Thanks Steve. I have just purchased your book, Sony Movie Studio Platinum 12 from Amazon. Re my question, I am hoping to find the basics that someone looks for. I have re-looked at the standard features. Would you mind elaborating a little?

Tony

That was an easy sale, eh?

FWIW on titling it probably "depends" - but I've a few suggestions:

Try to keep to non-serif fonts (so the Default is OK, but Times Roman is less-so)
and if yr audience is mixed-age, probably best to avoid "way-out" fonts which can be difficult to read...
then you need to use a font-colour that contrasts well with the video background (although this need not be an issue if you have solid background colours).

I suggest you drop the opacity of the video, maybe 10% ( so it hardly shows ). This helps to make the Text stand out.

Create a few short videos purely to play with TEXT . . . . Look at the effects of Tracking, Scale and Leading (from the print-industry technique of adding thin lead sheets between lines of text). Then experiment with the shadow controls (buty don't overdo the shadow-ofset).
I'm not too keen on the Deformation features - and you can add a few Symbols using ALT-key but this is far from easy - it's my belief Text presentation is a poor-relation in Movie Studio. It's difficult to apply effects to individual pieces of Text as you might want to in (say) a book Title-page.

Good Luck.

However, try also fellow film-makers - join a Film-Making Club and you'll get a dozen suggestions from every twelve members . . . . good luck.

Avoid thin serif fonts and small text.
Avoid saturated primary colors and clashing backgrounds. A little red goes a long way.
Set Luminance, RGB levels (in the text properties) between 16-235, never less nor greater.
Keep effects to a minimum.
A little drop shadow often works wonders for readability.
Avoid moving text in interlaced projects.

That pretty much covers it.

The main thing is readability. You can play with the shading, colours and animations anytime, but just make sure that the text is readable.

That means if you have a composition where your theme font colour is say, yellow and then you have a piece of footage where there is lots of yellow and it's hard to find where you place your text, you must then use background shading or overlay some other piece of footage, to give you some contrasting area to work with (placing the 'bright' yellow over a darker colour/area).

One good trick I'd like to share is that if you make another layer of the same text (this comes from graphic design tricks), then 'blow it up/out' behind it (using glow and/or other effects), it will create a nice contrasting background that is then already in the shape of the text that is in front and give you a nicely shaped "shadow" - which will then make your text easier to read.

Good luck and Have fun with it!

One thing you can do that will contrast with any background is to create a maximum width outline for your text. This creates a large halo around the whole text string in an appropriate colour.
Use the legacy text media generator to create your title (I usually use a subdued yellow for my font colour). In the Effects tab put a check mark in the Draw Outline box and select a suitable colour for the outline (I find that black usually works). Move the Width slider to maximum but leave the Feather slider where it is.
As other people have stated, use a font that isn't too fancy.

How do you add drop shadow to your text?

Also, how can I add a tinted background behind the text, to darken the video and make the text stand out? I see this a lot in clips edited with iMovie, I couldn't find how to do it with Movie Studio.

Thank you,
Remy

Text Properties and Effects, it's right in front of you.

Remy
'Tinted background' - I just explained how to do this in the post before yours.

Thank you for pointing this out.

I am playing with this feature. Using the Media Generator / Credit Roll, or the Legacy Text / Soft Shadow. In both cases, it does exactly what I am looking for, except that I can't find a good way to set the size and position of this tinted background. Ideally I'd like it to be a box behind the text covering the entire width of the frame, but not the full height.

Any idea or recommendation here?

Thank you.

You'll need to use two video tracks then: one for the background and another above for the text.

This is what I am doing, video clip on one track, title on an other.

Still, I am having issues properly sizing the title box.

If you count the video clip you need three tracks. The extra one is a background for the text.