Creating an Online Version of a Print Layout (Adobe Creative Suite 5) Part 3

Editing video in Photoshop

When you import video into Photoshop Extended, the image frames are placed in a video layer. You can add layers above that video layer to apply image adjustments or to overlay text and graphics, and you can use the Animation (Timeline) panel to adjust how video layers play back.

1    Switch to Photoshop Extended CS5. Choose File > Open. In the Open dialog box, navigate to the LessonO3 folder. Select the file cycling_432x235_start.mov, and click Open.

2    Choose Window > Workspace > Motion. Notice the Animation (Timeline) panel across the bottom of the workspace. Drag the current-time indicator to navigate through the individual image frames of the movie, and then leave it at the beginning of the Timeline.

Note: To work with multimedia in Adobe Creative Suite, such as playing back and editing video, your system must be running Apple QuickTime 7.6.2 or later. QuickTime is a free download from www.apple.com/ quicktime/download.

3 With the Type tool, click near the bottom-left corner of the video to create a new point text object, and type the text Coming soon.

4 With an insertion point blinking in the text, press Ctrl/Command-A to select all of the text.

5  In the Options bar, choose Chaparral Pro from the first (font) menu, choose Bold from the second (style) menu to match the type in the InDesign layout, and in the third menu enter a font size of 32. The text should extend about halfway across the video frame if it’s left-aligned; if it isn’t, click the Left Align Text button in the middle of the Options bar.

6 With the text still selected, click the color swatch in the Options bar, click white in the color picker, and click OK.

7  Choose Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow, and when the Layer Style dialog box appears, click OK to accept the default settings. Adding a drop shadow helps make the text more legible against a changing background.

Tip: The Drop Shadow command is also available by clicking the effects (fx) menu at the bottom of the Layers panel; you may find this to be faster than choosing the command on the menu bar.

8    Drag the current-time indicator through the movie to see how the type looks.

9    In the Animation (Timeline) panel, drag the right end of the green bar for the Coming Soon layer to the left until it reaches the five-second mark (05:00f). This displays the Coming Soon layer for five seconds, and then stops displaying it.

10 Choose File > Export > Render Video. Click Select Folder and navigate to your LessonO3 folder. Name the file cycling_comingsoon.mov, leave the rest of the options at their default settings, and click Render. Rendering may take some time, depending on your computer’s performance.

11 When video rendering is complete, close Photoshop and save changes.

The video content is ready, but it needs to be converted to Flash video since the InDesign document you’ll add it to will be exported to Flash. Because Flash video formats are not options in the Render Video dialog box, the video is still in QuickTime MOV format. Fortunately, converting to Flash video is quick and easy with Adobe Media Encoder.

Converting to Flash video

Adobe Media Encoder, included with Design Premium, can convert video files into common formats suitable for devices ranging from DVD players to websites to mobile phones to portable media players and standard- and high-definition TV sets. Adobe Media Encoder includes presets that greatly simplify the many output settings available for video formats. All you’ll have to do is drag the video into Adobe Media Encoder, pick the right preset, and name the file.

1    Start Adobe Media Encoder CS5.

2    In your Lesson03 folder, drag the movie cycling_comingsoon.mov (the one you rendered from Photoshop) and drop it into the dark gray render queue list in the Adobe Media Encoder window.

3    Click the triangle under the Preset menu and choose F4V – Match Source Attributes (High Quality).

F4V is the latest and most capable version of the Flash video format.

4    Click the path in the Output File column, make sure the destination is set to your Lesson03 folder, and change the name of the file to cycling_ready.

The final filename will be cycling_ready.f4v because Adobe Media Encoder will automatically apply the correct filename extension for the file format specified in the preset you chose.

5    Click Start Queue.

If you don’t click Start Queue, the queue will start on its own in two minutes. When needed, you can queue up several video clips and let Adobe Media Encoder render them in the background while you do something else.

6    When rendering is complete, exit Adobe Media Encoder.

Adding video to an InDesign document

You’ve already begun adding multimedia to the online document by adding a sound to a button; now add a video clip to the document.

1    Go to page ll. In the upper-right corner of the spread is an empty frame. For the print version it contained a photo, but for online viewing it’s intended to contain a video, which you will now place.

2    Magnify the view to zoom in on the empty frame, and in the Media panel click the Place A Video Or Audio File button at the bottom-right corner of the panel.

Tip: New in InDesign CS5 is the ability to place Flash video (FLV or F4V), the most common video format on the web. You can drag Flash video directly into an InDesign layout, simplifying the conversion of print documents into compelling online content.

3    In the Place Media dialog box, navigate to your LessonO3 folder, and doubleclick the movie cycling_ready.mov that you converted using Adobe Media Encoder. The mouse cursor becomes a place cursor loaded with the movie file.

4    Click the loaded place cursor in the placeholder frame.

5    In the Media panel, click the Play button to watch the video.

Note: You must have Acrobat 6x or later to play MPEG and SWF movies in a PDF file— or Acrobat 5.0 or later to play QuickTime and AVI movies.

By default, the InDesign document uses the first frame of the video as the poster frame—the frame shown on the layout. Now you’ll find a more dynamic frame to use as the poster frame.

6 In the Media panel, drag the slider until you find a frame that you think is more compelling as a poster frame, such as a frame just before the 12-second mark. Then click the reload button (G) to the right of the Poster menu to apply the frame you’re viewing to the layout as the poster frame.

7 In the Media panel, choose SkinOverAllNoCaption from the Controller menu, and select the Show Controller on Rollover check box.

8 In the Preview panel, click the Preview Spread button at the bottom-left corner of the pane. This preview might take a little longer to generate since a movie is involved. Make sure the poster frame is the one you selected, and move the mouse over the movie to test whether the controller appears as you set it in step 7.