Digital Compositing for Film And Video

by Wright

• ISBN13: 9780240807607
• ISBN10: 024080760X
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-02
• Publisher: Elsevier Science

Summary

Digital Compositing for Film and Video is a hands-on, how-to guide that addresses the problems and difficult choices faced by the professional compositor in real-life situations. This book presents you with tips, tricks and techniques for dealing with the badly shot elements, color artifacts, and mismatched lighting that bedevil compositors. Included in this book is: in-depth, practical methods for bluescreen matte extraction, despill operations, compositing operations, and color correctionthe "meat and potatoes" of all digital effects. Written in a completely software independent style, it is totally applicable to any brand of compositing software. The second edition contains many important additions: * printed in full color with over 400 color photos and illustrations * companion DVD with 3.7 gigabytes of test images, including hard to get HiDef video and feature film scans * new section on working with HiDef video * new section on digital intermediate, the feature film finishing process of today * more Adobe Photoshop blending modes and procedures * new material that reveals the add-mix composite, light wrap, slot gags, and how to defeat banding problems * Written by an author with 15 years experience, including major films such as Vanilla Sky, X-Men 2, Swept Away, and Solaris * This edition contains an entire section on working with HiDef video * Now includes information on Adobe Photoshop

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xiii
Acknowledgements	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Second Edition Special Features	p. 2
Adobe Photoshop	p. 2
Production Tips	p. 2
DVD Production Exercises	p. 2
How This Book is Organized	p. 3
Tool Conventions	p. 5
The Slice Tool	p. 5
Flowgraphs	p. 8
The Color Curve	p. 9
Data Conventions	p. 11
Pulling Mattes	p. 13
Luma-Key Mattes	p. 13
How Luma-Key Mattes Work	p. 14
Making Your Own Luminance Image	p. 16
Making Your Own Luma-Key Matte	p. 19
Chroma-Key Mattes	p. 22
How Chroma-Key Mattes Work	p. 22
Making Your Own Chroma-Keyer	p. 23
Difference Mattes	p. 26
How Difference Mattes Work	p. 26
Making Your Own Difference Matte	p. 29
Bump Mattes	p. 30
Keyers	p. 32
Color Difference Mattes	p. 33
Extracting the Color Difference Matte	p. 34
Scaling the Raw Matte	p. 43
Refining the Color Difference Matte	p. 46
Poorly Lit Greenscreens	p. 53
Screen Leveling	p. 60
Screen Correction	p. 63
Adobe After Effects Color Difference Matte	p. 68
Refining Mattes	p. 69
The Matte Monitor	p. 69
Garbage Mattes	p. 70
Filtering the Matte	p. 73
Noise Suppression	p. 73
Softer Edges	p. 75
Controlling the Blur Operation	p. 76
Blurring Selected Regions	p. 79
Adjusting the Matte Size	p. 79
Shrinking the Matte with Blur and Scale	p. 80
Expanding the Matte with Blur and Scale	p. 81
Despill	p. 83
The Despill Operation	p. 84
Despill Artifacts	p. 85
Despill Algorithms	p. 86
Green Limited by Red	p. 87
Green Limited by Blue	p. 91
Green by Average of Red and Blue	p. 93
GreenLimited by Other Formulations	p. 95
Refining the Despill	p. 97
Channel Shifting	p. 97
Spill Map Scaling	p. 97
Mixing Despills	p. 98
Matting Despills Together	p. 98
Blue Degraining	p. 98
Unspill Operations	p. 98
How to Set It Up	p. 98
Grading the Backing Color	p. 100
The Composite	p. 101
The Compositing Operation	p. 102
Inside the Compositing Operation	p. 103
Making a Semitransparent Composite	p. 106
The Processed Foreground Method	p. 108
Creating the Processed Foreground	p. 108
Compositing the Processed Foreground	p. 110
Some Issues	p. 111
The Add-Mix Composite	p. 113
When to Use It	p. 113
Creating the Add-Mix Composite	p. 115
Refining the Composite	p. 116
Edge Blending	p. 117
Light Wrap	p. 119
Soft Comp/Hard Comp	p. 121
Layer Integration	p. 122
Compositing cgi Images	p. 124
The Premultiplied cgi Image	p. 124
The Unpremultiply Operation	p. 125
Unpremultiply Highlight Clipping	p. 129
Blend Operations	p. 133
Compositing Blend Operations	p. 133
The Screen Operation	p. 133
The Weighted Screen Operation	p. 136
Multiply	p. 138
Maximum	p. 140
Minimum	p. 142
Adobe Photoshop Blending Modes	p. 142
Simple Blending Modes	p. 143
Complex Blending Modes	p. 144
Slot Gags	p. 147
Lighting	p. 151
The Color of Nature	p. 152
Visible Light	p. 152
The Color of Lights	p. 153
The Effects of Filters	p. 156
The Color of Objects	p. 158
