Significance of .flm

Z

-zach-

Veteran
What's the point of exporting as a filmstrip? I know that it's possible to edit and add effects this way, but how? How would I export as a filmstrip from FCP? And how would I change it back to a .mov or .avi or .dv file after I'm done editing in Photoshop? Any help would be appreciated.

Note: I've been using PS: Elements for a long time, and when I look at the topics here, there seems to be a difference between Elements and regular Photoshop. Should I get a newer version of Photoshop? And is there any difference between Photoshop and Photoshop CS2?

Thanks,
Zach
 
To my knowledge, the .flm file type is pretty much adobe standard only. I don't know of other programs that can export in that. Basically, instead of having a .tga file sequence where you would have to bach render the whole thing in Photoshop, you could open a single file which would contain all the frames of a given sequence in it, stacked on top of each other in 2-3 columns. If you wanted to work on say, 180 frames, your filmstrip file would maybe hold 2 columns of 90 frames. And the files are very large, because that is essentially, 180 frames at 720X480.

They were first brought about, I imagine, because people wanted the ability to paint directly onto the frames, or make adjustments that Premiere couldn't. The only program I was out for a while and had real paint capability directly on a frame by frame basis was Ulead Media Studio. Nice app, actually.

Rotoscoping being the pain that it is, a lot of folks wanted to be able to use Photoshop directly on their video files, and the .flm was the way to do it. But, with the advent of better painting techniques in After Effects and other programs and the time consuming nature of working frame by frame in Photoshop, it never really caught on that much. Ive done some Lightsaber stuff with it (a long time ago), and it was pretty handy. Photoshops painting tools still dwarf After Effects, so there's a reason to use it.

As for using them, you would simply open them in photoshop, do your work, flatten the image and save it. Then, opening in Premiere or After effects would use it just as normally as an .avi or .mov, and you would export from one of them.

Photoshop CS2 is not that great of an improvement over CS1, and apart from a few new cool blur types, a one click healing brush, and the Perspective Stretch tool (or whatever it's called) I really don't see a need for it. But you defniately need to get something more than elements. You would do pretty well with Potoshop 7, and a used copy of that would be very inexpensive on Ebay. Hell, CS1 would be cheap, and that's all I use.
 
I used that method to make my first light saber video. Exported the video from premiere to a film strip then added the effects in photoshop which made it really quick and easy then saved that file in photoshop and reimported it to premiere.
 
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