Robert Morris
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Pre-rendering is basically the answer until Adobe releases 64-bit CS5. And even then I’m sure pre-rendering will be used in real production scenarios where time and resources are pushed to the brink. Even if the large image that is giving you problems is not inside a precomp, you can solo it (or a group of layers) and pre-render them by themselves. I use this technique in 1920×1080 productions all the time. Just as long as the layers you are pre-rendering aren’t using any blending modes or effects that rely on an interaction with layers you are not pre-rendering. It’s tough if the client requests changes, but a lot of time (and experience) has taught me which layers I can prerender in groups, anticipating which ones the client is most likely to “tweak”. For pre-render settings, I use still frames (PSD files) rendered at full resolution, uncompressed. Personally, I’d almost rather render to PNG files, as they are smaller, but I’ve heard that they are a lossy compression. I don’t think that’s true, but for pre-renders you don’t want to take a chance on anything getting compressed. Also, you may want to look into background rendering, as it uses less resources. AEScripts.com has a great script for making the whole background render process so completely simple, that you’ll wonder how you did without it.
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Luke, your post here was VERY helpful… though it didn’t solve my problem immediately. I wish I could say that Todd’s (Adobe) post was helpful at all, but it really wasn’t addressing this specific problem. Anyway, I had the same issue both you and Leah were having. I was trying to apply pins to a photoshop image sequence with an alpha channel. In theory, I should have no problem doing this. But all I would get is the white arrow with a square next to it, the “Puppet” effect applied to the layer, but no pins. The problem seems to be that the auto-trace wasn’t working to allow Puppet to define the edge of the image. So what I did was actually draw a rough mask shape around my object (which was the PSD sequence) and then applying the Puppet tool worked as it should. Luke, you said the tool wasn’t working when you had a mask applied. So perhaps trying it both ways will resolve some issues people are having. I hope these posts help someone else in the future.
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Careful… Photoshop CS4 DOES have that feature, as someone stated above. Hit the “R” key while in Photoshop CS4 and you can rotate the canvas non-destructively. Just as the spacebar lets you pan.
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Thanks, Chris. Those are some decent tutorials… albeit quite old. And generally deal with basic techniques of tracking and rotoscoping. But personally, I don’t see much in there that would be useful for flyaways without a combination of techniques and extensive tracking/stabilization. I like how tutorials generally do rotoscoping or tracking on locked off shots or shots with an “almost” perfect scenario for what they are trying to teach. Hair flyaways are quite unruly and rarely can be tracked. Pete O’Connell’s tutorial touches on some key techniques, albeit quite old and somewhat outdated with newer software such as Mocha and AE’s native stabilization. But still a good tutorial nonetheless. I remember watching it years ago when it first came out. His more recent Creative Cow Master series DVDs are much more updated and go into a lot of great (proper) techniques for fast roto work. Good stuff indeed.
I wish there were more people who had techniques or suggestions here on the Cow.
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Thank you for the AE project file, Chris. Now THAT is the type of technique I’m hoping to hear more of. Unfortunately, months down the line this thread may not help other people because that project file may be gone. But using CC Bender to straighten a curved line, then CC Simple Wire Removal to remove the line, and finally CC Bender to reverse the corrected bend… that’s a solid example of a good technique, in my opinion. I still think tracking a hair flyaway to make this technique work, would be a lot more hassle in AE. But until someone else posts a better example of a technique, this one is pretty good.
As for your 1 and 2 questions, it’s been hard enough to get any sort of “secrets” revealed from people about how to do these sorts of cleanup, so let’s stick to the example of removing unwanted hair flyaways. Things like blemishes could fall under similar techniques. I’m not looking for sparkling skin or rosy cheek enhancements. I’m talking more about removing unwanted distractions in a shot.
And so finally, yes, a tutorial on using the clone stamp tool in AE for removing such unwanted hair flyaways would be wonderful, as I haven’t been able to find one online. Or even some sort of discussion as to methods, steps, or techniques that for some reason are labeled as “hollywood secrets”. I realize a lot of this is guarded, but hopefully people such as yourself are interested in support sites like this one which could help people learn REAL techniques. Of course, there is no substitute for diving into it and learning by trial and error. But I’m still interested to hear how other people approach these shots.
