allblogs: Larry Jordan's Newsletter: July 14, 2025

July 14, 2025

Our server rebuild continues, our website speeds are back, and the whole system is more stable. Still lots more to do, but... whew! To celebrate, I have TEN new tutorials this week!

Last week, I found myself with an extra OWC MiniStack STX. (Here's my original review.) I originally purchased it for my family's database of old photos and documents dating back to the Civil War. Recently, I bought a second. What I liked about it - and still do - is that it contains both a user-upgradable SSD and HDD in a single unit that nicely fits under an older Mac mini. But, now that I have two - what should I do with the older one?

My epiphany was to put it under the Mac Studio, where it fit perfectly. What I discovered was that I didn't need top of the line gear to do productive work.

Sometimes, Good Enough is Good Enough

Discover the latest industry news on my home page. There are several new stories this week, including Fx Factory, Laowa, and SmallHD.

Larry's Media Industry News

A few months ago, I cautioned that Final Cut was not exporting still images properly when the Magnetic Mask was applied.

That's changed, as this update illustrates.

UPDATE: Exporting Stills Containing Magnetic Mask in FCP

Several readers have written recently saying my newsletter is going into their spam folder. (Yeah, it's happened to me, too.) This is not my fault. Mail is categorized by your mail software. Check your user guide for ways to keep the email you care about from getting lost.

And, if you need links to past newsletters, you'll find them here.

Larry Jordan's Newsletter Archives

I just finished my webinar series on color tools inside Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve. Filled with dozens of examples to help you improve the look of your projects, these one-hour sessions can jump-start your skill set.

Even if you've been using your NLE for a while, I guarantee that you'll learn something new.

Video Scopes & Color Tools In Apple Final Cut Pro 11

Video Scopes & Color Tools in Premiere Pro 2025

Video Scopes & the Color Page in DaVinci Resolve 20

Thinking of color, hidden inside Final Cut is such a powerful tool that, if you don’t know about it, now is the perfect time to learn.

Apple has built a single-click, automatic color corrector that works exceedingly well in fixing color casts essentially instantly.

One-Click Color Trick for Final Cut Pro 11

This last week, my social media team asked me to create a series of vertical videos for social media. However, my gear only shoots horizontal media.

Out of that experience, I created three tutorials on how to transform horizontal to vertical video, then add captions using Final Cut, Premiere and Resolve.

Transform Horizontal to Vertical Video & Add Captions in Final Cut Pro

Transform Horizontal to Vertical Video & Add Captions in Premiere Pro

Transform Horizontal to Vertical Video & Add Captions in Resolve

Catching up on Resolve articles that were lost when my server collapsed, I have a series covering both the free and Studio versions.

Starting with the free version, this video shows how to keyframe a color change in the middle of a clip. (Yes, you can use a dissolve, but keyframes provide much more control.)

Keyframe a Color Change in DaVinci Resolve 20

With the Version 20 release, Blackmagic updated the motion tracker in both free and Studio versions. In this short video, I show how to configure a Power Window (a fancy name for a mask) for tracking, then apply a secondary color correction effect.

The whole process takes less than a minute and can be used with any Power Window!

Quickly Motion Track Video Using Resolve 20

When you upgrade to the Studio version of Resolve, a host of AI-powered features become available. Recently, I contacted Blackmagic Design to learn which features in DaVinci Resolve 20 were powered by AI.

Here’s what I learned, along with a video demo at the end.

AI-Powered Features in DaVinci Resolve 20

Sometimes, in spite of our best efforts during production, something gets into the shot that we just don’t notice until it is too late.

Resolve has two effects that can quickly remove elements from a shot: Patch Replacer and Object Remover. Here’s how they work

Two Amazing Ways to Clean-up a Shot in Resolve 20

Adding the MiniStack STX to my main system gave me a chance to rewire my office. And that meant buying some new cables. (You can never have enough cables.) My cable fixation has gotten so bad that, now, when I head out to run errands and my wife asks where I'm going, I just say: "You don't want to know." She immediately starts laughing, because she knows I'm off to buy cables.

But in this rewiring process, I learned several important lessons. First, that if a cable is cheap, it means that it just carries power for recharging mobile devices. Charging cables are fine, but they only transfer data around 30 MB/s - that's FireWire 400 speed!

When I connected the MiniStack to the Mac Studio, the SSD did not appear. Why? Because I was using a USB-4 cable, not Thunderbolt. If you have a Thunderbolt device, you need a Thunderbolt cable. A USB-4 device can use USB-4 or Thunderbolt, but not the other way around.

If the cable doesn't have a Thunderbolt lightning icon, it doesn't support Thunderbolt. Also, just because it uses a USB-C connector doesn't mean it supports high-speed data.

It got so bad that I spent a day speed-testing my cables using a Samsung T9 SSD and Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. I then labeled the cables so I know what I've got. And, yes, I trashed a number that only supported charging, to prevent future confusion.

In the past, protocols and cables were faster than our storage. These days, SSD storage is so fast that using the right cable makes a big difference. Given the cost of storage hardware, saving a few dollars by buying cheap cables often means that you don't get the performance from your storage that you expecte. This is a perfect example of pennywise and pound foolish, as I spent this last week learning.