Covering Shadows That Are Not Suppose To Be In Frame

[Graham Bernard]

I understand Debbie. A real pain! Can you supply JPGs of the 3 situations?

1/- What you WANT

2/- People looking through DOOR

3/- Actors IN FRONT of door

Are these the 3 situs?

I’ve done a “Piece To Camera”. To one side of the Talent there was a Window Blind that was being gently moved by an updraft from the AirCon – ugh….. I employed masking to eradicate it. Now, yours is more complex, ‘cos of the actors moving in front of the door. But I’d like to have a go to suggest what could be done.

Grazie

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie to the rescue. How are you?

Yes, my situation is very complicated. The most complicated one is the shadow to the right of the actor. The shot is static, but occasionally you’ll see the shadow of a hand, head or even camera.

I thought of the Jpeg idea and even went into Photoshop, cut out the portion that didn’t need to be seen and left the clear area of the wall where the shadow appears. I saved it as a snapshot and tried to place it over the frame in Sony Vegas. It didn’t work because the part that was transparent in Photoshop became a white background once I snapshot it. It covered the entire frame. So, now I am trying to work in After Effect to create a Prekey, but I need to find a scene where this shadowing does not happen so that I can create the Prekey to cover the area without covering the actors. The only issue with Prekeying is that it is transparent, and I still may see the shadow, but it’s worth a try.

Here’s a snapshot of the shadow issue, and the door too. I have resolved that the door is not as critical as the shadow, because it looks like people are looking in on the trial, although I would like to get rid of it. The shadow is really critical because no one else should be in frame.

Shadow –

Door –

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

I believe I solved the shadow issue. What I did was drop the clip into Photoshop and removed everything except the wall by using the quick select tool. Then I saved it as a PNG which kept it transparent.

I then dropped the file into Sony on the duplicate track above the clip and it covered everything. The only problem I had was that I could see the wall as a different color, because the rest of the file was transparent. So, I opened the file in Video/Crop and chose the mask square tool and made the square a little shorter than the mark. Then I feathered it. So what appears is a smooth transition between the colors which looks like it might be the lighting. I’m still working on it, but at least I minimized the shadow, which is very slight now.

I would suppose another dupe track would block out the shadow altogether.

I’m still working on the door issue. That’s definitely a challenge.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Graham Bernard]

This any good?

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

It’s better than what I came up with. How did you do it?

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Graham Bernard]

Would you like the VEG? What release of Vegas are you running?

Grazie

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[Debbie King]

You did this in Vegas Pro alone? Really? I am running Vegas Pro 12.

I thought for sure I would have to work with a third party to get the opacity over the shadow. As mentioned, I tried Photoshop partial transparency by cutting the photo out and leaving just the wall in 100% opacity. Darkening the wall in levels and saving it as a PNG. My discovery is that even though it is opaque in Photoshop, by my saving it as a PNG, it makes the entire file transparent, which means that some of the shadow is still seen.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Graham Bernard]

_______________________________________________________________

[Debbie King] “You did this in Vegas Pro alone? Really?”
_______________________________________________________________

Yeah, really! It’s all there.

Here’s the VEG:-

7508_debbieshadowonwall1a.veg.zip

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

I got it. What I did was go back into Photoshop cut out the picture and leave a very small portion of the wall. Then I went to fill and filled in the transparent space with the current content. I then saved it as a Jpeg and dropped into a separate video track in Sony to create a picture on top of picture effect. I went into the video/crop tool and positioned it over the shadow area. It was completely covered. Since this is not a solid color wall, the texture is a bit off, a little stretched. I think I can live with it. Since it still looks like a panel, I believe I can get away with it.

When I placed it over a duplicate video track it was superimposed and I could still see the shadow. When I used the other technique in my previous post, I could still see some of the shadow because it was a PNG which made the file transparent.

This technique the photo is 100% opaque that covers the shadow completely.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

Thank you for the file. I have it open in Vegas now, and I see what you did. Amazing.

Many thanks,

Debbie