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By “wire plugin”, are you referring to CC Simple Wire Removal? Because it cannot bend. There are two control points, and you adjust the displacement between them in a straight line. So you must be referring to something else. Can you please be more specific?
And thank you for recommending the SmoothKit plugin… I am very familiar with it. But plugins are not what I was requesting. I am asking for techniques that people use in real production projects for hair flyaway removal and compositing beauty enhancements. A plugin is not an answer. It may be a tool people use, but the core techniques and layered effects are key in knowing how to resolve any variety of shots.
Please be extremely descriptive if you have suggestions for certain techniques. Saying “bite the bullet and use the clone stamp” is not very helpful to someone who is asking for techniques they have never used before.
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Thanks, Chris… but the FCP plugins don’t seem to help me with After Effects. Besides, I didn’t see much there that can’t be done in AE with the native filters… same with the Boris FX. I appreciate your suggestion about using CC Wire Removal, but I already mentioned that in my original post. And as I mentioned, it only works with straight hairs, or short segments. And have you ever tried to track the end of a flyaway hair? Not something AE’s native tracker can handle too well. Plus, pasting keyframes is a bit clunky these days. Using nulls and layer linking is much more efficient, in my opinion.
Anyone with actual recent production experience doing this type of work in After Effects?
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Thanks for giving me the Matlannon Photoshop tutorial on smoothing skin. Unfortunately, I am looking for After Effects techniques, hence why I posted in the After Effects Forum. I guess I should have been more specific and redundant in my lengthy explanation. But I am highly experienced with Photoshop retouching beauty photos. But anyone who has worked in a commercial house will know that retouching video is much different, and there are different techniques that apply.
Your second link was for a very old Andrew Kramer tutorial that uses remove grain and a track matte… similar to what I mentioned in my original post. I wish you would have given a more wordy response, because it appears to me as if you did a quick Google search and don’t really have much real-world experience in retouching video. These aren’t really helpful to what I was asking for. Andrew’s is a very basic technique for smoothing skin, and most commercials do not want a completely smooth plastic looking skin. They want beauty… bringing out certain features, and specific other things removed… like hair flyaways. How about we focus on techniques for hair flyaways to keep this a bit simpler?
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Thank you for that extremely unhelpful and obviously inexperienced response, Tero. Anyone who has worked for a commercial house would know that no matter how good the makeup artists are, and how great the DP is, the agency almost always wants some form of touchup done to a beauty shot. And hair flyaways are extremely common on shoots where a fan is blowing on the model to give added movement and dynamic to the shot. This has NOTHING to do with the quality of the shoot. This is a question about technique in post. I’m amazed someone would even respond with such a blatantly naive comment such as “one wouldn’t have to worry about it in post”. Unless you were being sarcastic, in which case the response is simply irrelevant.
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I’m having the exact same problem. I have an Nvidia Quadro FX 370 card and Windows XP 64-bit. I’ve recently upgraded to CS4 and can no longer use Firewire out to a camcorder VTR and then piped from there out to my Sony monitor. VERY frustrating. I’ve used this exact setup before with no problems using XP 32-bit, and AE 6.5. Why isn’t XP 64-bit supported by Adobe CS4? Shouldn’t they know that most professionals are using 64-bit systems now? And obviously we’d like to continue using Adobe software.
@Guy Thompson, did you resolve your problem? If I have to install an extra card for video previews, I may do that to relieve my stress while trying to finish up this job. Any info on what card I could use for a S-Video output to my Sony monitor would be very helpful! But it should be compatible with After Effects’ video preview, of course. Firewire doesn’t seem to be an option now with XP 64-bit.
@Todd Kopriva, would you know what card to recommend for using video preview in AE to go out S-Video to a Sony monitor? Even if you can’t recommend one for XP 64-bit because it’s not supported by CS4, maybe you could suggest something that would work in XP 32-bit to give me a direction.
Thanks.
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