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Newbie question about video FX/transitions in Vegas 5
I’ve been using Vegas 5 for a couple of months now, and I am finding it the best possible tool for all the basic operations, subtitles, scrolling text, fades, rendering etc.
I now want to get fancy with video FX and transitions.
My problem is that when I choose an FX, I can’t seem to apply it. I’m obviously being stupid and if someone explains it to me I expect it’s so simple and obvious I’ll feel VERY stupid. But I’ve been messing with this over the past day, and I can’t get it to work.
Let’s just look at what happens.
I have a VEG project opened with video on the timeline.
Now I want to add an FX.
I click on the video FX tab and choose threshhold 75%.
I drag it into the video track, and a dialog appears.
This names the image I’m applying the FX to, the name of the FX (though there’s a preset field which presumably allows me to change my setting from 75 to 25% or whatever if I have second thoughts (otherwise, I can’t see the point of it).
So what do I need to do next to apply the FX?
Oh, there’s a question mark, presumably pointing to help. I click on it, and read:
“The Threshold filter is used to adjust a video so that it can be used as a mask more effectively. By adjusting the threshold, portions of the video can be made identical making color keying and mask generation easier.”
Yes, well, that tells me what it does, but it doesn’t advise me how to apply it.
There’s no OK or cancel, and if I click on the top right-hand X the dialog closes, with nothing changed that I can see.
I get similar (no) results when I try any other FX.
I’ve tried clicking on the FX icon at the left of the track to apply the FX to the entire track (not what I want, but it’ll be a good start if only I could get it to happen, but again nothing.)
Can anyhone help me, please?

