This is the topic most related to my problem. I am sorry in advance if it belongs some where else.

Ok I have been very interested in special effects for a while now. And me and my friends are starting to do some editing and I really want to do special effects. I started to play with special effects by going into adobe premiere, importing my video and doing little modifications and then exporting it as a film strip and then opening up photoshop and edited it frame by frame. I have stayed up being very stressed over this. Anyways I was wandering if you guys can make some recommendations to some software that is more "better". Price is a matter but I would really like to hear what is used. Thanks in advance.

P.S. Im running windows.

Well, the answer to your question will depend almost entirely on what special effects you are looking to achieve.

Some effects can be done in Premiere while others canbe done in Premiere but require a plugin to be purchased.

I personally use Particleillusion 3 for all my 'particle' (der!) effects (water, explosions, smoke, dust and the like). I use After Effects for everything else I do.

So then, what specific effects are you after? I may be able to offer more specific advice.

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

the smoke, fire, explosions, the things like the ipod commercials, anything that makes people's jaw drop in aw.

I've no idea what the current ipod commercials look like so that doesn't help me I'm afraid. And vague comments like "anything that makes people's jaw drop" are not a great help either. the point I'm trying to get over is that duifferent specific effect may well dictate the need for different specific software.

however, for you particle effects(fire explosions dust etc) I can make the follwoing recommendations. After Effects plugin Trapcode Particular is supposed to be very good. I've not used it personally but it get s rave reviews though. You can try this by downlaoding and installing bo the trial version of After Effectas and the trial version of Particular. That'll give you a month to play. Alternatively, you might try the s/w I use. Particleillusion 3 (downlodd a trial from www.wondertouch.com) and play. This is not a plugin and works independently. but for best results you do want a compositing package like AE though.

be warned though, none of these things are easy and you should not expect good resutls for quite a while i.e. until you get some leverl of proficiency with the packages in question. rarely for 'special effects' do you find a quick and easy 'silver bullet' fix to any partcular problem.

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I'm not young enough to know everything!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7Bswh4V7vY < smoke and fire etc, in motion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUvMtzbrTJA < compositing in shake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXXzSa9Ewl4 < grading and colour popping in Final cut pro, with some image stabilization in shake

I would say this was blatant self-promotion, but non of these vids only took between one and 3 hours to produce from scratch, so do not represent my pro work/standards.

As Alan said different software will be better at doing different things, so you'll need to be a little more specific.