Category Archives: Adobe

Adobe software

Big Heads, Tracking Motion, and Napoleon Dynamite

By faber | Published: April 10, 2012

Written by Tim Yoon I love watching the NBA. In addition to loving the game, I often enjoy watching the NBA promotional video series (“Where Amazing Happens” is a personal favorite). There was a particularly amusing promo series a couple years back where NBA stars had big head cutouts and looked akin to bobbleheads: Today [...]

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InDesign: Getting Started

By faber | Published: November 3, 2011

  Whether you want to create a text-heavy layout for a publication, or a single-page poster presentation, Adobe InDesign allows you to lay out pages in a relatively easy and aesthetically pleasing way.  This post will walk you through the basic tools you need to know to turn a simple template into a savvy, print-ready [...]

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Improve Post-Production by Transferring from Premiere to AfterEffects

By faber | Published: October 28, 2011

In the MPS, Adobe Premiere versus Final Cut Pro is a question that comes up for patrons new to high-end video editing.  For the most part, the two programs can all accomplish the same tasks and the outcome of the decision won’t have a huge impact.  However, Premiere, as part of the Adobe Creative Suite, [...]

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Interactive Elements in InDesign

By faber | Published: October 21, 2011

With the increasing importance of technology, many traditionally print-based channels are going digital. The newest version of InDesign, CS5, features an Interactive workspace that allows you to add multimedia, animation and other interactive features into your layouts. If you’re creating pages intended for the web or other digital experience, adding slideshows and animation is a [...]

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Three Uses for Masks in Photoshop

By faber | Published: October 18, 2011

Some useful things you can do with masks is brighten/darken a certain part of an image (for example, someone’s face), fade the edges of an image, and place an image within text. A layer mask allows you to control the visibility of a layer. You can use a layer mask to selectively show a part [...]

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Live Trace Tutorial in Adobe Illustrator

By faber | Published: October 11, 2011

Many times, a person will want to incorporate an image or graphic into an Illustrator project, but they only have it as a jpeg, and don’t want to hand-trace it. Now, tracing with the pen tool can be quick and easy once you’ve got the hang of it, but it takes practice, so if you [...]

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Quickly Adding Life to a Dull Photo: Levels, Curves, & Vibrance

By faber | Published: May 5, 2011

Written by MPS Consultant Alikiah Barclay – for more help with this topic, visit Alikiah at the MPS during his scheduled hours, visible on our Live Schedule. Often photographs come out just a bit washed out. Especially when your camera is nothing fancy, some photos with great potential may simply seem dull.  However, resurrecting these [...]

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Animating Text in Adobe After Effects

By faber | Published: May 4, 2011

Written by MPS Consultant Angie Yu – for more help with this topic, visit Angie at the MPS during her scheduled hours, visible on our Live Schedule. To add text, select the Text tool (the “T”) in the Tools window and click anywhere on the Composition. To change the text style, there is a Character [...]

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Vector-style in Photoshop

By faber | Published: May 2, 2011

Written by MPS Consultant Jaewoo Lee – for more help with this topic, visit Jae at the MPS during his scheduled hours, visible on our Live Schedule. Vector art is a style of art that is created using shapes, objects, and lines that are composed from paths and points.  It is different from regular graphic [...]

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Adding Muzzle Shot effects in AfterEffects

By faber | Published: April 12, 2011

Written by MPS Consultant Mike Kuo – for more help with this topic, visit Mike at the MPS during his scheduled hours, visible on our Live Schedule. Want high action scenes in your movie?  Have a low budget?  Maybe if you equip yourself with a couple of “hand” guns*, you’d be able to put some action into [...]

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  • New MPS West Now Open!

    The new MPS in 006 Bostock is officially open! Come see us in our new location near the Link in the lower level of Bostock.

    The Old Chem branch of the Multimedia Project Studio is now permanently closed.

  • What is the MPS?

    The Multimedia Project Studios are a series of high-end computer labs located at Duke University. We feature cutting edge equipment and industry standard software and are staffed by a corps of student Multimedia Consultants who are available to help you out with your project on a one-on-one basis, but are not able to do production work on your behalf.
    MPS Lab Locations & Hours
    MPS East
    115 Lilly Library
    The MPS in Lilly is open whenever the library is open. Check their site for hours, which can change during holidays and academic breaks.

    MPS West
    006 Bostock
    The MPS in Bostock is open whenever the library is open. Check their site for hours, which can change during holidays and academic breaks.



    Staffed Hours for Both Locations

    Winter, summer, and other break hours will vary, according to student consultant availability. To check consultants' availability, view our Live Schedule.

    Sunday - Thursday: noon to midnight
    Friday: noon to six
    Be sure to check our Live Schedule to see who will be on staff and our staff page to meet our talented consultants.