Darby Edelen
Forum Replies Created
-
Are you saying that the result of your render is darker across the entire render, or that it slowly darkens as the render progresses? If it slowly darkens then you may actually have animated properties affecting things that you weren’t aware of. You could try selecting all of your layers in the composition and pressing ‘u’ to reveal animated properties. If this isn’t the problem then I’d try rendering to a different codec.
If the entire render is darker then it is probably related to CS3’s color management or some sort of gamma issue. Are you using a Color Profile in your project?
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[glasshalffull] “What adjustments do I need to make to get my printer (Xerox Phaser 8200) to print the true colors that I see on the photoshop screen?”
The question is: what adjustments do you need to make to get Photoshop to show you what your printer will print?
As Richard says, you should see if you can get a color profile for your device (printer). You can use that to create a Custom Proof setting (View>Proof Setup>Custom…)
In this dialog, make sure that your Rendering Intent is set to Absolute Colorimetric (this is a preview of what your image will look like after it is printed, not the final image rendered for the printer). In addition, the paper you use in the printer will have an effect on the color output, so you could check ‘Simulate Paper Color’ at this stage.
When printing you should use either Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric as your rendering intent. For more information here’s an article:
https://www.newsandtech.com/issues/2004/03-04/pt/03-04_rendering.htm
I must admit that I am not as well versed in rendering intents as I’d like to be, anyone that can further clarify would be welcome!
Remember, however, that what you see in Photoshop will always be an approximation of what you see when you print.
Print rough drafts to see what you need to change in your PSD to get the result you’re looking for.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
You’re looking for “Crop Area Options” which is accessible by double clicking the Crop Area tool.
If you can’t find this tool on your tools palette try pressing Shift-O which should highlight it.
The Options window will give you many, erm, options to choose from in terms of visibility of the Crop Area Rulers, Video Safe Areas, Cross Hairs and more.
There are also presets for the crop area at the top of this dialog.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
I will definitely take this survey. While I have a member of the development team on the forum however… I’d like to know if there are any plans to fix the functionality of importing layers from a PSD. It seems that Layer Sets in the PSD cause some problems when using this function and will cause the wrong layer to be imported, or no layer at all.
That has to be the most annoying thing, so far, I’ve found about AE CS3 =)
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[paulsimonrichards] “How are you exporting the footage from FCP? native uncompressed quicktime (export as quicktime)”
Just to clarify, when you use “Export As QuickTime” it exports the footage in the same settings as your timeline, so it should actually be exporting a PAL DV Compressed mov.
[paulsimonrichards] “I go file>export>as quicktime movie> … Settings: compression type: Animation, frame rate 25 fps, key frame every 24 frames, millions of colors +, Best quality, No sound, size: compressor native, no filters, uncheck prepare for internet streaming.”
This is where your problem appears to be, you don’t want to File>Export>As QuickTime Movie. You want to Composition>Make Movie or Composition>Add to Render Queue. For further information I will point you to Dave LaRonde’s excellent rant:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/202/874822
Your default render settings should be exactly what you want to use, the Output Module is named “Lossless” and will take its size/frame rate settings from the composition automatically.
Since the Render Queue is something new to learn, here’s a head start:
https://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/8.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103a4f2dff7-79f4.html
[paulsimonrichards] “Rendered footage cannot usually play at full speed in QT due to size of file, it staggers, hangs etc.”
I regularly watch lossless Animation footage on my computer, and ProRes 4:2:2 compressed HD footage with no stuttering. It’s a function of what sort of disk/raid array/computer you have.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[paulsimonrichards] “Is this a problem with the animation codec coming from adobe to Apple applications? I am now frustrated that I have a fully rendered project which looks great as is from AE but cannot be coloured or cut in an apple application without data loss?”
I have never experienced the issues you describe in going from AE to QT or FCP.
If possible, could you give us a complete breakdown of your workflow?
What format is your source media (DV, Beta, etc.)?
What are your capture settings?
What are your timeline settings in FCP?
How are you exporting the footage from FCP?
How is your footage interpreted in AE after import?
What are your composition settings in AE?
What are your render settings/output module in AE?
Does the rendered footage look correct when played in QT Player? What does it say in the Info palette (cmd-I)?
Hopefully there will be an easy answer after these tough questions =)
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[paulsimonrichards] “so just finally – I then get confused when I read that if I export from FCP as quicktime this will give me the best image quality including the superwhites etc.no compression involved.”
There are a few ways to get footage out of FCP, but the only way you should ever do it is: “As QuickTime Movie”
FCP works in Y’CbCr color which allows for superwhites, if you ever “Export Using QuickTime Conversion” to an RGB format (Photo JPEG or Animation for example) you will be converting the Y’CbCr information into RGB and clipping the superwhites, you may also be unnecessarily re-compressing your footage.
When you export “As QuickTime Movie” you’re getting an mov with the native codec and current settings of the timeline, which is a beautiful thing.
An upside is that FCP is good about importing RGB codecs and conforming them to the proper Y’CbCr range of your timeline, so there shouldn’t be much need to worry about going from AE back into FCP (AE also offers you some YUV/Y’CbCr compatible codecs if you’re paranoid).
[paulsimonrichards] “If an animation clip is included in a DV project and is exported as quicktime movie will this be a lower quality image when compressed to MPEG and viewed on DVD? I have done some tests and noticed image/ color shifts”
Any clips that use a codec different from that of your timeline in FCP will need to be rendered to conform them to the timeline’s settings. It is my understanding that FCP 5 and up should do a good job of fitting Animation’s RGB colors into Y’CbCr accurately, but you might want to look at vectorscopes to be certain.
There should be no noticeable difference in quality between a lossless Animation clip compressed to DV and the original DV footage. Color shifts are always possible when dealing with multiple programs that handle colors differently. Although AE is capable of importing Y’CbCr footage and rendering it out, it uses RGB to composite. I’ve found that the Color Management features in CS3 tend to minimize shifts in color. You can read more about these features here:
https://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/8.0/WS14AC4DDE-84D7-4fc9-B79C-897F2C78EA29.html
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
I would recommend looking into Particular, specifically the new Motion Path feature and the other Air physics properties.
https://www.trapcode.com/products_particular.html
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
SD DVDs use MPEG-2 compression, which can cause some blockiness in areas, especially if the shot contains fast motion/motion blur.
However, it sounds to me like your complaint is stemming from the fact that you’re viewing the DVD on your laptop, which is probably a higher resolution than a standard NTSC device (720×480) which will cause sometimes horrible distortion at Full Screen. For example, when you tell it to play at full screen on a device that is 1440×960 the video must be resized up 200%, causing any compression artifacts to be that much more noticeable in addition to the standard digital blocking you get when sizing anything up (Try sizing something up 200% in Photoshop without Bicubic Resampling… not pretty).
You should view your DVD on a set-top DVD player hooked into a standard NTSC device.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
[Andrew Kramer] “But I think the real reason to have multiple projects for various shots is for versioning, and potential errors. I think many of us have had a corrupt project file that won’t open. By separating your work you’re more likely to maintain most of your work if this occurs. Also as for versioning, you can save multiple copies of particular shot as you work and return to a specific state in the process.”
I like to use AE’s Auto-Save feature to keep 3 backups of the file I’m working on. Getting burned once by a corrupt project file was enough for me =)
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA