[Jeff David]

Hi John,

I’ve finally found some time to work on my project and am back.

Thanks for the coaching on the green screen. I pretty much had done what you said, after much trial and error and looking at some youtube green screen tutorials.

Yup – I have fluorescent lights lighting the green screen – I hung then vertically from some stands I bought, one on each side pointed at the green screen.

After much trial and error I broke down and bought the Pro master VL0380 Led studio lighting kit for $500.

https://jet.com/product/detail/1e4a99d31f14412a9260bf3ca77fbe50?jcmp=pla:ggl:gen_cameras_optics_a1:photography_lighting_studio_a1_other:na:PLA_348795060_24231784140_pla-161714233740:na:na:na:2&code=PLA15&ds_c=gen_cameras_optics_a1&ds_cid=&ds_ag=photography_lighting_studio_a1_other&product_id=1e4a99d31f14412a9260bf3ca77fbe50&product_partition_id=161714233740&gclid=CJeKsq-Ips8CFYMehgodhEcP7w&gclsrc=aw.ds

This was after literally spending $300 or so on various lights from Home Depot!

The issue was the shadow – I could not arrange the home depot lights so as to avoid a shadow no matter how much a tried. This literally went on over a period of months – albeit only brief periods spent here and there.

When I bought the pro lights, I still had the shadow problem until it hit me one day USE THE SHADOW BOXES!! DUH!!

I finally realized what they were for and it fixed the shadow problem and I was able to green screen myself in with no problem spots – unlike before.

So I have the flourescent lights on the green screen and the pro lights w shadow boxes lighting me.

I have just a regular lamp I bought at Home Depot back lighting me. Using a 120 watt LED spotlight bulb.

Maybe this is wrong? I see where you said to have the “light source on the talent needs to match the light source of the background”.

Hmm so I take that to mean if i am using fluorescents on the green screen then use the same to backlight me.

Ok I have an extra fluorescent and I can hang it vertical and backlight myself that way. NP.

Now that I was able to get the green screen effect to work w out any issues, I’ll be

I read about the Gells and suppose I should get some but don’t have any yet.

I built a teleprompter that I can shoot through the glass so as to be looking directly at the camera.

So all I have left to do is my part of the voice over which I’m about to start!

As usual, thanks for all the help!!

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit Thumbnail is view out of the Olde North Church window where the signal lanterns were hung, as in, \”1 if by land 2 if by sea\” looking across the Charles River to the Charlestown Naval Yard where rebels awaited the signal April 18th, 1775.

[Jeff David]

Hello John,

I wanted to give you a shout out and just say thanks for all of the help and excellent advice and coaching you’ve provided!

I have not been here in awhile as I started a new job in Feb. and it’s all consuming.

I haven’t had much time to work on my project as the new job is so extensive and involved.

However, I’ve squeaked in a few times to work on my project.

As I’ve mentioned before it’s 90% done and my goal and dream is to finish it.

I just need to green screen in my parts. It’s done but for the parts that I want to be on screen narrating.

I have an entire green screen set up John, but it’s taken a lot of trial and error as regards the lighting.

I think I may have it now after many lighting tweaks but I am only able to work on it at limited times.

Anyways, I will finish it if it’s the last thing do!

Anyways, your help has been extremely beneficial and I want to thank you for that!

Of course I’ll send you a copy when the project is completed and I hope to meet you in-person one day!

You’re coaching has just been incredible and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that!

Best Wishes!

Jeff

Jeff

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit Thumbnail is view out of the Olde North Church window where the signal lanterns were hung, as in, \”1 if by land 2 if by sea\” looking across the Charles River to the Charlestown Naval Yard where rebels awaited the signal April 18th, 1775.

[Jeff David]

Wow – yes that really does help John! Once again- thanks for the post. Yes – I understand it all better now. I was totally confused what all the diff controls were. I understand now! Awesome lesson once again!

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit Thumbnail is view out of the Olde North Church window where the signal lanterns were hung, as in, \”1 if by land 2 if by sea\” looking across the Charles River to the Charlestown Naval Yard where rebels awaited the signal April 18th, 1775.

[Jeff David]

Awesome! Cool! Thank you so much!!

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit Thumbnail is view out of the Olde North Church window where the signal lanterns were hung, as in, \”1 if by land 2 if by sea\” looking across the Charles River to the Charlestown Naval Yard where rebels awaited the signal April 18th, 1775.

[Jeff David]

Awesome!! Cool! Thanks so much!!

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit Thumbnail is view out of the Olde North Church window where the signal lanterns were hung, as in, \”1 if by land 2 if by sea\” looking across the Charles River to the Charlestown Naval Yard where rebels awaited the signal April 18th, 1775.

[Jeff David]

Thanks John – I got it now – always keep images at 72 dpi. This has been a very good lesson and I learned a lot. Hopefully others will learn from this post to. I will always refer back to it in case I forget.

