Where to Learn? editing, burning, dealing w/files?

There is an art and science in creating slideshow and video productions. My wife is really good with the artistic element, but runs into trouble with some of the technology.
What resources are available to mac users to learn the technology of editing video, burning/publishing dvds, dealing with files of different types?
What I am trying to say is , "We don't even know what we don't know"

Any advice? I can publish the hardware/software if it would help.

Sure, telling us what you have to use can be helpful.

Books, on-line blogs, forums like this, and perhaps on-line training sites such as lynda.com.

A book I recall liking was "The Little Digital Video Book". I see it was updated in 2008. I have the 2001 edition. Another one is "iMovie '09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual". I have a very early version of that when it only discussed iMovie, and recall liking that too.

I liked the books because they discussed the process not simply the technical actions for software. That first one is the better of the two I think for someone starting from scratch as you seem to be.

The different file types that be involved in video can be a nightmare to deal with, even for professionals. But keep in mind that you are likely to be dealing with only one or two source cameras, your own, and limited output options, so it usually isn't difficult to deal with.

Dive right in.

Join your local Mac User Group.

Ask questions here.

For slideshows, iPhoto does some nice ones, as does Keynote.

For video, you'll have to tell us a bit more about what you want to accomplish to get a good recommendation on a workflow.

Thanks, I found the iMovie book on eBay for $5 Obviously not the latest, but a good start. The biggest issue is all the oddball problems.
Why is this taking so long to burn?
Why is there no sound?
How come it won't play on this PC or DVD?

She figures them out eventually by trial and error. However, if she is going to be doing this for money, she needs to be more efficient.

I will get a list of questions and issues. I am trying to get her to understand the collective power of online forums.

Thanks

You wife sounds a little gun shy. Forums like this are a great place for questions and answers. I suggest she get her self an an account and learns how to search and then post her first question.

Help her out with how to best search and how to post questions so that she can help others help her. With a little focused learning about forums, she should do fine.

iMovie will do basic editing, if you are going pro I would suggest something like Final Cut Pro, which is one of the most advanced vieo editors out there. For photo editing the famous Adobe photoshop is the way to go. I would suggest that you start of with iMovie and when you "out-grow" it so to say, you can move on to final cut, it is a bit expensive though.

liamblack said:

iMovie will do basic editing, if you are going pro I would suggest something like Final Cut Pro, which is one of the most advanced vieo editors out there. For photo editing the famous Adobe photoshop is the way to go. I would suggest that you start of with iMovie and when you "out-grow" it so to say, you can move on to final cut, it is a bit expensive though.

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I agree that the tools that come with the Mac are a good starting place to learn. iPhoto allows for tweaking images, iMovie allows telling a story in video, and iDVD along with sites such as YouTube allows for distribution options. Also, Garageband and iWeb could be taken advantage of. These tools allow someone to gain the technical, workflow and story telling knowledge.

For photo editing a tool such as Aperture or Lightroom may be more appropriate, or perhaps Pixelmator or Acorn. Photoshop isn't always the answer. Ditto for Final Cut Pro. As usual, it would depend on the end user requirements.

Final Cut Express is the next step up. Everything learned there is applicable to Final Cut Pro since Express is the the little brother to Pro. Perhaps by the time the user is up to speed and out grown iMovie, the new versions of Final Cut will be out, some time next year.

joeranger said:

"We don't even know what we don't know"

Any advice? I can publish the hardware/software if it would help.

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I forgot to mention the Apple online tutorials.

Also, you didn't publish your software specs. I'm assuming it is more current versions.