This is useful for a variety of applications such as creating coordinating graphic design elements, matching your worship space LED lighting, finding other visuals with a similar color scheme, or creating your own custom color palette.

Here’s a closer look at how you can use this feature:

1. Find An Item You like In The Media Browser

Nearly every item in the CMG Media Browser can now take advantage of this tool. This includes motion backgrounds, titles, countdowns, templates, social graphics, and more. Find one that you love to get started and click on it.

2. Click “ColorMatch” Under The Image Preview

Once you’ve clicked a graphic in the Media Browser, a new window will pop up that provides an image preview, information, and download options. Under the image preview, click “ColorMatch” to start using this tool.

3. Instantly View The Colors From Your Graphic

With just a click, you are now viewing nine primary colors that make up your chosen graphic. It’s easy to pick out the colors that you like most from this new color palette because its convenient display.

4. Click To Copy Hex Codes

You’ll notice that six digit color hex codes are displayed under each of the hues that make up the color palette. To easily copy these codes, hover over the color of your choice and click to automatically copy to your device’s clipboard. It can now be pasted to another applications with ease.

Ready to give it a try for yourself? Click below to get started!

Video countdowns come in a variety of colors, styles, and lengths. The CMG Media Browser now has over 250 unique Countdowns and Pro Countdowns that were designed with worship services in mind. Many even have custom music mixes included to help in building excitement.

Additionally, CMG releases new countdowns every month that match the latest Monthly Pack, so there are always fresh looks to choose from to use on your church’s screens.

As you’re using countdown timer videos in your services, we’ve learned that it can be helpful for users to have access to certain data. After hearing from our subscribers about their needs, we have started providing two useful specifications—the BPM and the key of the music tracks used on every countdown.

Now, as you’re in the CMG Media Browser finding the perfect countdown timer, you’ll see the BPM and the music key listed right in the pop up modal. This is huge time-saver since you’d normally have to use software or web tools to look up this data manually.

This information is particularly useful for worship ministries running a click (metronome) in their in ear monitors. Plus, many churches like to have their worship band to play along with the music used in the countdown.

It’s also common for tech-savvy churches to use software like Ableton Live to sync music tracks, video elements, lighting, guitar delays, etc. to the same tempo of the song. Having all of the instruments, musicians, and gear working on the same page is critical.

To get started, simply click on any countdown in the CMG Media Browser that has music. This helpful information is displayed on the right.

Here’s a closer look at how you can use this feature:

1. Find An Item You like In The Media Browser

Every item in the CMG Media Browser can now be bookmarked. This include motion backgrounds, titles, countdowns, templates, social graphics, and more. Find one that you love to get started.

**Make sure that you’re logged in to your CMG Subscription to enable this feature.

2. Click The Bookmarks Icon

Once you have found the item that you want to bookmark, you have two options. You can simply click the bookmark icon beneath the thumbnail image. (This is the fastest method.)

Or, you can click the thumbnail image to get a closer look at that media item. Now, you’ll see that the bookmark icon is located in the top right corner. Whatever method you choose, simply click the bookmark icon to save this selection for later.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll see that the icon is now filled in to reflect that your choice has been made. You can do this to as many items in the CMG Media Browser as you like.

3. View Your Bookmarks Collection

To view every item that you have bookmarked, first find the “Browse Media” button located on the left of every page of the CMG Media Browser. Once you hover over this button, a convenient navigation menu will pop down.

In the first column, you’ll see a Bookmarks button. Click this button to navigate to your bookmarks page. Additionally, this page can always be accessed by typing this url into your web browser –  shop.churchmotiongraphics.com/bookmarks.

4. Enjoy Your Custom Curated Selections

Now, you have your own page of handpicked media that is easy to access when you need it. You’ll notice that it is conveniently sorted by media type so that you can access the specific content you need in a flash. Your selections are placed in order by their release date in the Media Browser.

**If at any point you would like to remove an item from your selections, simply click the bookmark icon again and it will be removed.

Ready to give it a try for yourself? Click below to get started!

—

Watch: How To Use CMG Designer (Basics)

At Church Motion Graphics, we’re always looking for new ways to equip churches to look great. One of our favorite new tools that we’ve created to help with this is CMG Designer.

We know that it’s time-consuming to tweak graphics and add custom text to images in apps like Photoshop and Canva. And, don’t even get us started on the complexity of creating a custom video! When deadlines are tight, you need a tool that can get the job done quickly and easily. Our new online CMG Designer will solve this problem for you.

This powerful resource enables everyone to customize their favorite CMG stills with text, shapes, and filters to create their own creative look—all in your web browser without the use of expensive software. Even more, users are able to resize graphics to their exact desired size, and remix the color to create a completely new look. This is pro content that you’re going to love!

