what should be white or grey in the picture. Note: If there's nothing white in your image, look through other frames in the same clip or even another clip from the same sequence.

Turn up the Correction control to balance the colors.

Just this one change makes a dramatic difference in the image.

Next, fine-tune Saturation to adjust the color strength. Turn it down to reduce colors or turn it up to enhance colors

In this case, we boost the saturation to bring out more color.

Use Brightness to lower or raise the overall brightness level

Finally, turn up Film Gamma. Film Gamma recreates the non-linear behavior of film by compressing the light and dark extremes, resulting in an image that really "pops".

Scroll up to compare this image with the original and you will see a dramatic improvement No editor should be without Color Fixer, part of the NewBlue Video Essentials collection. Check it out today!

In order to remove the watermark, you must activate the product first. To do so, run the "Manage Activation" program that is installed along with the plug-in. You can find this application from the Windows Start menu.

For example, to activate NewBlue Motion Blends, go to Start->Programs->NewBlue->Motion Blends->Manage Activation. Then, paste your serial number into the form.
Ta-da! No more watermark.

More Answers >>

Sean Lee is a professional guitar and vocal instructor at Melrose Studios, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA and a NewBlueFX user, as well.

He started video editing out of necessity when he needed to make his own music video, then quickly discovered it was a natural progression to go from recording music to editing video. For the past 9 years Sean has been shooting and editing music videos, commercials, documentaries and features professionally.

Recently, while editing a scene in a music video for the Digital Native Artists, Sean was looking for some wild and surreal effects to enhance a sequence where the lead singer was shot singing underwater.

Sean says, "I chose NewBlue Cartoonr and was impressed by its simple interface and ease of use. I wanted the video to be surreal, even more than it was already. The character in the song was to be in a "Heroin Haze", so I slowed the video down and added the Cartoonr effect. It turned out great! You can't even tell it was shot underwater until you see a bubble come out of his mouth! "

"I also added the Line Drawing effect on the bass player
when he was floating in the pool. "

"I wanted to include a transition and decided on the New Blue Wave effect when transitioning between scenes; it actually makes the piano player's arms look like they are flowing to the music!"

"NewBlueFX's presets... allow me to easily create awesome effects with little effort."

Sean adds, "NewBlueFX make editing easy with its intuitive interface and broad selection of effects. I can tweak the effect or transition all I want to get the exact look I am trying for, but the presets are a great start. They allow me to easily create awesome effects with little effort.

For more information on how Sean uses NewBlueFX, visit
his site at www.MelroseStudios.us.

Want to be featured in an upcoming "Now Featuring"
column? We'd love to hear from you. Contact us and let
us know how NewBlueFX is making your work stand
above the crowd