Enhance Your Video Project with Custom Titles: A Creative Approach

So in this project right now, I've got my basic promo set down. I've got the audio, I've got the video, but I want to add some titles to basically show you where you are, what you're talking about. So, for example, right here, I want to say, visit London, I want to talk about all the different things, like the historical nature of it, the nightlife, that sort of thing.

So I got about like six titles, one for each video that I want to use. Now there are graphics templates here. Graphics templates are pre-built title templates, and there are a bunch of them.

Some are animated, some aren't, most aren't actually. And they're not bad. Like, there's a nice one here called basic title that I could use.

But what I actually want to do in this case is make it from scratch. So I'm thinking that I want some text, I think that text is going to be mostly white, and maybe I'll put a black background behind it, I think that'd be kind of cool, actually. So I'm going to start with this.

Right there, I'm going to use the properties panel to edit it, no problem at all. So, there actually is a workspace, window workspaces, specifically for captions and graphics. It just moves some things around, but with the properties panel here, I can just work right from here.

Okay, so I'm staying in my editing workspace for this. I'm going to take my text tool right there, just activate it, and I've got to make sure that I'm in the regular type tool, so I press and hold, not the vertical type tool, I don't want vertical type in this. I want regular type, regular type, regular type.

Okay, I'm just going to click right here in the middle, and I'm going to type out the text I want. In this case, it's Visit London. It's going to use whatever the last settings for text you had were, so in my case, that is Arial.

I'm just going to, in the properties panel, highlight that layer, make some changes. You can use any font installed on your computer, no problem at all. So, for example, that's one I have called ASAP, okay, and it will change.

This is a font I have called Badaboom, okay, and it's not changing because I have my type tool active. I'm going to go to my selection tool, which selects the entire type box. Now, when I go to my font, Badaboom, ooh, Balboa, now it changes, okay.

So if you have the type tool active, double-click on the layer. I can get it active; only the text you have selected will change. So, for example, this is now like Babaloo, and that's Badaboom, okay, Badaboom, sorry. If you have the selection tool active and therefore the entire type box selected, whatever changes you make will be for everything.

So, for example, that's ASAP, everything, okay. So again, you can pick whatever font you want. One note, the fonts that have no hooks, the sans serif fonts, tend to be easier to read when they're smaller, but whatever you like is fine.

So I'm just going to highlight the name. If you type out the name of a font, you can use it, no problem at all, okay. So, for example, there's a font called Georgia that is on both Windows and Mac.

It's a nice little serif font if you want to use it, no problem at all. I'm going to go with Georgia Bold, okay. You can control the font size.

There are some automatic settings like Faux Bold, Faux Italic, and there are even settings for all caps if you want to use that. I'm not really using that, but there are basically standard controls for text you'd find in most programs, okay. Alignment, font size, it's all down here, I'm going to do left align, that's not bad, I like that. If the text is a little too close together, I can use settings in here, like tracking, which would space out the text, okay.

I don't want to do that, so it's cool. I'm going to go back to zero for that setting, okay. Now I can manually move it around with my selection tool. I have to be careful because if I grab the corners, it actually makes it larger.

I'll undo that again, Command Z or Control Z, undoes, but I'm actually going to slide down right here, and I'm going to look for alignment. I'm just going to center this and realize I really don't like that. It's a little too much.

So what I'm thinking instead of centering it, what I'm going to go for is just the lower left-hand corner. Now there is an option for that. I'd put it flush left; I'd never see it. Let me actually fix the formatting of this to get what I want.

So the fill, which is the interior color on the letters, I'm going to go with white, click on the color box, white. Now that'll work except if I put this in front of something that's bright. So I want to use one of the other settings here called background, which is the background.

I'll turn it on. Background puts an actual color behind your text. Now I'm going to click on that color box and do black upper left-hand corner, or I can type a color formula for a certain color, or I can even use an eyedropper here to sample from one of the colors in my videos.

