Oak Street Software VKey2 Quicktime Component and FxPlug plug-in is a tool for keying out, or removing a single color background from frames of a movie, or any digital images; especially suited to keying 4:1:1 (low color resolution) video formats. Recently enhanced for spectacular keys!

The FxPlug version of Vkey2 is now available. One really convenient feature of the FxPlug version is an auto-key-color feature that computes the optimal key color for you. It can also save you some render time.

Here's a sample:

Labels: FxPlug, Oak Street Software VKey, QuickTime

De-noise and de-artifact

This is an excerpt from a book I'm working on called Greensreening & Keying for Low-Budget Indie Filmmakers that will be out next spring. This has not been through the editor yet, so consider it a super early sneak peek! I had actually started this article a couple of months ago for Toolfarm and thought it would be great to put in the book. The book is about keying, obviously, so the article below is geared toward that glorious task. Reducing grain is something that can be used with any footage though, even if you're not keying. I know you knew that already.

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You will get much cleaner keys if you first reduce artifacting, noise and grain in your footage. This step may not be necessary if you have awesome footage, but if you're shooting DV, a quick clean up will help your key and your video look immeasurably cleaner.

Noise can come from bad lighting, JPEG and other compression induced artifacting, film grain, and half-tone patterns. In DV footage, blue will almost always be the noisiest channel and green is the cleanest channel.



There are several methods of reducing noise. A median filter set to a very low value will often do the trick. After Effects ships with a very nice Remove Grain filter, which I highly recommend using. It will soften your footage if you use it to high but in small doses, it can do wonders.

Angie Mistretta, visual effects artist and Apple Shake user, has this advice, which applies to pretty much any host application. "Be sure to degrain your footage via each channel." Sometimes a soft blur on the blue channel will do the trick, but do so very carefully. Most of the time, that won't be enough.

Angie adds, "If you need to Shift Channels, degrain each one and then reunite the channels then that is what you would do. Shake has a node that will allow you to tune for each individual channel."

In After Effects, to degrain per channel, try the Remove Grain plug-in, which ships with After Effects. Apply Effect > Noise & Grain > Remove Grain. Remove Grain does a great job of figuring out the algorithm behind the noise and getting rid of it.

Remove Grain and several third party plug-ins have a Preview Region, which is a white box that shows you a preview of the plug-in. Inside the box, you'll see the effect working and outside the box is just the regular footage. This helps speed up render and screen redraw time. By clicking and dragging the center point of the preview region, you can drag it to the area that you want to use as reference.

Under the Noise Reduction Settings > Mode, you can specify whether you want to reduce noise in all channels (multichannel) or in one channel at a time (single channel). Because noise in video is mainly in the blue channel, the noise reduction can be set higher than the other channels.

When reducing noise is useful to see both the combined RGB and a single channel, so you don't have to switch back and forth between channels. This feature is useful for a number of other purposes too.



To open a second comp viewer:

1. At the top of your comp viewer, click on the title of your composition. A pulldown menu will appear. Select 'New Comp Viewer'.
2. Drag the new composition tab to the right side of the comp viewer window, until it highlights purple and let go.
3. To change the channel being viewed for the new comp viewer, use Show Channel at the bottom of the comp window.

Remove Grain doesn't work well with dirt or dust on video, because it works with the full frame of video. You can adjust the Sampling points under the sampling menu. The sample points should be placed in an area of mid-tonal ranges and with no natural texture, such as over trees, water or a stucco wall. It will calculate the noise based on the texture and will not help your cause. Mark Christiansen's book, After Effects CS3 Professional Studio Techniques, talks about the Remove Grain plug-in used to give an aging actress a tighter face, so occasionally using this plug-in for a digital Botox on a skin texture can be very useful! By default, the sampling points are taken from the first frame. You can adjust and keyframe the source frame also.

You will also want to adjust the Noise Reduction Settings and the Fine Tuning in Remove Grain. Be careful not to be too heavy handed with the effect because it will flatten your textures. Before rendering, switch the Viewing Mode to Final Output.



