Digital Juice or Hotcake?

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Digital Juice or Hotcake?

Postby Yanis » Wed Mar 28, 2007 3:19 am

I have been divided between the two. Any input will be very much appreciated.

Peace,
Yanis :?

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Postby nannybear » Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:55 am

I have both. I started with Hotcakes which I found very easy to use. Digital Juice takes a little more patience. Both are excellent, so it's what you need vs what you can spend. Cheers Jan
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Postby seektheburd » Wed Mar 28, 2007 8:57 am

Yanis,
I don't own any Digital Hotcakes (yet) but have a good size library of Digital Juice. I would highly recommend DJ. Nannybear is right about Digital Juice, it does takes some patience, but well worth it. I think it boils down to what your particular needs/tastes are.

Stephanie
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Postby Yanis » Wed Mar 28, 2007 1:24 pm

Greetings Jan and Stephanie,

I appreciate both your inputs. I was leaning towards the DJ but then DH have some pretty cool effects, too. It looks like I need to invest on both which brings me to my next question, which kits would you recommend from either DJ and DH?

Thanks in advance! :)

Peace,
Yanis :D

Pauline

Postby Pauline » Thu Mar 29, 2007 3:09 am

Hi Yanis

I recently purchased 3 volumes from Hotcakes as there was a special if you purchased 3 ($195 - this month only, although I'm sure April special will be good too). I chose Home Movie Essentials Vol 1 (Travel and Theater), Vol 3 (Events), and Wedding Essentials vol 3. I liked these because there's a good variety of overlays, transitions, etc covering the title themes, but I was especially keen to get hold of the butterflies that flutter across the screen. I think I'll have something in these to use in most occasions. I haven't bought Juice products but will check them out again. Have fun with your shopping :D

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Postby nannybear » Thu Mar 29, 2007 7:32 am

I have almost the same as Pauline - Travel and Theatre and Wedding Essentials Vol 2 & 3. I love using these. Then I purchased the Editor's Tool Kit 10 and 2, and the BackTraxx Music Library Vol. 1. The ETK's are a little more to understand but thanks to the forum I am sure I will get them figured out. Hope this helps...cheers Jan
http://www.janstephens.com or http://www.oilswithjananddonna.com/
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DJ or DH

Postby Yanis » Thu Mar 29, 2007 1:52 pm

Thank you for your recommendations Pauline and Jan!

Peace,
Yanis :D

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Postby Yanis » Fri Mar 30, 2007 5:29 am

I just now realized...I use PSG. Will DH or DJ work with PSG? :?:

Do I need to upgrade to PSP?

Peace,
Yanis :?

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Postby nannybear » Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:20 am

Now that PSG can use layers I don't see why not. What you won't have is the "chroma key" piece so you can't use those. Just animated backgrounds. So I guess it depends on what you want to do as to whether you upgrade or not.....cheers Jan
http://www.janstephens.com or http://www.oilswithjananddonna.com/
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daynad

Postby daynad » Wed May 30, 2007 10:56 am

One thing to remember too is if you want just one file from Digital Hotcakes is you can buy just one if thats all you would need. I did that one time and it cost me $19.95 for one. I don't think it says it on the site, but I emailed them and found that out. Just some info for you all!

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Postby Tarafrost » Thu May 31, 2007 9:38 am

I just ordered the Hotcakes Wedding Essentials, vol 1-3 today. Just slipped under the wire on the special deal they have till midnight tonight. 3 Sets for just under $200.

I just finished shooting a wedding last weekend for the daughter of the founder of Bear Creek Sanctuary. Over 650 shots! Got it slimmed down to just over 500, but have to do another few passes to see if I can get it down to 400 or thereabouts, before I do prints.

For anyone that is interested, a preview of some stills can be found here Michelle and Rob.

Our tattoo artist, Kathy is getting married in July and my wife, Dana, is the Maid of Honour. You can see some of Kathy's work here: Life Itself Tattoos. Since I want to do up slideshows with PSP for both weddings along with a coffee table style bound book (my wedding present for them), I figured I should spring for the Hotcakes stuff to have some good raw material to spiff up the shows.

I'll post both shows, when I get 'em done!
....Andrzej (aka: the curmudgeon)

Tarafrost Photography: Specializing in Wild-Life
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Postby kaylef » Thu Jun 14, 2007 7:47 am

I use Hotcakes ..and love their customer service. I'm salivating at the mouth to use some of the neat Digital Juice stuff, particularly the revealers for text, but I havent been able to get them to work yet. I'm not giving up tho.

Thanks to this forum, I got the diamond working, and bored all of my friends/family with showing them that one. I found a great picture of a hand with a ring and put the diamond on it....so cool.

Thanks for the tip about buying just one! I didnt know that.

Kay

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Postby Tarafrost » Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:11 am

I got my Hotcakes Wedding 1-3 disks recently. Some nice stuff in there!

Just wondering on the best settings to use if you want to layer a DH video clip on top of some other stuff. The green versions don't seem to mask very cleanly...either I see some green fringing, or it starts to eat too much into the core video image. I was using the PSP Chroma Key Transparency settings on the Slide Options/Editing page for the video clip layer. Didn't find a good set of settings to provide decent transparency.

Any hints/guidelines for use of Hotcakes clips with transparency?

Thx!
....Andrzej (aka: the curmudgeon)

Tarafrost Photography: Specializing in Wild-Life
http://www.tarafrost.com

dnavarrojr

Postby dnavarrojr » Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:49 am

Tarafrost wrote:Any hints/guidelines for use of Hotcakes clips with transparency?


If you have Adobe Premiere or a dedicated video app, try using the chromakey in that application to create your own alpha matte.

I use Adobe After Effects that way when I get stuff I want to add transparency to. AE can then output a b/w matte I can use in PSP for transparency.

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Tarafrost

Postby nannybear » Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:08 am

Check out the instructions for Juice in the third party application section. I haven't tried it with my hotcakes yet but having worked with the juice it seems it just might work. Hope it helps. If I make any head way I will post......Cheers Jan


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