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Over the years I've had the chance to try different types of software and hosting platforms, both across filmmaking and photography. I would heavily recommend the applications below.
DaVinci Resolve Studio is already the industry reference for online editing and grading. However, it is also an extremely advanced offline editing tool with a single, perpetual license that allows you to work in the same way as you would in Adobe Premiere Pro. That's right: for one years' worth of Adobe membership, you can purchase an equally capable editing solution with DaVinci Resolve and own it forever. However, what I love most about Resolve is how it uses your system's GPU optimally to generate real-time previews of what you are working on, an area where Premiere often struggles to perform with being quite a heavy application. Resolve's interface is visually appealing, light on its feet and extremely powerful - with advanced workspaces for more specific areas of post-production like audio. It currently retails for 245 GBP at https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/. The free version is also functional and allows you to do most things you need, but has a few limitations. Capture One is my favourite tool for capturing, ingesting, sorting and batch exporting stills shoots. While it won't give you the advanced capabilities of an app like Adobe Photoshop, I have found Capture One to be more stable and less resource-hungry than similar software like Adobe Lightroom. It also doesn't rely on cloud capability and performs very well the old-fashioned way with local files. Finally, it is extremely capable in terms of applying a single look to an entire shoot, and it helps that its "Auto" function performs better than most other apps - often taking the mind-numbing repetitive tasks at the start of an edit (adjusting contrast, etc.) out of the equation which allows me to focus on creative work. It is priced at 299 GBP for a perpetual license at https://www.captureone.com/en. Topaz Labs Photo & Video are an essential and versatile suite of products designed to help enhance and often fix problematic footage. Whether your shots were taken very late at night and came out grainy, or you are working on a project with archive material that needs restoring, Topaz is the first port of call. It can also help add a polish and shine to whatever you are creating, even if your material is not particularly degraded. Crucially, it is a "buy once, own forever" type of application with one year's worth of free upgrades. Currently bundled for 500 USD (roughly 400 GBP) at www.topazlabs.com. Pic-Time is a simple, affordable and sophisticated gallery and hosting service which fulfils all the duties needed when you need to share a stills shoot with a client. I love its slick interface and simple pricing structure, which once again allows me to focus on being creative. Membership starts at around 84 USD per year (around 66 GBP), which you can check out at https://www.pic-time.com/. 4K Video Downloader is a free and reliable tool for downloading single videos or entire playlists from YouTube. I often use it on personal projects where I want to download and archive a playlist of tutorials for instance that might get taken down later down the line. Available for free at 4k-video-downloader.en.softonic.com/mac/download. HandBrake is another useful free tool for encoding videos in all kinds of formats. It's fast and lightweight, a good alternative to Compressor or Adobe Media Encoder. Free to download at https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php. ImageOptim is free application that helps to reduce the size of your photos. It's a speedy app that performs well when processing large numbers of files. Available for free at https://imageoptim.com/mac. NameChanger similarly performs well in scenarios where you need to rename thousands of files. It can use any metadata from the files you have, as well as allowing you to input whatever batch naming you require: sequence naming, dates, custom prefixes and suffixes, etc. Downloadable at https://mrrsoftware.com/namechanger/. |