When you're removing noise specifically for keying, many keyers have built-in noise suppression. The Foundry Keylight has a Screen Pre-blur and Screen Softness Options.

Sometimes Remove Grain just isn't enough and you need a third party solution for reducing noise. Check out Reduce Noise, Grain and Artifacting in our Plug-in Finder for a long list of plug-ins for several host applications. There really are a lot of great choices. Here are a couple that I use.

• RE:Vision Effects DE:Noise - Peter Litwinowicz, Co-Founder of RE:Vision Effects said, "Noise in the green screen areas can hamper your ability to pull a great key. DE:Noise is a great plug-in to help pull a better key, because it helps eliminates noise while keeping sharp the details and edges of your objects of interest." De:Noise works with After Effects, Premiere Pro, Boris Red, Combustion, Final Cut Pro, Motion and Fusion.
Digital Film Tools Composite Suite - 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.
• Boris FX, Inc. Continuum Complete has two noise removal filters, BCC DeGrain Filter and DeNoise Filter. BCC DeGrain removes grain-sized noise from an image by analyzing a sample of the grain, then filtering out image noise that has similar frequency (spectrum) and amplitude. The BCC DeNoise filter removes unwanted pixel noise from an image. DeNoise is especially useful when working with archival materials, as it lets you correct dark areas that show artifacts from film emulsion or video compression. You may also want to use the BCC DeNoise filter when resizing 4:3 images to 16:9 aspect ratio. BCC is available for pretty much every host app you might use.


• Red Giant Software Key Correct Pro is made specifically for keying and quickly clean up noisy images and mattes. Use the simple Denoiser and Alpha Cleaner tools to fix low-light noise problems in poorly lit footage

Labels: DE:Noise, Keylight, Plug-in Finder, Re:Vision Effects, The Foundry

NewBlue Continues Rapid Expansion into Video Effects Plugins and Video Transitions Plugins Market

LA JOLLA, CA (May 14, 2008) - After its recent release of video effects plugins for the Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Liquid, Avid Media Composer, Avid Xpress Pro, Pinnacle Studio and Sony Vegas product lines, NewBlue, Inc. continues its widening rollout of video effects plugins by unveiling a host of new effects and transitions for the Thomson Grass Valley! EDIUS nonlinear video editing software. EDIUS users can now enjoy 978 presets and 114 effects plugins encompassed in 12 distinct and competitively-priced NewBlueFX collections.

NewBlue's new effects packages are compatible with the full range of EDIUS software, including EDIUS Broadcast, EDIUS Pro, and EDIUS Neo.

Among the new EDIUS-compatible effects plugins from NewBlueFX are 7 VideoFX collections and 5 AudioFX collections, including NewBlue 3D Effects, NewBlue 3D Transformations, NewBlue Art Blends, NewBlue Art Effects, NewBlue Equalizers, NewBlue Essentials, NewBlue Film Effects, NewBlue Motion Blends, NewBlue Motion Effects, NewBlue Production Tools, NewBlue Scrubbers and NewBlue Sound Benders.

Known for their ease-of-use, clean design and immense variety of video and audio filters, NewBlueFX provides video editors Hollywood-style effects at accessible prices. More importantly, NewBlueFX are designed to deliver video editors quick, innovative techniques that bring a distinct look to video productions large and small.

Explains Melissa Jordan Grey, NewBlue's chief strategic officer, "EDIUS users are video professionals with no time to waste. They expect the highest quality results in the smallest amount of time and NewBlueFX delivers on those expectations 100%. We're thrilled to provide NewBlueFX to this distinctive community.

NewBlue's effects plugins for the Thomson Grass Valley EDIUS consists of two main categories, VideoFX and AudioFX. In the VideoFX plugins collections, users will find plug-ins that provide artistic techniques, such as air brushing, pastel sketching and line drawing, as well as motion effects, such as earthquake, spin blur, wiggle and zoom. Features of the AudioFX collections run the gamut from audio filtering, such as equalization, noise reduction and compression to creative sound manipulation tools, such as "Insectoid," "Buzz" and "Robot Fog."