I learned to use the, “search tool” feature in Google where you can set it to find the pictures w the highest quality and my job project came out good – I got the job. Big improvement in my pay.

Haha they loved the video – it won the day for me and beat out the competition.

The guy had asked for a powerpoint but I went one better w the video!

I must say, I went from not knowing anything about videos to knowing a little but it was enough to win the job so the skills helped.

This project was not for the public or anything for sale, just for my own use, otherwise I would have observed copyright laws in regards to any pictures I downloaded off the internet.

I was able to get high resolution pictures for most of the pictures I used and I rendered it in HD and all of the pictures looked fine. Most of the pictures were HD or close to it.

Thanks for all the help!

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit Thumbnail is view out of the Olde North Church window where the signal lanterns were hung, as in, \”1 if by land 2 if by sea\” looking across the Charles River to the Charlestown Naval Yard where rebels awaited the signal April 18th, 1775.

[Jeff David]

Ahhh yes, good point. I see what you mean.

I know the one video did state that it would only work with pictures taken with a camera vs copied “pictures” (vs. screen shots – I know now there is a difference) and so I see what you are saying video is different.

Other than the one vid that states the procedure (in that one vid) will only work with pictures taken w someone’s very own camera – vs pictures copied off the internet . . .

1. will the other two procedures work on screen shots?

I.e. Can screen shots be improved with the other two procedures outlined in the vid clips I posted – if I get the screen shots into a Picture editor?

I hope I have stated the question so as it can be understood. It’s a little tricky.

2. I noticed today that when setting the project parameters you can set them according to what media someone is using.

Of course you already know this but:

PROJECT

PROPERTIES

MATCH MEDIA VIDEO SETTINGS

And of course – it sets it to match the resolution of the media.

SO I guess I can either render in standard or just let MS set the resolution – depending on what media I clicked on once MATCH MEDIA SETTINGS opens up.

For instance, today, I selected one of the screen shots I had added to MS and MS set the project parameters to uh I think that screen shot res was 1600 by 818 – somewhere close to that.

I assume this will prevent the resolution problem you described that occurs of someone renders in HD and their media is less than HD I assume?

Of course the project also contains video footage I shot in HD along w the screen shots I captured.

But the screen shots are 1600 x 818.

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit Thumbnail is view out of the Olde North Church window where the signal lanterns were hung, as in, “1 if by land 2 if by sea” looking across the Charles River to the Charlestown Naval Yard where rebels awaited the signal April 18th, 1775.

[Jeff David]

here’s something I found on improving picture quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc0PpS9nWV0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzFDKV9FDJg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4LRaFxZZvI
this one only works w pics from cameras

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit

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[Jeff David]

Yes that definitely helped.

I am having better luck today.

I don’t think I was pasting directly into Picture Manager yesterday.

I can’t remember exactly what I did but I think I might have pasted the screen shots into WORD and from there, somehow got the image of the screen shot from word into Picture manager.

Anyways, I had tried just pasting the screen shots directly into PICTURE MANAGER yesterday, I thought, but I must have been doing something wrong cause the images did not appear.

Hard to tell exactly what I was doing.

However, just now I did ctrol, alt, print screen and was able to paste directly into PICTURE MANAGER.

Oddly enough, unlike yesteday, the resolution was immediately w out adjustments 1599×818. Doing auto correct made the picture of the screen shot look better but unlike yesterday, did not increase the screen resolution.

I surmise that using word lowered the resolution (yesterday) and that is why when I did autocorrect to the word image – it increased the resolution to the higher resolution – yesterday but not today as today I was pasting straight to PICTURE MANAGER.

Anyways, the image when in Movie Studio looks pretty good, much better than yesterday I am pleased with it. Although, I guess I need to see what happens when I render it as you taught me unless it matches the project settings, it won’t look as good as it does on the timeline or in preview.

But I am thinking I will just render it in Standard.

Thanks for all the help!

I am really glad I learned all of this as it was perplexing and now I am comprehending!

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit

[Jeff David]

Something else I meant to mention, I have had no problem (as far as I know) videotaping pictures from books – mostly drawings, and paintings and photographs) off of the internet.

I.e. I look up a book in HathiTrust or Archive.org where all of the books are in the public domain, find drawings in the books, display them on my computer screen, videotape them with my camcorder.

Resolution seems good so no real problem.

IN this instance – I did in fact ALSO do the same thing.

I.e. did a search on Linkedin that displayed about 20 photographs and text, filmed it right off of my computer screen with my camcorder, but unlike the drawings and pictures I had videotaped previously,text was also involved i.e. on the screen and when viewed in MS the text was blurry. I guess videotaping text is a harder thing to do and get to come out clear.

Lenovo quad core i7 16gb of ram, Windows 8.1 MS 13 64 bit