With thisvaluable tool that is available to everyone, you can now customize any of our thousands of still backgrounds. Plus, Premium Subscribers can take it a step further by customizing Slide Templates, Social Graphics, and even Motion Graphics!

CMG Designer makes it incredibly fast and easy to edit graphics and videos for your church.

Key Features:

• Creative Text Design
• Useful Shape Layers
• Eye-catching Photo Filters
• 20+ Included Fonts
• Adjust & Refine Graphics
• Cropping & Custom Size Exports
• Quick Render Time

How To Use CMG Designer:

1. Start by choosing a still background from the CMG Media Browser. CMG Premium Subscribers can also choose from Templates, Social Graphics, and Motion Backgrounds.

2. Click on Open In CMG Designer on the left of the preview window.

3. Play around with the features, and have fun editing your graphic.

4. Click Export Image in the top right corner to save your new graphic or video to your computer.

Bonus: For Premium Subscribers editing Motion Backgrounds, after clicking the Export button, a new window will pop up. Click the Build Motion button to start rendering your custom video. Once it’s completed, click the Download button.

Helpful Tips:

• CMG Designer works best on desktop computers.
• More fonts, shapes and features will be added in the future.
• CMG Designer works with Pro Layers, and will export a PNG with an alpha channel.
• You can open up multiple CMG Designer windows at at time.
• You can export, and keep working on a project to create multiple exports with tweaks.

—

At Church Motion Graphics, we’re always looking for new ways to equip churches to look great. One of our favorite new tools that we’ve created to help with this is CMG Designer.

We know that it’s time-consuming to tweak graphics and add custom text to images in apps like Photoshop and Canva. And, don’t even get us started on the complexity of creating a custom video! When deadlines are tight, you need a tool that can get the job done quickly and easily. Our new online CMG Designer will solve this problem for you.

tThis powerful resource enables everyone to customize their favorite CMG stills with text, shapes, and filters to create their own creative look—all in your web browser without the use of expensive software. Even more, users are able to resize graphics to their exact desired size, and remix the color to create a completely new look.

With this powerful tool that is available to everyone, you can now customize any of our thousands of still backgrounds. Plus, Premium Subscribers can take it a step further by customizing Slide Templates, Social Graphics, and even Motion Graphics!

CMG Designer makes it incredibly fast and easy to edit graphics and videos for your church.

Key Features:

• Creative Text Design
• Useful Shape Layers
• Eye-catching Photo Filters
• 20+ Included Fonts
• Adjust & Refine Graphics
• Cropping & Custom Size Exports
• Quick Render Time

How To Use CMG Designer:

1. Start by choosing a still background from the CMG Media Browser. CMG Premium Subscribers can also choose from Templates, Social Graphics, and Motion Backgrounds.

2. Click on Open In CMG Designer on the left of the preview window.

3. Play around with the features, and have fun editing your graphic.

4. Click Export Image in the top right corner to save your new graphic or video to your computer.

Bonus: For Premium Subscribers editing Motion Backgrounds, after clicking the Export button, a new window will pop up. Click the Build Motion button to start rendering your custom video. Once it’s completed, click the Download button.

Helpful Tips:

• CMG Designer works best on desktop computers.
• More fonts, shapes and features will be added in the future.
• CMG Designer works with Pro Layers, and will export a PNG with an alpha channel.
• You can open up multiple CMG Designer windows at at time.
• You can export, and keep working on a project to create multiple exports with tweaks.

Watch: How To Use CMG Designer (Advanced)

We’ve heard from many of our users that it can sometimes be difficult to find the perfect motion background to fit with a song. More than anything else, this often comes down to selecting the perfect speed of a background to align with the tempo of an arrangement. For a motion to look its best in your service, it must match the pace of the moment around it. So, we developed a way to help with this right in the Media Browser.

Search By Song Name, Artist, or CCLI #

With TempoMatch, we’ve made it easy to find the perfect motion to fit each song in your set list. This new feature gives you the option to do a search for the specific song that you’re trying to match. Simply enter any worship song by typing the song name, artist name, or CCLI number. You’re quickly presented with every motion in the Media Browser that matches that speed. Our team has worked hard to fill our database with a large library of the most popular worship songs. We have backgrounds that will look great no matter what you’re singing!

Sort By The Filters Panel

Or, you can simply choose one of the five tempo indicators from the filters panel. From the motion backgrounds gallery, click the filters button to reveal the filters panel. Choose one of the tempo speeds to narrow down your search. Our motion background library is split up into five categories that are sure to fit your songs: subtle, slow, medium, fast, and hyper.

