Using DVD Art Professional with Adobe Encore
1. Copy the Eye Scream Factory DVD Art Professional menu templates to your computer's hard drive. You may wish to place the files in your Adobe Encore library folder so you can see the entire library directly from within Encore.
2. Open Encore and create a new project, giving it a name and location and selecting your authoring mode, television standard, and dimensions. For this project, we will use Encore's default settings: Authoring Mode set to DVD and Television Standard set to NTSC.
3. Bring your DVD Art Professional menu template into Encore project by selecting File> Import As>Menu and then selecting the template of your choice. For this project, we'll use the following templates from DVD Art Professional Volume II:
• weddingdance-main-NTSC_DV.psd
• weddingdance-selections-NTSC_DV.psd
About DVD Art Professional DVD Template Names
4. Double click on “weddingdance-main-NTSC_DV” in the project menu to see the menu in Encore. Now we can customize the template by changing “Title of Film” to our title. To do that, select the Text tool in the Encore toolbar, and click directly in the Preview window where it reads “Title of Film”. A cursor should appear, allowing you to change the text. Type your title in and your new title should now take the place of “Title of Film”, complete with the Adobe Photoshop layer effects we’ve included with this template.
If your title is long, it may be necessary to adjust the scale of the Title of Film text by highlighting the Title of Film folder in the Layers tab and using the Move (M) tool to change the scale of the title. To do so, drag the corner of the bounding box until the title is the appropriate size; hold down the shift key to keep the title from being stretched. You can also use the Move tool to change the position of the title. In this example, I pressed the Enter key before typing "Wedding" to bring that word on a separate line. Then, I moved the title up with the Move tool.
5. For our wedding DVD, we're not going to include any special features, so we can remove that option by clicking on the “(+) Special Features” folder and pressing delete.
Now I can use the Move Tool to move the Start Movie and Scene Selection layers in a way that looks pleasing with only these choices.
You may notice that many of the folders and layers have names that begin with codes such as (+) or (=1). These codes are necessary so that Encore will recognize the subpictures. If you open a template in Photoshop and choose to rename any of the folders or layers, make sure not to disrupt this naming convention and only change the text after this coding.
6. Now it's time to make our Selections Menu. I can double-click on “weddingdance-selections-NTSC_DV” in the project tab to alter these options in the same manner. First, I'll change the scene titles into the names of the individual scenes I want the DVD to recognize. Twirl down the “Scenes” folder in the Layers tab to see each of the Scene Placeholder folders. If you need fewer scenes than are provided, delete them by highlighting them in the Layers tab and pressing delete. If you need more scenes, simply highlight one of the Scene Placeholder folders in the Layers tab and select Edit> Duplicate. Now I can use the Text and Move tools to change the names of the scenes the same way I changed the “Title of Film” text in step 4. Click on the "Show Safe Area" button in the Preview window to see title-safe guides.
7. If you need to create a Special Features menu you can re-import “weddingdance_selections_NTSC_DV.psd” and change the text to reflect the special features.
Now your menus are complete and you're ready to import your clips and subtitle tracks and build a timeline in Encore.