The Behavior of Light	p. 160
The Inverse Square Law	p. 160
Diffuse Reflections	p. 161
Specular Reflections	p. 163
Interactive Lighting	p. 164
Scattering	p. 164
Matching the Light Space	p. 166
Brightness and Contrast	p. 167
Color Matching	p. 178
Light Direction	p. 183
Quality of Light Sources	p. 183
Interactive Lighting	p. 185
Shadows	p. 185
Atmospheric Haze	p. 190
Nonlinear Gradients for Color Correction	p. 192
Adding a Glow	p. 193
A Checklist	p. 194
Camera	p. 197
Matching the Focus	p. 197
Using a Blur for Defocus	p. 198
How to Simulate a Defocus	p. 200
Focus Pull	p. 202
Sharpening	p. 203
Depth of Field	p. 207
Lens Flare	p. 208
Creating and Applying Lens Flares	p. 208
Animating Lens Flares	p. 209
Channel Swapping	p. 210
Veiling Glare	p. 211
Grain	p. 212
The Nature of Grain	p. 212
Making Grain	p. 214
Matching the Grain of Two Film Layers	p. 218
Adding Grain to Grainless Layers	p. 220
A Checklist	p. 220
Action	p. 223
Geometric Transformations	p. 223
2D Transformations	p. 223
3D Transformations	p. 231
Filtering	p. 233
Lining Up Images	p. 237
Motion Tracking	p. 242
The Tracking Operation	p. 242
Applying the Tracking Data	p. 247
Stabilizing	p. 248
3D Motion Tracking	p. 252
Tips, Tricks and Techniques	p. 253
Warps and Morphs	p. 259
Warps	p. 259
Morphs	p. 261
Tips, Tricks and Techniques	p. 263
Gamma	p. 265
What is Gamma?	p. 265
Effects of Gamma Changes on Images	p. 266
The Three Gammas of a Display System	p. 268
Monitor Gamma	p. 269
Monitor Gamma Correction	p. 270
The Monitor LUT	p. 272
End-to-End Gamma	p. 273
Measuring Your End-to-End Gamma	p. 274
The Dim Surround Effect	p. 276
Dim Surround for TV	p. 277
Dark Surround for Film	p. 277
The Gamma of Video	p. 277
The Gamma of Film	p. 279
Setting Your Monitors Gamma	p. 280
PC Monitors	p. 280
Mac Monitors	p. 280
SGI Monitors	p. 281
Flat Panel Displays	p. 281
Making Two Monitors Match	p. 282
Video	p. 283
Getting Video To and From a Workstation	p. 283
How Video Works	p. 285
Frame Construction	p. 285
NTSC and PAL Differences	p. 294
Types of Video	p. 297
Video Formats	p. 299
Hi-Def Video	p. 301
Picture Aspect Ratio	p. 301
Image Size	p. 302
Scan Modes	p. 302
Frame Rates	p. 303
Naming Conventions	p. 303
The Mighty 24p Master	p. 303
Anamorphic Video	p. 304
Telecine	p. 305
The 3:2 Pulldown	p. 305
Pin Registered	p. 307
Recommendations to the Client	p. 307
Working with Video	p. 308
Pulling Mattes from 4:2:2 Video	p. 309
Deinterlacing	p. 310
The 3:2 Pullup	p. 314
Nonsquare Pixels	p. 315
Interlace Flicker	p. 317
Working with Video in a Film Job	p. 319
Best Video Formats	p. 319
Video Mastered in Video	p. 320
Video Mastered on Film	p. 320
Frame Size and Aspect Ratio	p. 321
Working with Film in a Video Job	p. 322
Working with cgi in a Video Job	p. 323
Film	p. 325
The Film Process	p. 325
Terms and Definitions	p. 327
Conversions	p. 327
Apertures	p. 327
Composition	p. 328
Aspect Ratio	p. 330
Image Resolutions	p. 331
Film Formats	p. 332
Full Aperture	p. 332
Academy Aperture	p. 334
Cinemascope	p. 336
3 Perf Film	p. 339
VistaVision	p. 340
65mm/70mm	p. 341
Imax	p. 341
Film Scanners	p. 343
Film Recorders	p. 344
How Film Recorders Work	p. 345
Comparison of Laser vs. CRT Film Recorders	p. 346
Calibrating the Workstation to the Film Recorder	p. 346
Digital Intermediate	p. 348
The DI Process	p. 349
Advantages of DI	p. 350
DI and Digital Effects	p. 350
Log vs. Linear	p. 353
Dynamic Range in the Real World	p. 354
The Behavior of Film	p. 356
Film Response Curves	p. 356
Exposure	p. 357
The Balloon Story	p. 358
Meanwhile, Back at the Film	p. 359
Opacity	p. 359
Representing Film Data in Log Format	p. 360
The Three Film Zones	p. 363
The Three Reference Points	p. 364
Over- and Underexposure	p. 365
Digitizing Film	p. 365
Linear Data Problems	p. 366
Log Data Virtues	p. 370
Bit Depth	p. 374
What Bit Depth Means	p. 374
The 10 Bit DPX Ambiguity	p. 376
Changing Bit Depth	p. 377
Floating Point	p. 377
Banding	p. 379
Preventing Banding in an Image	p. 379
Fixing Banding in an Image	p. 381
Display Banding	p. 383
Log Images	p. 385
Converting Log Images	p. 385
Conversion Parameters	p. 385
Log to Linear Conversions	p. 389
Linear to Log Conversions	p. 394
Working with Log Images	p. 396
Viewing Cineon Log Images	p. 396
Color Correcting	p. 398
Compositing Log Images	p. 398
Compositing a Linear Image with Log Images	p. 401
The Screen Operation	p. 402
Matte Paintings	p. 404
cgi	p. 406
Transformations and Blur Operations	p. 409
Appendix A	p. 411
Glossary	p. 415
Index	p. 443
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.