Simon Ubsdell
6
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Walter Soyka] “Since we’re on the subject, I’ve been rather impressed with Premiere Pro’s bundled Ultra Key.”
I have to say though I’m not hugely impressed with the new Key Cleaner concept – a fancy gimmick that doesn’t really deliver.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Walter Soyka] “Since we’re on the subject, I’ve been rather impressed with Premiere Pro’s bundled Ultra Key.”
I’d second that. You can get some pretty nice results with it. It’s certainly streets ahead of the Apple keyer, I’m afraid to say.
The difficulties of designing a keyer for general use are to a large extent in how to present complex and subtle processes to the lay user in such a way that they are comprehensible and as intuitive as possible. Sometimes there has to be a trade-off between what’s easy to use and what will actually do the job in an incredible multiplicity of situations.
Most of the time, outside high end compositing environments, the user doesn’t and can’t be expected to understand the complexities of how keying actually works. The average wants a simple set of sliders – preferably just one, or better still none – that does the job with the minimum of interaction.
The reality of keying is that it’s fundamentally imprecise and essentially a cheat, or several different kinds of concatenated cheats, and the single (or minimal) control situation is seriously at odds with the process.
To get great results, you need to make tiny incremental changes to a whole variety of factors, so it’s easy to see how this conflicts with building an easy-to-use consumer product.
I should know – I’ve been working at this on and off for quite a while now.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Andrew Kimery] “Odd gray zone FCP7 exists in these days.”
My colleagues and I still use it almost exclusively day in day out because it’s the only thing that completely matches our needs which are many and varied and very, and admittedly somewhat niche.
No doubt there will come a time when we won’t be using it but that’s not yet on the horizon.
That’s not to say I don’t use Media Composer and Premiere and FCP X and enjoy many things about all three …
But I’m very surprised that we’re still here working in Legacy after all this time – says a lot about how good it was.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Walter Soyka] “And $499 is what a product like this SHOULD cost. (There, I said it.)”
Agreed.
The technology in Primatte is outstandingly good and definitely merits the price.
Not sure it’s “better” than Keylight though. I find I use both, often in combination, for different aspects of a key.
Every top keyer has it strengths and there’s no one single solution at least in my book. Using the best tool for the job is the way to go, I think.
(And sometimes, indeed quite often, it pays to know how to “roll your own”.)
Keying is a very, very complex – and ultimately imprecise – art/craft/science. Every keying situation throws a slightly different issue – even within different shots from the same shoot.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
Hi Herb
Thanks very much indeed for the really nice review of AutoMatch.
I can’t take too much of the credit which mostly belongs to my very talented development partner at Hawaiki, Rob Mackintosh, who took care of the really tricky color science stuff.
But yes, we’re really happy with how it’s turned out – a lot of work but worth it, I hope.
Thanks again.
All the best,
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Dennis Radeke] “Nope, wasn’t bragging. Just pointing out that there is a lot of useful information there that will address many users questions. You turned it into a measuring contest, not me.”
Sorry, I misunderstood – I obviously misread this …
[Dennis Radeke] “Our reference PDF currently clocks in at 458 pages.”
The phrase “clocks in at” is almost always used only when the speaker/writer wants to draw attention to an impressive statistic – in fact I’m sure I’ve ever seen it used an other way.
But presumably you weren’t using it like that here. What you meant to say was: “Our reference PDF has 458 pages” though I’m not quite sure why you thought that disembodied fact would be of interest.
In all seriousness though, if one had to look for a model of how to prepare a manual for something like Premiere, Apple’s documentation for Motion 5 is a really outstanding example of how to do it. Plenty of entry level discussion of key concepts for the beginner including some great background on basic video principles. Easy to access what you need. Good examples of how to use some of the more complex processes. Very readable. It’s a fine job.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
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[Bill Davis] “Heck, if someone is cutting movie trailers – and being delivered only source footage with proper color grades in place, then it’s doubtful they’d ever need to be an amateur colorist, right?”
I’m not sure this is correct, at least from my experience.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Dennis Radeke] “Our reference PDF currently clocks in at 458 pages.”
I appreciate that Adobe are having a push to improve the documentation and that’s great but if there’s bragging about length of manual PDFs to be done, let’s remember that the manual for Apple Motion 5 runs to 1432 pages and is a terrific model for how to do this kind of thing.
So 458 pages doesn’t really seem that impressive.
(And of course Motion is just a toy application that no serious professional would use …)
EDIT: The FCP X manual PDF is pretty rubbish by Apple’s past standards but even that is 555 pages.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] “I can do that really quickly. It sounds like it would take along time, but it doesn’t.”
OK, yes, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com