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Digital Film Tools zMatte
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Contents
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The Stats
- Developer: Digital Film Tools
- Version: 2.0
- Platforms: Macintosh, Windows, Irix
- Host Applications: Adobe After Effects CS3 or above, Apple Final Cut Pro 2.0 or above, Avid AVX, Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk Combustion, Eyeon Digital Fusion, Discreet Flint, Flame, Inferno, Smoke and Fire. Apple Motion supported unofficially.
- Compatibility with After Effects CS4, Compatibility with After Effects CS3 and Mac Universal Binary
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Purchase Digital Film Tools zMatte
- zMatte for After Effects, Final Cut Pro & Avid AVX
- Upgrade zMatte from previous versions
- Digital Film Tools Keyer Bundle - Contains zMatte and Digital Film Tools Composite Suite
- Digital Film Tools' zMatte 2.0 for Avid
- Digital Film Tools Super Bundle
- DFT upgrades to Mac Universal
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Download Demos
- zMatte demo - for Mac and Windows
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Download Manual
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Description
zMatte is a full-featured blue and green screen keyer that is the result of the experience Digital Film Tools has in creating hundreds of successful blue and green screen composites. Using proprietary matte extraction techniques and 16-bit processing, zMatte quickly and simply creates mattes with minimal parameters even if you are dealing with fine hair detail, smoke, or reflections. It is easy to use, yet provides the needed tools when faced with good, bad, or ugly shots - tools such as multiple matte creation, automatic spill suppression, sophisticated matte and edge manipulation, light wrapping and color correction.
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Compatibililty
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Photoshop
- Photoshop versions CS3 and up.
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After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Avid Editing Systems
- After Effects versions CS3 and up.
- Final Cut Pro versions 6 and up.
- Avid Symphony, Media Composer, Xpress Pro.
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Apple Motion
As far as Motion is concerned, zMatte doesn't officially support it. The custom button for the licensing system doesn't show up with Motion, but if you activate it in FCP, it works in Motion. However, DFT have not tested against Motion.
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Operating Systems
Macintosh
- OSX 10.4 - OSX 10.5.x
- Macintosh Intel Mac Support Only
- Power PC Macintosh systems are no longer supported.
Windows
- Windows XP and Windows Vista
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zMatte 3.0 What's New
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New Filters
- Color Suppress - Removes either blue or green from an image. This is usually used to remove the blue or green light that commonly spills onto objects filmed in front of blue or green screens.
- Frame Averager - The Frame Averager mixes frames together to create interesting motion effects. This plug-in is also useful for smoothing out film grain and video noise
which can cause problems when pulling a key or generating a matte.
- Matte Wrap - Matte Wrap retains the definition of the matte edges while creating a smooth blend of transparency starting at the edge of the matte changing to fully opaque moving inward. This helps blend a foreground into a background by mixing the background into the foreground without softening the edge.
- Screen Smoother - Smooths out unevenly lit blue and green screens. By default, darker screen areas are brightened.
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Photoshop Enhancements
- New User Interface that includes a Histogram, Magnifier and Presets.
- To speed up processing, zMatte now works at a maximum resolution as defined by the Preference > Preview Size--the default being 1024 by 1024 pixels. When your image is saved, zMatte always processes at the resolution of the original image. The Magnifier accurately represents what the filter will look like when applied to the full size image.
- X-Splines and enhanced shape editing tools have been added for the Keyer's Garbage Matte.
- Photoshop Automation: Photoshop version now automatically creates a layer mask and starts zMatte when applied to a layer.
- zMatte can be applied to any layer in the layer window.
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Apple Final Cut Pro - fxPlug
- Apple's fxPlug is now used for the plug-in format.
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zMatte 2.0 What's New
- Apple Shake version.
- Adobe Photoshop version.
- Polygon based Garbage Matte for Photoshop version.
- Deartifact, Edge, Holdout, Keyer, Light Wrap, Matte Generator and Matte Repair make up the zMatte set of plug-ins.
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Plug-ins
- Deartifact Deartifact is handy for cleaning up artifacts caused by DV and HD video footage. In fact, it is useful for cleaning up images that have aliased or jaggy edges.
- Edge - Edge automatically generates an edge matte from an existing alpha channel and allows you to color correct or blur only the edge of the foreground. You can also mix the edge of the foreground with the background. This is very helpful for seamlessly integrating images as well as dealing with aliased mattes.
- Holdout - To add practical fire, explosions, smoke or other footage not containing an alpha channel, is normally a challenge. A normal Math Composite Add function would cause areas of the background to get brighter. This is bad. Using a key of some type would most likely generate unwanted, dark edges. This is also bad. Holdout effectively composites images such as fire, explosions and smoke.
- Keyer - zMatte is a full-featured keyer that is the result of our experience in creating hundreds of successful blue and green screen composites. Using proprietary matte extraction techniques, zMatte quickly and simply creates mattes with minimal parameters even if you are dealing with fine hair detail, smoke, or reflections. It is easy to use, yet provides the needed tools when faced with good, bad, or ugly shots -- tools such as multiple matte creation, automatic spill suppression, sophisticated matte and edge manipulation, and color correction
- Light Wrap - Light Wrap helps blend the foreground into the background by making the color of the background "wrap" into the foreground edges without softening the edge.
- Matte Generator - The Matte Generator extracts and creates mattes using advanced matte extraction techniques. Methods of matte extraction are luma, hue, saturation, average, red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow.
- Matte Repair - Matte Repair grows, shrinks or blurs a matte. It also is handy for cleaning up impurities in the black or white areas of the matte.
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Examples of Steps
 
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Reviews
- DV Magazine, Keying 4:1:1 Footage, By The Rev. John Jackman
- DV Magazine Product Review, By The Rev. John Jackman
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Press
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