After Effects is a program that allows you to do pretty much anything to video. You can alter time, warp reality, change lighting, or make that light saber video you secretly dream about (it’s okay, everyone does it). It’s an extremely powerful program with a steep learning curve that’s about more than just special effects, but also about manipulating video in the same way Photoshop manipulates images.

In terms of playing with color, Luca Light Kit is the big box of crayons. The really big box. Taped together with a magic marker set. An effects set for Final Cut (Pro and Express), Motion, and After Effects, Light Kit lets you add, adjust and play with an amazing variety of colors and moods, improving and altering footage. At the most basic level, LK lets you add light to digital footage, letting you fix problems you didn’t see or couldn’t adjust in the field.

Editing is “the invisible art” because the better it is, the less the audience notices it. But there are times when maybe you want to add a lot of energy to a transition, or call attention to an edit for dramatic or comedic reasons. Or maybe you’re trying to recreate a music video from the 80s. Boinx FxTiles are a set of splashy transitions and video filters that give you just that.

To use Adobe After Effects is to stare into the face of madness. And I mean that in the best way possible. The simplest way to describe it is as Photoshop for video; you can import it, add special effects, or even use it to create video from scratch. This program is so mind-bogglingly powerful that the fact that it not only exists but can run comfortably on my MacBook Pro is awe-inspiring.

Provides: Full suite of video/photo/image/web content creation and management Format: DVD Developer: Adobe Minimum System Requirements: Varies by product/package (see Adobe’s website for individual details) Processor Compatibility: Universal Price: Varies by product/package (see Adobe’s website for all suite and individual software normal and upgrade prices) Availability: Now This is the update Macromedia users have been more »

Adobe today has released updates to some of its flagship Creative Suite products: InDesign, After Effects and InCopy. The Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional software 8.0.2 update provides Panasonic P2 format support, Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard compatibility fixes, Mac OpenGL support for supported video cards under Mac OS X v10.4.10 and v10.5, and other more »