If video editing is your hobby and you have been using a consumer-level video editor for some time you may want to take your projects to the next level with DigitalJuice.com. Digital Juice creates royalty-free professional animations, stock footage, music, layered graphics, clip art and templates that make any video project look like it was done by a professional. Its geared towards professionals but that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of their great products in your hobby level projects. You may be asking yourself these questions: I am a hobbyist, what can Digital Juice do for me? How can I afford their products? I don’t own Adobe CS3 or Apple Final Cut Pro, I can’t use their products. I am going to cover which parts of the Digital Juice products works for a hobbyist budget, hardware and software. Digital Juice can help you achieve professional looking titles/credit screens, DVD Menus/Covers/Labels, professional soundtrack, etc. The first project I used Digital Juice I immediately got comments on those areas of my video and I didn’t think anyone would notice. Digital Juice brings out the Video Professional in everyone.
Budget
At first glance Digital Juice products can range any where from $50 – $350+ a piece. Those prices don’t fit into the Hobbyist budget at all. Don’t worry, Digital Juice usually has a sale running on several of their products at any given time. The sales are when you the Hobbyist want to start make a few purchases. Currently I have around 34 Digital Juice products in my library and I didn’t pay full price for any of them. A few I paid around $25 for but most I spent around $9.95.
Digital Juice products are based on a wide variety of subjects. More than half you wouldn’t use as a Hobbyist. They do have a nice selection of Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter, Valentine, Sports and Wedding products, just perfect for the Hobbyist. The only thing is they may not be on sale when you need them. My advice is when you can get the holiday/special event themed products on sale then stock up. It’s better to have it when you need it than paying more later or not having it at all because it’s not on sale.
Recently in Digital Juice Magazine announced that an iTunes model may soon be a possibility to purchase their product. You may not have to by a complete volume to get just one JumpBack or Juice Drop. You may be able to buy just one or several parts of the volume at lower price.
Hardware/Software
As a Hobbyist you may not be running a top video editor from AVID, Adobe or Apple, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use some of the products. If you have a decent video editor like Ulead VideoStudio 11.5 Plus or Adobe Photo Elements for photos you should have no problem using some of the basic products from Digital Juice. As long as your PC is fairly new to run those programs you should have no trouble incorporating Digital Juice into your production. The biggest consideration, can your editor deal with multiple video/audio tracks? Can it work with transparent backgrounds? For photo editing you need a program that can edit Photoshop’s PSD files.
Juicer 3
Juicer 3.x is a great FREE program that all Digital Juice customers get familiar with right away. You use the Juicer to convert the audio and video products from Digital Juice to a format you can use with your video editor. You can also use it to re-size and change properties of the media to get even more out of your products. One example would be taking a JumpBack and changing the size and creating a lower-third. The Juicer can also be used preview your Juice Drops for photo editing later.
Products
In the other parts of this series we will review the different types of products that Digital Juice offers and how they can benefit the Video Hobbyist. Your projects will benefit with new graphics, title backgrounds. DVD Menus, cover art for your DVD labels and cases, transitions and music. A whole new world will open up.
Part 1 of 8 – Hobbyist to Pro
Part 2 of 8 – Jump Backs
Part 3 of 7 – Swipes
Part 4 of 7 – StackTraxx
Part 5 of 7 – Juice Drops
Part 6 of 7 – Editors ToolKit Pro
Part 7 of 7 – Conclusion
