M-M-M-Max Headroom!!

[Steve Roberts]

If you search youTube for “max headroom” you can find some visual references, such as the pepsi spot. Frewer was wearing a headpiece and base makeup with no apparent contour, which gave him that pre-subsurface-scattering-CG look. Proper lighting would help.

Anyway … you could try removing any colour variation by using the CC Toner effect with the “blend with original” at 50-70% maybe. Then apply curves next (or before) to flatten out the highlight part of the curve to try and reduce reflections. You should probably mask around the face to retain colour in the rest of the shot. It’s not great, but …

… anybody else?

[Jamie Worsfold]

Thanks Steve – I’d already been looking at Max on YouTube. Only problem is I’m still on ol’ AE v6 (shame on me…!!). So haven’t got the CC Toner which is a bit of a pain.

But I do think I’ve found a bit of a workaround… it means using three duped layers…

Layer 1 – I’ve desaturated, played with the curves and levels, and Equalized. Set to Multiply mode.
Layer 2 – Uses Channel Blur to flatten the image. Set to Add mode.
Layer 3 – Uses Pete Warden’s Vectorize plugin.

I may be able to simplify it even more, but its starting to ‘head’ (haha!) in the right direction. The skin tones are definitely flattened, I just need to play more with getting the face details just right.

Thanks for the help though….. If anyone else has any even simpler ideas…. 🙂

[Steve Roberts]

Also, Aharon’s toon tutorial may come in handy. Click on his head and see what happens.

[Jamie Worsfold]

IS the Remove Grain filter only in AE 6.5 and 7?

Or am I being blind and can’t see it in my plugins at all?

[Steve Roberts]

You may be out of luck. I think AE only acquired the plugs for 6.5 onwards.

[Jamie Worsfold]

Hmmm, looks like I’ve got even better reasons for upgrading then 🙂