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Hiding a blemish in a shot – is there an easier way to do this?
OK, first off, thanks a lot for this site, as a filmmaker trying to improve my post skills this place has been invaluable to me.
Hopefully my question won’t have me chased off the forum for being dumb/obvious/asked before, but I’ve scoured the boards all day and have found nothing to cover it.
So, here goes…opening shot of my short film, shot through a window (for story reasons, shot pulls out from city view to reveal we’re looking through a window), there’s a pesky speck on the outside of the window right in the sweet spot of the shot (and yes we cleaned the window thoroughly, that speck wouldn’t budge and we were 30 floors up).
I’ve come up with my own solution, but wanted to know if anyone else out there had any better ideas, as my way doesn’t seem ideal.
See pics for three steps of my process. First is original shot (colour corrected) with speck in centre of sky just above line of buildings. Second, I created a 4 point garbage matte, keeping it as small as possible but having it cover all the area the speck moves to as the shot moves (shot was handheld). Third, I created a colour matte and matched the colour to areas on the original shot next to the speck, using drop thing and then my own eyes, as, of course, the sky doesn’t play ball and remain exactly the same hue or brightness throughout the shot. I added noise to the matte to fit in with the grain of the original.
I’m not sure about the end result, it feels like there’s a kind of unmoving smudge of something in the middle of my shot, which is better than a speck, but…hm.
Anyone have any better ideas, beyond tinkering with the method I’m using now (colour of matte, size and position of garbage matte etc)? I’d prefer to keep to FCP at this stage, no time to learn Color right now. Any suggestions gratefully received.
Thanks!
Richard Hughes
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3 Replies
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2 layers, cut hole on top layer to see back layer…with soft edges…move bottom layer enough to get blemish out…or try CHV repair plugin
Broadway Video, NYC
AVID/FCP editor/engineer -
Is it always the sky in that spot? If yes, make two identical video layers in the timeline. The layer *underneath*, move that layer horizontally, just a couple pixels further left or right barely more than the width of the blemish. The layer on top, make on that layer a soft-edged wipe, just a fraction larger than the blemish. When the shot tilts or moves, the sky should continue to match until you hit some buildings or something there, because its the same sky on the same horizontal line. Think of this in photoshop terms, as using the clone brush to copy a nearby good section over the bad section. Just in motion and not stills.
Method two: use the reincarnation plug-in from DigitalHeaven. Since it is for fixing bad pixels, you’ll need to run it a couple times to get the whole smudge done.
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Yes it is always sky in that spot, so I’ll try this method, thanks.
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