[Michael Szalapski]

Key the hair seperate from the rest of the shot, using garbage masks to seperate the different elements.

L’OREAL Paris makes some fine conditioners, I know some who swear by Pantene PRO-V, I would suggest you try several different ones and find the conditioner that works best for you.

In AE you can use one of the colour channels as your alpha channel if you want, there are several ways you could accomplish this. Effect>Channel>Shift Channels is one way, or you could do Effect>Channel>Set Matte, there are other ways.

You could use a layer as a track matte to fake a preserve transparency effect.

Cows are evil.

There, I think I answered all of your questions. Out of curiosity why are you not using keylight? It rocks.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

A long time ago I viewed the DVDs for AE 5.5 and I had no problems with them.

And I’m guessing that the ones for 6.5 would be even better.

Buy them. Buy them now.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

Where on the site is this zooming effect of which you speak?

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

You could easily do this by creating a path and applying Vegas to it. Check the manual if you’re unsure of how to use Vegas or how to create a path.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

Are you using masks to roto the guy rather than using Keylight or some other filter to get this guy seperated? Why use the greenscreen if you’re just going to roto?

Anyway, if you want to add a mask inside another mask and you want them to interact differently you have to change the masks settings.
Select your layer with the masks in the timeline and press “m, m”
You’ll see the properties for all your masks come up in all their glory.
Your masks should have a little drop down menu thingy that says add; make it say other things (such as, subtract) and you should be happy.

You’d be even happier if you used keylight.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

A ribbon effect is asked for quite often at the COW with loads of great answers and even project files!!! How do you get all these lovely things?

Search Posts! A very useful little link. (Don’t forget to include archives)

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

To do a preview of simply sound press the . key on your numeric keypad.
To see video and sound in realtime press the 0 key on your numeric keypad. This will start a RAM preview, the only true way to preview in After Effects, you will see it going very slowly but have a bit of patience and press the 0 key again after a while and it’ll play for you.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

Sounds like a good design idea. I suspect it’s simple morph work, but without having seen it I’m not sure. Looking forward to an example.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

A quick painterly effect can be achieved by duplicating your footage layer.
Setting the top layer’s blending mode to darken and then blur it.
Try it! You’ll jump back in astoundment and thank me a million times and ask what you could ever do to pay me back this wonderful deed, and I’ll tell you that it’s okay, don’t mention it, but there are a few cameras out there that are just dying to be given as a thank you gift to your’s truly.

P.S. – you can play with multiple copies of the darken layer set at different blend amounts, find edges applied etc.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

At the moment I’m living in the countryside of England and where I live broadband internet is not available. I appreciate being able to read through a tutorial anyway (I learn better by reading than by hearing) but considering how long it takes to download a video tutorial I prefer it not video.
When I move back to the States (less than two weeks!) and have broadband again I’ll probably still like the text and pictures versions to the video kind. Or ideally, both!

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.