Tip 3: Introduction to Pro mode

Switching to Pro mode

This part is easy :). Use CMD-Shift-P, or choose 'Show Pro View' from the View menu

At that point, you'll see something like this:

You know you're in pro mode when you can see the preview all the time, and there's a bunch of "stuff" on the left hand side.

To get you more familiar with it, we're going to run through a few examples. By the end I hope you'll be equally comfortable with pro mode, as you are in simple mode.

Example 1: Creating a new preset

Lets mess about with presets a bit, so you know how to do that. Presets are great because you can set them up for specific needs, without altering/destroying your existing setups.

Go up to right of the preset dropdown (Built-In Retina Display), where there are three dots. Click that. Then choose, Add Preset.  Give it a name, "Camera with Background".

Ok! You should have this:

Now click the plus button to the right of where it says "Layers". A big dropdown will appear.  Select "Empty layer" from the bottom of that list.

We'll resize this later. For now, add another layer (the plus button, again), and find your camera.  You want to select from the second "section" (the second section are all video capable devices). Here's what that looks like, for me:

And after you do that, you should have your camera showing full sized. This is because any time you add a layer that has content (like a camera), it defaults to sizing itself to the size of the canvas. i.e: full frame.

Now for the fun part!

1. Right click the video layer, choose "Size | 40%".  Right click again, choose "Position: Bottom Left"
2. Left click on the "Empty" layer in the properties view in the left. This is the first layer we added, which doesn't yet contain anything.  Click on "Choose..." (near Image Name - half way down properties)
3. Select an image. I'm going to use a steampunk background I found on the web.
4. Notice how it's not full sized? Lets fix that. Right click on that layer (the empty area on the canvas), or go to the Arrange menu, and choose "Fit to Canvas".
   

Here's the result:

Hopefully, you can begin to see how powerful this can be.

With layers, you can compose pretty much anything.  Consider the background AI masking. Notice how it's present on Images too?  Yep!  That means I could have put an image of a person in there, and masked away the background.  Or put a circle mask on the image... etc.

Switching Presets

Lets say we no longer want that canvas/camera shot. We'll switch back to the original preset.  Go to the presets menu, and choose the one with the name that matches your main display. For me, this is Built-in Retina Display.

That's it! We're now using the original settings when we started this tutorial.

OK. Lets duplicate our canvas/camera preset, and mess with it a bit more.

Duplicating Presets

Go to the presets menu, and choose the "Camera with Background" preset.  A preset has to be active in order to duplicate it.  Now, go to the presets menu again, and choose Duplicate Preset.

Now you have Camera with Background copy as the current preset.  You can change preset names from the Presets dropdown menu.

Select the Video layer, then single click on the video layer's title. This is how you change layer names. Change it to "Just Me".

Now enable AI person mask for the layer.

You've only been modifying the selected preset. Not the other.

Go to the presets menu and select Camera with Background. Your older preset now shows up!

Again, go to the presets menu, and choose Remove Preset. This will delete the currently selected preset.  Opps! didn't want to do that?  Press CMD-Z (or choose Undo from the Edit menu).

OK. We did want to do that. So, do it once more! 

Drop down the presets menu, notice that the Camera with Background preset is no longer in the list. The duplciate is, just not the original.

OK. That's enough about presets. In the next tip, we'll talk about layers!

If you're feeling adventurous, try to do what's described in the teaser below. Remember, CMD-Z is your friend!

Layers Teaser

1. Re-ordering layers by drag and drop, and using shortcuts
2. Making sense of the layers dropdown (screens, video inputs, audio inputs, other)
3. Moving a layer to front / back
4. Removing layers
5. Example: making a green screen talking head backdrop