Choose A Tempo Button

Additionally, from the Motion Graphics page, or any motion pack age, you can click on one of the tempo buttons at the top of the section.

Search By Tempo Speed Name

Alternatively, you can search of the tempo speed names in the search bar: subtle, slow, medium, fast, and hyper. This is great way to access an entire collection of motions within a certain tempo from any page in the Media Browser.

TempoMatch Within Search Results

As you search in the Media Browser, TempoMatch songs and artists will be included in search results. You can click the TempoMatch button to see all of these found items.

Give TempoMatch a try and see how it can make selecting motions easier than ever.

If you missed the first Pro Builder video teaching the basics, click to check that out first.

Pro Builder is the fastest way to transform Pro Titles, Pro Layers, and Lower Thirds into beautiful motion and still graphics. Our CMG Media Browser is loaded with over 4,000 stylized Pro Titles, Pro Layers, and Lower Thirds that can now instantly be combined with our large collection of still and motion graphics. This makes it super easy to create custom looks with just a few clicks.

This exciting tool is available exclusively with the CMG Premium Subscription.

To learn more advanced features of Pro Builder, click to check out this video.

Pro Builder is the fastest way to transform Pro Titles, Pro Layers, and Lower Thirds into beautiful motion and still graphics. Our CMG Media Browser is loaded with over 4,000 stylized Pro Titles, Pro Layers, and Lower Thirds that can now instantly be combined with our large collection of still and motion graphics. This makes it super easy to create custom looks with just a few clicks.

This exciting tool is available exclusively with the CMG Premium Subscription.

Instructions:

1. Start by clicking “Browse” on the top navigation bar of ChurchMotionGraphics.com

2. Then, hover over the “Browse Media” button and choose Pro Titles, Pro Layers, or Lower Thirds from the Layers column of the navigation bar. Or, you can view them all on this Layers page.

3. You will now see a full gallery of titles, layers, or lower third graphics that have transparent backgrounds. These images are designed to be placed over other images or videos.

4. Scroll through this gallery until you find one that you like, then choose one by clicking it. A new window will pop up.

5. From this new window, click the Pro Builder option at the bottom. Automatically, a background will be added to your image. If you like it, you can click the Download Title button to save it to your computer.

6. By changing the selection under Image Source, you can choose to only see backgrounds that come from the matching CMG Pack in which the title, layer, or lower third is from. Here, you can also choose whether you would like to have a motion or still as your background.

7. Press the New Selection link to keep generating new backgrounds from your defined Image Source. When you’ve found the one you like, click the Download button to save it to your computer.

8. When building a motion, an additional step in required. Once you have found the right background, click the Build Motion Button. You will then see a progress bar appear as your new motion is being rendered. Once fully rendered, a new button will appear. Click this new Download button to save it to your computer.

Using Adobe Photoshop ($)

If you have access to the paid software, Adobe Photoshop, follow these instructions:

1. First, it’s important to note that you will need access to our slide templates, social graphics, and lower thirds to begin this process. These are available with select CMG Subscriptions or through single purchase.

2. From the CMG Media Browser, select the slide template, social graphic, or lower third of your choice. All of these have editable text and an included layer identifying the font that was used.

3. From the version section of the window, choose the option with the Editable PSD file. Then, press the large download button.

4. Once your download is complete, it may come packaged as a ZIP file. If so, this will need to be unzipped using the software of your choosing depending on your OS.

5. You will see now see a PSD file that’s designed to work in Adobe Photoshop. Double click to open this PSD in Photoshop.

6. Once the file is open, look to your Layers panel (most likely in the bottom right corner of Photoshop). There, you will see a layer labeled “Fonts Used” that is currently turned off.

7. Click the small grey box on the left side of this layer to toggle the visibility of this hidden layer. An eye icon will appear, as well as a text box at the top of the graphic.

8. This “Fonts Used” layer will now provide both the name of the font that was used in this graphic, as well as a URL so that you can easily find it online for download.

9. The text that is shown in this “Fonts Used” layer is editable, so you can double-click to select the URLs. You can then copy and paste these directly into your internet browser.

Using Photopea Online Photo Editor (Free)

Photopea is a free online photo editor that will not cost anything to use for this task.

1. First, it’s important to note that you will need access to our slide templates, social graphics, and lower thirds to begin this process. These are available with select CMG Subscriptions or through single purchase.

2. From the CMG Media Browser, select the slide template, social graphic, or lower third of your choice. All of these have editable text and an included layer identifying the font that was used.

3. From the version section of the window, choose the option with the Editable PSD file. Then, press the large download button.

4. Once your download is complete, it may come packaged as a ZIP file. If so, this will need to be unzipped using the software of your choosing depending on your OS.

