[Fernando Mol]

Try to change your RAM preview options, in the Time Controls window. Lower the resolution or skip a couple of frames. Instead of pressing “space”, try pressing “Number Pad 0”. This should help.

[Fernando Mol]

Check the Rick Gerard tutorial: “Morphing With Adobe Illustrator“, here in the COW.

[Fernando Mol]

Like when you explain a hundred of times to the designer:

-Send me your photo with at least 1000 pixels wide.

-Mmm… do you mean 300 dpi?

-It is not about the resolution, it´s about the size. Check the image size in Photoshop. 1000 pixels wide or more will be OK.

-Do you mean 300 dpi?

-Just send me what you have.

[Fernando Mol]

Hi

I already made the shots. I used Keylight and it changed the yellow when I picked up the “screen colour”. Ugly. Everything went to orange.

But it was fixed adjusting the Screen Balance. Some problems with the edge, but looked ok in the final composition.

Thank you for all of your comments!

[Fernando Mol]

Than you, Rick, for your advice.

I guess I am going to be extra careful when doing the close shot of the shoes, as they are going to be touching the green ground.

[Fernando Mol]

Thank you, Dave

I am shooting in a well illuminated studio. I have a DVCPRO, but I am trying to get an HD camera. I have done chroma key before, but never with a yellow subject.

I just heard that the keying out process could change the yellow into orange.

[Fernando Mol]

You can use the offset filter. This will “move” your image so you will be able to see the edges in the middle of you picture.

There, you can patch them to make them invisible. Your actual borders after using the offset filter already match one side with the other.

This process is good for textures.

[Fernando Mol]

Do the text in photoshop and scale it down in flash doesn’t sound like a good idea. The pixel interpolation you will get from flash is going to be unpredictable.

See the text in the ad banners at the sides of this page? Some are bitmaps made in photoshop, others are just plain flash text.

Does your text look like any of them?

Someone already said this, but you must check if your font is ok. Try with a different typography and different font sizes.

It would be easier to figure it out if you upload an example. Good luck, anyway.

[Fernando Mol]

After Effects is a post production tool. You ahould do all the pre production process.

Make a script.
The more descriptive, the better.

Number the shots.
Take your script and segment it into shots. First: the chocolate fall into a cup. Second: the chocolate fall from the cup to a house. Etc.

Make a list of what you need.
Maybe you draw each picture by hand. Maybe you need to take pictures or shoot some video and then cartoonize it.

Draw a storyboard.
Print squares on the left and lines for comments on the right. Number each frame. It is not a drawing contest, it is for reference.

Then, go to AE and have fun.

[Fernando Mol]

I guess the important point is not “how much you can expand the image”, but “how much you need to expand it”.

As a starting point, if you use a small window (400 x 550 px), you can go with a picture size of 1024 x 768.

That will be around 370K with high quality compression jpg.

Need more size? Just use a smaller quality compression.

You will have to test it.