thestoryofjory.com

There’s  been a big change to my workflow recently and I feel that it merits a post. I’ve finally switched over to Adobe Creative Suite after years of using open-source projects like GIMP, Inkscape and Blender.  The main reason I hadn’t yet gone Adobe (besides the cost) was that I felt I could do most of the things I needed to do with open-source programs.  Plus, it feels good to show people how much you can do even if you don’t have high-dollar software.   The skills you learn on free or low-cost open-source software are essentially the same, and you’re never paying for more program than you need. It’s also a great way to show potential employers that you know how to do a lot with limited resources.

But with the faculty discount on Adobe Creative Suite and an impending job search to consider, it finally made sense for me to make the switch.  I also like that cross-compatibility is now a given with these creative programs.  For example, Final Cut Pro docs import easily into Adobe Premiere Pro, and it’s easy to make a quick motion graphic by importing Photoshop layers into Motion 4.  However, the biggest reason for my purchase has to do with my future employment opportunities. It seems employers are requiring more diverse software knowledge for multimedia jobs than ever before, so I need to buff up on many of these programs in order to be competitive.

I still ardently recommend open-source programs for communications students who don’t have the financial resources for software, or who don’t know yet which direction they’re headed in the field. The open-source route isn’t for everyone – installation and debugging are usually trickier, and there’s not always good documentation for how to use the program.  But if you’re up to the challenge, I can promise that you’ll learn so much more about computers, and you’ll appreciate having the real version of Photoshop that much more.

Looking for an open-source version of a commercial software product? Here’s a link to a great resource.

I’m looking forward to purchasing Adobe’s CS5 Master Suite sometime around September.  It’s a big purchase, but with a faculty/education discount I’ll finally be able to have a few programs I need and several that I want, all for a third of the cost.  I’ve been using open-source versions of some of these products for several years now, and it’s time to graduate.

To be clear though, I disagree with anyone claiming that commercial software products like Adobe’s are the only way to go.  Although commercial software often has more advanced features than their open-source or freeware counterparts, the reality is that most people are only using basic parts of these programs and thus have paid for lots of features they’ll never use.  If you only need to cut objects out of images or adjust color levels, why pay for Photoshop CS5 when Gimpshop works just as well?

I’d like to pay tribute to some of the free software programs I’ve used to complete projects over the years.  Even though I’m upgrading to commercial software for some of their uses, I’ll probably still use many of them, and of course recommend them to friends.  Hope this is useful to you!

Audacity. It’s a great little digital audio editor.  It has a simple & straightforward interface, which means there really isn’t much of a learning curve.  I have a hard time seeing it as a complete solution for audio editing, though.  I’ve just used it to edit voiceovers and such because I really prefer the more advanced features of Pro-Tools and Soundtrack Pro (commercial products) for editing music and sound effects.

Blender. Warning – do not install this program unless you don’t mind looking up and realizing you’ve just spent three days straight animating a snowman.  That’s exactly what happened when I downloaded Blender, a 3D modeling and animation program.  It taught me a lot about using three dimensions of space, which has come in handy with other visual effects programs like Motion 4.

Celtx. I actually just started using this program, and all I can say is WOW. For storyboarding and project organization, I can’t imagine anything better.  It works for several types of projects – scriptwriting, comics, novels, commercial/broadcast shoots – you name it.  After just 2 weeks, I’m a big fan.

Gimpshop. I’ve blogged about Gimpshop in bits and pieces before, so it’s well-documented where I stand with this product.  We’ve had our problems, Gimp and I, but that’s not going to keep me from recommending it to my students next year when they complain about not having Photoshop on their home computers.

Handbrake. This snappy little program is a go-to for me when I have to do some quick converting, particularly if I’m ripping video out of a .VOB container.  Plus, I love that the program instructs me to “put down that cocktail” when my file’s ready!

Inkscape. Gimpshop is to Photoshop as Inkscape is to Illustrator.  For basic creation and manipulation of vector images, look no further than Inkscape. I’ve never used it with a drawing tablet or for anything fancy, but I’ve laid out some invites and the like using this program and I found it relatively easy to use once I got the hang of it.

Kino. Truthfully, I only used this program a few times because I had access to better NLE systems at school.  But I thought Kino worked just fine for editing digital video; and in fact reminded me of the old iMovie interface.  Sometimes, you can’t beat simple & easy. But the bad news is that it only runs on Linux.

MacTheRipper. This program rips DVDs straight from the drive, which makes it ideal for ripping several movie chapters or the whole movie.  I like that there are several settings you can manipulate to decrease the file size, or just grab a few scenes from an authored DVD instead of having to rip the whole thing.  Hooray for space-saving!

MythTV. Forget paying your cable company for DVR – if you have a spare computer lying around, use MythTV! When Tanner set up our Mac Mini to work as our MythTV box, we could record television shows, pause and rewind live TV, and even save shows to the server.  We used it a lot until Tanner needed the Mac Mini for some other project and we got a Netflix streaming disc.  I still think it’s a sweet little program.

Soundslides. Great for turning your photos into a video with music.  Prior to finding Soundslides, I used Quicktime Pro for this.  Soundslides is actually easier to use for this purpose than Quicktime Pro, and it allows for more precision.

VLC. I’m trying, but I still don’t fully understand certain codecs and how they work.  That’s why VLC is a little like magic to me.  VLC seems to be able to open any file, regardless of format or codec.  VLC isn’t my default media player, but I definitely use VLC a lot for troubleshooting file & codec problems.  It seems that if VLC can’t open it, nothing can.