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AVID Alpha Channel Masking HELP!!
Hello everyone,
First post here, so bear with me!
I’m a FCP editor, being forced to use AVID and having a headache over the alpha channel.
I want to create an effect where I can easily “dim down” all but a tiny portion of the screen. It’s to highlight a particular area of a graphic that the speaker is talking about during a briefing.
I think the easiest way is to make a graphic in Photoshop that is all mask, except for a transparent area over the part I want to highlight.
So far I have been unsuccesful at creating the PS image. I have tried making a solid black with transparent hole. I’ve tried solid white with a black hole. Not sure what else to do..
Sorry for sounding like a newb, I’m just confused here! Thanks.
nate
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7 Replies
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Here is the fast way to highlight an area, and I may be off on terminology as I’m not in front of a system right now.
1: Drop a 3D warp effect on your shot.
2: Go to the shapes tab, select page fold, and adjust the top slider until the page curl disappears. (You don’t wan to use the shape at all, so you are bypassing it.)
3:In one of the hamburger menus in that pain, you select “Invert manual highlight”
4: Go to the highlight tab. Using those parameters you adjust the shape, location and density of your darkening of the rest of the picture.
Now you have a real time highlight effect.
Terence Curren
http://www.alphadogs.tv
http://www.digitalservicestation.com
Burbank,Ca -
Drop the animatte effect on your clip.
Draw around the portion of the screen you want to highlight
Adjust feathering and transparency to taste.
Keyframe the transparency if necessary.Note- This approach is similar to using an 8 point garbage matte in FCP. Except Avid doesn’t limit the number of points when you draw the shape.
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You can do it several ways. Make both files in photoshop and dissove and you are done.
Mask in after effects and keyframe a brightness change.
Do the same in Avid using two tracks… one for the color effect, the other stacking an animatte effect. If you don’t have animatte, I’d just bust it out in photoshop.
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Terence’s way really is the best. Real Time and doesn’t require more than one track.
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THANKS for the help guys!
What I wound up doing, and learning, was that in Photoshop you can add an alpha channel, and with a white area, cut a “hole” in it that transfers easily to AVID.
I got the effect I needed, and the boss is happy. Thanks for all of your innovative suggestions. I have them all printed out, and will try them each to see if a faster method is available.
But for now, PS CS3 did a great job of creating the masks for me, and I learned a lot about alpha channel in the process!
Love me some Creative COW!!
Nate.
(https://www.myspace.com/ELISIUM) <-- My band. Shameless plug. -
I checked out your band on myspace, man. Cool stuff.
I can always use fresh new music in my shows if you could use some promotion and plugs.
None of my shows have big enough budgets to pay ya for it yet but I’ll surely throw down a bans name and a web link for ya.
email me if interested:
grinnervision at gmail.com -
This is very useful, I am Avid from version 1 in the 90s, and also FCP as a mainstay of my work these days. Truly forgot how to do it in Avid, after nearly 20 years lol! And so easy in FCP. Nice one for the reminder! Big yourselves up!
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