-
Color Matcher for AE?
Hey Guys,
As you know, there are pros and cons to both Combustion and AE. One major thing is that the Discreet Color Corrector is amazing. One thing I love about it is that you can sample the highlights of an area lets say your background and it will give you color data. (for example: R=255 G=255 B=255) It will then keep that info displayed and then you can get a sample of your GreenScreen Foreground image and it will give you more data (R=200 G=200 B=200). Then you can add a Levels and then with both of the data numbers listed and a live read out of the one you are correcting, you can match the colors based on the numbers. It’s simple, quick and accurate.
Are there any plug ins for After Effects that do this? Not a color matching plugin, but something that gives you the data and keeps its displayed while you do your correction? Any work arounds?
Thanks!
-
5 Replies
-
Well, this may not be ideal, but you could create your own color correcting tool using a text layer, color controls and expressions. I don’t have access to AE right now, and I know I’ll make mistakes in the code without being able to test it, but basically it would be:
1) Create your text layer.
2) Add 2 Expression Control > Color Control effects, select the two colors you want to match.
3) Add an expression to your text layer something like this:
c1 = effect("Color Control 1"); //use the pickwhip I don't know exactly what this should read
c2 = effect("Color Control 2"); //use the pickwhip I don't know exactly what this should read
t1 = "[" + c1[0] + ", " + c1[1] + ", "+ c1[2] + "]";
t2 = "[" + c2[0] + ", " + c2[1] + ", "+ c2[2] + "]";
t1 + " - " + t2; //There is a way to create a line break between the two values, I'll leave it up to you to find that :)The above will give you values from 0 for black to 1.0 for white, if you want them in the color values in your current bit depth you can use:
if(colorDepth < 32) cd = Math.pow(2, colorDepth); else cd = 1;At the start and then multiply your color values by
cd. Either way, you'll just want to match up the colors. You can duplicate the text layer and use them to match grays and blacks as well.Darby Edelen
NVIDIA
Santa Clara, CA -
Wow…
Seems like a lot to do for every green screen or color matching shot. There’s got to be a plug in or a way to tie into the AE Info window…
-
[Josh Miyaji] “Seems like a lot to do for every green screen or color matching shot.”
Well, technically you only really need to do it once… then save it as an animation preset and apply it to a text layer whenever your heart desires 🙂
Darby Edelen
NVIDIA
Santa Clara, CA -
Another note on the expression I gave you before: It doesn’t update as you update your Levels effect on the layer, which I should have realized as I was writing the expression. There is a way to do this with sampleImage() in CS3, but I think that if you thought that the original expression was too complicated that it’s probably better if we not explore this further 🙂
I’m not familiar with any 3rd party effects that would do what you’re looking for, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Darby Edelen
NVIDIA
Santa Clara, CA -
I haven’t used it much and I don’t know if it will do what you are wanting, but Synthetic Aperture’s Color Finesse plug-in is pretty powerful.
https://www.synthetic-ap.com/products/cf/index.html
Hope that helps!
Kyle
AKA, Postman
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up