Maybe I want that blue right there. I don't, I want black, but now I've got ocean blue, I don't want black, so I'll drag up the left-hand corner, back to black, okay? And why do I see through it? Because it's got an opacity setting right here of 75, I'm just going to raise that so it's considerably higher. I'm thinking maybe like 90 might be good, 95, something so it still makes it easier to see, but I can still see the background behind it a little bit, maybe, but it's right on the text edge, and that doesn't, it's right on the text edge, I don't like that.

So I'm just going to raise the size of this a little bit, and it will push it beyond the border of the text, okay? Now I like round numbers, so I'm going to go with about 40 for that. I like that, so it's big. I like that, it's pretty good.

This has rounded corners, so it would actually round the corners of the box. If you want to kind of like a lozenge or a pill shape, I mean, that's fine. If you want rounded corners, it's fine too.

For me, the rectangular edge is fine, but it's up to you, okay? The other settings here, by the way, stroke is an outline around the text, and shadow basically puts a drop shadow behind it, because I'm using the background, I don't need to do those things. All of these other choices, stroke, background, and shadow, are pretty much designed to make it, A, the text more decorative obviously, but also easier to see against contrasting colors. That's the idea behind it.

So I like that, that's good. Now, what happens if I shove this to the absolute left edge? It looks like that. And the bottom edge looks like that.

So notice it is ignoring the box, the actual background, and just going to the text size, which would make that really hard to read, by the way. So I'll click on my program panel. I'm going to go to my view menu right up here.

I'm going to find my guide templates. I'm going to use the template for safe margins. For the record, the other two I manually made.

Rule of thirds and centered. I manually made those. Safe margins are the ones automatically included for everybody.

And it will give you a 10% edge. So I'm just going to grab that. I'm actually also going to go to view the snap-in program monitor.

So it'll basically let me snap my text box and drag it around to the edge, okay? That's pretty cool. So the outside rectangle of this is 10% from the edge. The inside is 20% from the edge, okay? So it's actually pretty helpful.

But what if I don't want that? What if I want something that's only 5%, maybe from that left edge? Let me remove my guidelines and show you how to make your own. I'm going to clear my guides, okay? So I actually want something that is 10% from the bottom. But from the left edge, only 5%, okay? A little more space I think would be good.

So I'm going to go back to view and add a guide. This is the dialog box that makes guides, okay? So, left is what I'll do for this case from the left edge. Position units are set to pixels.

I'm going to switch that to percent. So the position will be, instead of 10%, I'm going to say 2.5% from the edge. Instead of 5%, let's try 2.5%, okay? And I'll say okay, and I'll get something right there.

So it's a lot closer to that left edge. I'm still going to do the same percentage from the bottom, which I think is like 5% or 10%. Let's go to view.

Let's go to add guide again. I'm going to switch orientation to horizontal. Now it's top and bottom.

So from the bottom, percent. If I do the 10% I was thinking about, okay, it would actually be right there. So let's try less than that.

I'm actually going to try to keep it in the same area. So that would be, by the way, I can't undo the guide. So if I want to get rid of this guide, I'm going to take it and drag it up off the screen.

I'll go back to view and add guides. Again, still horizontal percent. So I'm going to do the same 2.5% from the bottom.

Okay, percent, horizontal, good. And it's right there. So now I'm getting much closer to the edge.

And again, I still got snap enabled, so I can do that. I'd want to preview it to make sure that I can actually still read this. Looks pretty good.

I'm going to remove the guides and read them, but I might need them again. And that's where the view, guide template, and save guides as template come in. To 2.5%. Bottom and left.

Okay, and now that becomes a new guide template. So now when I clear them, the chest, if I like it, right at the beginning, I kind of like that edge. Okay, I can go back if I need to.

Program panel active, view, guide template, and I can pull them right back. 2.5% bottom left. So this way I can have my guides for laying things out.

I can save them. I can close them. So I can clear them, add them in, that sort of thing.

Okay, it's pretty cool. So I'm just going to use my selection tool to make it the same length as the video. And then I'm basically just going to duplicate this.

