Final Cut Pro® Portable Genius

Chapter 2. What Are the Critical Final Cut Pro Preferences?

Before you begin editing in Final Cut Pro, you should customize a few preferences to improve your workflow. Because there are many settings and preferences, I'll cover just the critical settings that have an immediate impact on how the software functions.

• Working with Multiple User Accounts

• User Preferences

• System Settings

• Audio/Video Settings

• Using Easy Setup

• Customizing the Interface

Working with Multiple User Accounts

Mac OS X allows you to configure your system for multiple users. Depending on your workflow, it may not be necessary to create individual user accounts for your Final Cut Pro editing system. Each Mac OS X user account has its own settings. This means that if you have three people who are going to use the system, you would have three different login IDs (see figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1. Multiple Mac OS X Login IDs

Note

If possible, I recommend working with only one primary Mac OS X user account for Final Cut Pro. Otherwise, each Mac OS X user will have a different set of user preferences. While this doesn't sound like a bad idea, it can cause serious problems if you have different accounts set up to capture media in different locations.

User Preferences

The user preferences can be found under the Final Cut Pro menu

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