Luma keying

[Bruce Quayle]

Okay…I think I found it – Mask Generator huh? All these new terms! Why can’t we just call it Luma Keyer? Or am I just old fashioned?
Cheers,
BQ

Bruce Quayle

[Steve Rhoden]

Yes Bruce, you are old fashion. Remember,
“MASK GENERATOR” sounds Professional, futuristic & Robust,
While “luma keyer” sounds lame and amateurish.
laugh…laugh….laugh

Steve Rhoden
Creative Director
TNX EFFECTS STUDIOS.
sample bits at
http://www.youtube.com/hentys

[Bruce Quayle]

Hi Steve,
Yeah – been in the industry since 1976 – started at the BBC in London…heck I bet not many folks on this forum even know what a two inch quad is!
Well…I’m not doing so well with my “luma key” and hopefully you can stear me in the right direction.
I had a situation where I had a VERY contrasty situation and want to show detail in the darker areas. I shot a static of the scene first exposing the important area and blowing out the backlit area. Then I exposed for the backlit area leaving the forground in the dark. I now want to compose the two together by keying out (I guess ‘masking out’) the blownout areas and replace that part of the picture with the shot exposed for the backlight.
Unfortunately I just can’t get it right. With a simple luma keyer, it would have been a simple process – much like chroma keying, but I’m stumped! Can you help?
Cheers,
Bruce

Bruce Quayle

[Steve Rhoden]

Hey Bruce,
“You’ve been in the industry from 1976”, (around when i started walkin)……
Trust Me, thats a long and accomplished career,i can only fathom the experiences
gained and the vast changes in this
industry that you have seen throughout.

Here is the thing….the luminance key in the mask generator can
be tricky to get right at times, and for certain fx, takes a lot
of tweaking to get there, as you are probably experiencing. So
alternately if you want to show detail in the darker areas of
your shot, you can use the “color curves” or the “levels” filter,
not many realize the value of these filters. Try it, i am sure
with a few tweaks you can get your shots looking
the way you want…probably no need to go
through the extra steps for keying….let
me know if these Help.

Steve Rhoden
Creative Director
TNX EFFECTS STUDIOS.
sample bits at
http://www.youtube.com/hentys

[Mike Kujbida]

Bruce, Steve is right when he says to look into using the “color curves” or “levels” FX.
My feeling is that you’ll get a lot more control than the way you were thinking of doing.
If you’ve used either of these in Photoshop, then you know how they work.
BTW, I thought your name looked familiar and, when you mentioned the dps Forum, I knew why.
I still have a Velocity suite in the office (V. 8.2) but it rarely gets turned on these days.
Glad to have another “convert” here 🙂

[John Frey]

Welcome to the Vegas Forum, Bruce. A local NBC affiliate still had a Quad(2″ Videotape Width)VTR in it’s production room when I first opened for business. Had a few Quad orders come through that were dubbed to 3/4″ videotape(our production standard at the time), there. I did, however, work on several 1″ Type C productions, including lugging a giant 1″ Field Recorder around tethered to out Ikegami 3 Tube camera. Did you ever get the feeling that most of the folks who follow these forums have no idea what we are talking about?

John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.

Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore

[Mike Kujbida]

[John Frey] “Did you ever get the feeling that most of the folks who follow these forums have no idea what we are talking about?”

John, trust me when I say that some of us still do 🙂
I was one of the “lucky” guys who had to align 3-tube cameras 🙁
How many folks out there know the difference between an “assemble” and an “insert” edit anymore – or what it was like to edit audio (on 1/4″ reel-to-reel tape) with a razor blade?

[John Frey]

Mike, I once aligned a 3-Tube JVC camera(operator error hitting the align switch instead of the white balance) on the back of a spectator’s cross patterned shirt during an outdoor boxing match. Maybe there should be another Cow Forum – “Geezer Video Adventures” to accomodate us!

John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.

Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore

[Bruce Quayle]

Mike…John…Great idea for a Geezer forum. At least we would understand the terminology! So pleased to find some folk out there who have been a part of this wonderful revolution in video technology. I built up a film studio/production house back in the 90’s and had one of the first Softimage suites…back before Avid bought them out. What I love today is being able to buy the same (actually more and better) editing power for a fraction of the price! My problem is having sold my studio, I now have to learn what I was able to pay specialists to do back then. Oh well…I guess it keeps the mind active. 😉
Thanks to you both and to you, Steve for your input with my problem. I will address it again today. The more I learn about this software the more I am blown away by what it can do. Some of it isn’t quite as intuitively obvious as the DPS…and seems to take so much longer, but I guess that’s mainly because I am so unfamiliar with the product. One thing I need to get my head around is scripting. This might speed up some of my stuff.
Thanks again,

Bruce Quayle

[August Taconi]

Hey John, Thanks for the video historical review. It was good to find out that there are few in this forum that experienced video even before there was color tv. Until Hurricane Katrina hit in August of 2005 I still had A Sony 1 inch editing vcr with insert and assemble editing, a Sony DXC5000 camera, and the portable Sony Rover with 1/2 deck all of which were purchased in 1971. There all gone with the wind now. However, I did find the Sony Rover camera buried in the mud.

August
Biloxi, Mississippi