You've got a couple of choices. One, you can select a clip. When I right-click on it, copy is a choice.

I'm going to go to the end of this, and I'm going to paste. Okay, I did command V to paste, or I could do edit, paste. Okay, notice that if I right-click here, I'm actually not getting a menu choice.

So, at all. So you've got to be careful with this because if you right-click on a clip and you paste, okay, it's selected. So it doesn't even give you that choice.

The other way to duplicate something, I'm going to make this a little longer. So it again lines up with the clip. I'm going to make a whole bunch of these and then just change the text on each one.

Hold down the Option or Alt key if you're a Windows user and drag out. And the program will duplicate a clip for you. That is usually the way I use.

I want to duplicate something. It's option drag like so. And again, I'm just basically making these all line up.

It will snap as long as the snap option is enabled. And now I've got all six of them. But it still says to visit London.

So I've got to go to each. I'm going to double-click on the text to make it editable. And I'm just going to change what the text says.

So the first one was visit London. Okay, no problem at all. Nice visit to London, everyone's happy.

Okay, the second one, which is for the bridge, is going to be historic sites. And you notice it's got the same font, same size, same alignment. I just want to make sure that before I made this, before I duplicated it, that I had left the line.

That's why it'll line up on the left and move out. So the next one, I'll highlight it. Double-click on the text again with the selection tool or the type tool.

Modern convenience. And by the way, if you don't like the type, it's not a problem at all. You can copy and paste that text in.

For the record, if you're not very good at spelling, copy and paste the text in. This is, I guess, I really like really long words. Cosmopolitan Metropolis.

And I got to make sure I spell this right because I am notoriously bad at spelling. Cosmopolitan Metropolis. I actually have it written down to my side.

So that's why I'm making sure I don't screw this up. So most of the time I don't type out text. I just like to get an email with the text.

I have a document with the text. I just paste it in. It's a lot less trouble, honestly.

Vibrant Nightlife. That's pretty good. And the last one is London is Always a Good Idea.

Now this is actually supposed to be the ending text here. So I'm going to change, do it a little differently. I'm going to take the align tools, and I am going to center this.

So center and center. And what I'm going to do is basically have a smaller bit of text. And I'm actually going to break it into lines.

So I'm actually going to go in here like I would type return. Delete that. It will always be the next line.

Again, I'm going to delete that return right there. Just clicking, just editing like any text. Okay, like that.

And then I'm going to use center again. And I should get something like this. It's more in the middle.

It's pretty good. I'm also going to change the text. So I'll select it all.

One, two, three highlights the line. One, two highlights the word. One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four, five. Or command A or control A would do it as well. All my text is highlighted or can be clicked and dragged.

And I'm actually going to change the alignment of this to center. So I'm going to go back up until I find the text align options right there, center. Because that moves the box, I've got to realign and transform.

So not bad, not bad at all. Okay, now if I need more text, I can return again at the end of the line. And this is going to be visitlondon.com. Okay, and I misspelled that.

So I'll click and just fix my typing, S-I-T. I'm going to highlight that entire line. One, two, three, or one, two will do it because it's one word.

And I'm just going to make that text size smaller. I'm sliding over text size. Right now, everything is 135.

I'm going to pull that down so it's smaller. I can also change the color. There's no reason that it has to be the same color.

I'm going to actually make it like a blue. Click on the little color box. I'll click on the color slider here for blue.

I'll make it blue like a hyperlink. What's that? That's actually a little too dark. So I'm going to grab it.

I'm just going to make it a brighter blue. To go with the black background like that. Okay, and again, because I did something that changed the size of the text, I'm going to go back to that align and transform and make sure it lines up again.

Okay, so that actually works out pretty well. Now again, I'm going to get rid of the guideline. I don't really need it for this.

Clear guides. Looks out pretty well. So now I've got that, that, that, that.

And the ending call to action message text is basically big in the middle of the screen, like so. And that's how you make text.