In Depth Articles (49 Tutorials)
In Depth: Spill Suppression on Keyed Footage
February 9, 2015
Spill is the colored light reflected from your background and onto your actor. Spill can show up on light colored clothing or hair, on shiny or reflective elements, around the edge of footage, and it can be a big problem! It can be very easy to fix, or difficult on finely detailed, extremely reflective or semi-transparent areas. Here are some methods of fixing spill.
In Depth: Skin Retouching Part 3: More Plug-ins + Tutorials
January 27, 2015
Welcome to the final installment of this series on skin retouching. I’ve already covered loads of plug-ins available for After Effects and a few NLEs, linked to lots of tutorials and given you several tips on how to touch up skin, keeping your actor as natural looking as possible. This article includes even more plug-ins and some recent tutorials for all sorts of compositors and editing tools.
In Depth: Skin Retouching Part 2: The Plug-ins
August 18, 2014
Need to touch up your actor’s complexion quickly and easily? There are a lot of plug-ins on the market that can help you with this task. I’ll cover the big players and a few new to the market: Digital Anarchy Beauty Box, GenArts Sapphire S_Beauty, FXHOME HitFilm, the recently released Imagenomic Portraiture for video, the brand-spanking new Dashwood Smooth Skin. Red Giant Cosmo and Colorista II are also on the agenda.
In Depth: Skin Retouching and Digital Makeup, Part 1
July 25, 2014
Do you need to make some small fixes to the skin of your actor, like fixing a blemish or blotchiness? Here’s part 1 of a 2 part series on Skin Retouching and Digital Makeup to get you started!
In Depth: Optimizing After Effects for the Best Performance
February 4, 2014
If you've been using Adobe After Effects since early versions, as I have, you are familiar with the idea of optimizing your machine and settings for premium performance. Here are some tips and resources to help you create the fastest and most solid After Effects you can. If you don't have a big budget for optimizing your system, where do you put the money for upgrades? That's for you to decide, but here are some suggestions on how to optimize what you have, and about other ways to optimize. If this article can't help you with the speed of After Effects, it will hopefully explain why things aren't running as fast as you would like them to.
In Depth: Plug-ins Adobe After Effects CC and Premiere Pro CC
February 4, 2014
Here’s an ongoing list of plug-in compatibility and other information that you need to know about plug-ins in the new CC video apps.
In Depth: 9 Great Freebies for Color Grading After Effects & Premiere Pro
February 4, 2014
The Beat has linked to some nice presets for Premiere Pro & After Effects to give your video work unique color looks. The first couple are from their list. I’ve expanded on the free presets, plus added some great free color grading plug-ins for AE PPRO and more!
In Depth: Keying: Introduction & Frequently Asked Questions about Shooting Greenscreen
February 4, 2014
Keying is part technical skill, part patience, and part sorcery. This series will take you through different areas of keying, not so much to teach you step by step, but to talk about some of the problems you’ll run into and how to fix them.
In Depth: Video Software and Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks
February 4, 2014
This article is for motion graphics, vfx, and 3D artists and also video editors. We’re keeping track of issues you might have with your software and with information on how to fix problems.
In Depth: Keying: Pre-Processing Greenscreen Footage for Keying
February 4, 2014
If your greenscreen footage didn’t turn out as perfectly as you had hoped, here are some things that you can do to fix problems and not create new ones.
In Depth: Camera Shake Plug-ins, Presets and Tutorials
June 12, 2013
If you’re looking to add some visible camera shake or frame-to-frame jitter to your footage, there are a few different ways to achieve this effect.
In Depth: Upscaling or Upsizing Video
May 21, 2013
If you ever need to work with old video footage that’s in standard format, here are several options and tools to make the job smoother and get better results.
In Depth: Using Adobe After Effects for Print Work
March 18, 2013
After Effects is made for motion work but it can also be used for still imagery and print work. I made an invite using loads of After Effects plugins.
In Depth: Motion Stabilization Options, Part 2 of 2
January 31, 2013
Sometimes using a tripod is not an option and you’re forced to shoot hand-held. Maybe you’re shooting in an amusement park, botanical gardens, or a concert and tripods are not allowed in. Unless you have the ability to stand perfectly still, you will likely need to stabilize the footage in postproduction. Motion stabilization is used to smooth footage and remove camera shake.
In Depth: Motion Stabilization Options, Part 1 of 2
January 24, 2013
Sometimes using a tripod is not an option and you’re forced to shoot hand-held. Maybe you’re shooting in an amusement park, botanical gardens, or a concert and tripods are not allowed in. Unless you have the ability to stand perfectly still, you will likely need to stabilize the footage in postproduction. Motion stabilization is used to smooth footage and remove camera shake.