5. You will see now see a PSD file that’s designed to work in Adobe Photoshop, but can also be opened in the free online photo editor, Photopea.

6. Navigate to Photopea.com in your internet browser. In the top right corner, click File. Then, choose Open. A window will pop up allowing you to locate and choose the PSD file that you just downloaded. Select this PSD and click Choose For Upload.

7. Once the file is open, look to your Layers panel in the bottom right corner of your screen. There, you will see a layer labeled “Fonts Used” that is currently turned off.

8. Click the greyed out eye icon on the left side of this layer to toggle the visibility of this hidden layer. An eye icon will appear, as well as a text box at the top of the graphic.

9. This “Fonts Used” layer will now provide both the name of the font that was used in this graphic, as well as a URL so that you can easily find it online for download.

10. The text that is shown in this “Fonts Used” layer is editable, so you can double-click to select the URLs. You can then copy and paste these directly into your internet browser.

Phase 1 – Organize Your Hard Drive

The first thing to do is to organize all the media on your hard drive. This means hunting down all your digital media assets, moving them into one designated folder and using a structure of sub-folders to organize. Store all of this important data on an internal drive other than your system drive or on a high-speed external drive. Besides being fast, your data will be protected if your system drive crashes.

Clean Up Your Media

Once you have all your media in one place, this is the perfect time to go through it and do some thorough cleaning. Here are some actions to take before you start the sorting process:

• Delete or archive outdated media
• Delete duplicate media
• Delete low-resolution and poorly designed media
• Re-encode oddly formatted media to a new format
• Rename media using logical naming conventions
• Test problematic media

Root Folder Organization

On your hard drive, create a single folder for all your media. Make it easy to access and find. Don’t have this folder deeply nested somewhere that a volunteer would have difficulty finding. Next, create a hierarchy of folders. At the root, we like to split all our media by format such as HD, SD and triple-wide resolutions. This is important to us, because we travel to different venues with various screen aspect ratios and projector resolutions. If you are only in an HD environment, you might consider archiving all your SD content in another location on your hard drive.

Another important folder we have in our root directory is for “Sunday Service”. It is common to have media that is only used for a particular weekend like an announcement slide, photo or Keynote/PowerPoint presentation, and we like to keep all this data in one place. Within this folder we have sub-folders for each weekend service that use this naming format: YYYY-MM-DD.

One additional folder we like to keep handy is for bundles and packs. CMG and other producers sell packages of media that include countdown timers, still graphics and moving backgrounds, and rather than sorting all the pieces in different folders, we prefer to keep them together. These sets of media are usually thematic and it only makes sense to organize them this way.

HD, SD and Triple-wide Folders

Within each “HD”, “SD” and “Triple-wide” folder, we have the same identical sub-folders: “Announcements”, “Countdown Timers”, “Motion Backgrounds”, “Sermons”, “New”, “Seasonal” and “Still Backgrounds”. This helps us to easily find the media we need whenever we’re switching from 4:3 to a 16:9 setup or vice versa.

The “New” folder is a great place to temporarily store media when you don’t have any time to sort and organize it. Be warned though that this folder can easily get unorganized if not maintained on a regular basis.

The “Seasonal” folder is also unique, because it holds sub-folders for different seasons and celebrations like Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving. For media-heavy seasons like Christmas and Easter you might consider adding additional folders to organize the various types of content like “Christmas Countdown Timers” and “Christmas Announcements”. Another option is to add the year to the folder name for further clarity.

Phase 2 – Presentation Software Organization

Now that you have all your media organized on your hard drive, it is ready to be imported and organized in your presentation software.

In most cases you want to set up your folders with the same organization structure as your hard drive. Create the same folders for “HD”, “SD” and “Triple-wide” that have sub-folders for “Announcements”, “Countdown Timers”, “Motion Backgrounds”, “Sermons”, “New”, “Seasonal” and “Still Backgrounds”. Also make sure you include other special folders like: “Packs” and “Sunday Service”.

Same As Hard Drive

For the most part, we want to set up folders that have the same organization structure as our hard drive. We want a folder for “HD”, “SD” and “Triple-wide” that have playlists and folders for “Announcements”, “Countdown Timers”, “Motion Backgrounds”, “Sermons”, “New”, “Still Backgrounds” and “Seasonal”. We also want our other special folders added: “Bundles and Packs” and “Sunday Service”.

Themed Folders and Playlists

Additional playlists and folders can be created based on themes like color, tempo, church media producer and style to help easily find the piece of media you are looking for. Create as many of these as necessary without getting carried away. Simplicity will make organizing your library of media much easier.

Need help composing, editing and presenting worship slides? Download The Worship Media Handbook, which was just updated to include even more helpful information.