Included in the VideoFX category are 7 plugin collections:

• NewBlue 3D Explosions, 180 presets in 13 different plugins that introduce creative new ways to blast a scene into pieces. Plugins include: Blow Apart, Bouncing Cubes, Bouncing Frames, Box Explode, Confetti, Grid Fall Away, Grid Explosion, Intensity Grid, Plane Explode, Spiral, Spiral Rotation, Vortex, and Wiggle. ($119.95 USD)
  
  
• NewBlue 3D Transformations, 165 presets in 13 high energy transitions breaks creative ground with new ways to slice, fly and reassemble a scene with every technique. Plugins include: Box Fold, Checker Board, Comb, Flip, Fly Away, Louver Grid, Louvers, Magic Carpet, Page Turn, Pizza Boxes, Rotating Frames, Spiral Bounce, and Twist. ($119.95 USD)
• NewBlue Art Blends, 101 transitions in 10 specialized video effects that shift images through unique, stunning graphics filters. Plugins include: Color Melt, Color Wash, Contrast, Duochrome, Glow, Halo, Metallic, Shiny Fog, Sketch, and Vivid. ($119.95 USD)
• NewBlue Art Effects, 99 effects in 10 specialized video filters that shift video into a visually stunning alternate reality. Plugins include: Air Brush, Colorize, Color Melt, Dream Glow, Duochrome, Ghost, Hand Drawn, Line Drawing, Metallic, and Pastel Sketch. ($139.95 USD)
• NewBlue Film Effects, 81 presets in 5 dynamic filters that recreate the inexact mechanics of hand cranked cameras, dirty projectors, and decades sitting in film vaults. Plugins include: Film Camera, Film Damage, Film Express, Film Look, and Film Pro. ($159.95 USD)
• NewBlue Motion Blends, 112 transitions in 10 specialized video effects that twist, turn and transmogrify video from one scene to the next. Plugins include: Liquify, Roll, Shake, Shear, Shredder, Smear, Spin, Twirl, Wave, and Zoom. ($119.95 USD)
• NewBlue Motion Effects, 99 effects in 10 specialized video filters that add movement to images in a number of ways. Plugins include: Active Camera, Earthquake, Motion Blur, Ripple, Rolling Waves, Shear Energy, Spin Blur, Warp, Wiggle, and Zoom Blur. ($139.95 USD)

Included in the AudioFX category are 5 distinct VST-compatible plugin collections:

• NewBlue Equalizers, 9 specialized audio filters that boost or cut ranges of tone in a specialized manner. Plugins include: Adjust Highs, Adjust Lows, Graphic EQ, Parametric EQ, Remove Highs, Remove Lows, Tone Eliminator, Filter Sweep, and Swirl. ($59.95 USD)
• NewBlue Essentials, 8 standard audio processing tools that make any soundtrack complete. Plugins include: Chorus, Delay, Distortion, Echo, Flange, Phaser, Reverb, and Slap Back. ($59.95 USD)
• NewBlue Production Tools, 11 must-have effects to boost the clarity and performance of video soundtracks. Plugins include: Sharpener, Stereoizer, Monofier, Bass Boost, Crisper, Compactor, Sound Expander, Dual Compressor, Tone Compressor, Dual Expander, and Tone Expander. ($59.95 USD)
• NewBlue Scrubbers, 6 powerful, easy-to-use audio repair techniques. Plugins include: Audio Polish, Cleaner, Auto Mute, Background Fader, Hum Remover, and Noise Reduction. ($59.95 USD)
• NewBlue SoundBenders, 9 environmental, vocal and atmospheric effects. Plugins include: Buzzurgle, Insectoid, Phone, Radio, Resonator, Robot Fog, Under Water, Wah and Wind. ($59.95 USD)

EDIUS users can purchase NewBlueFX directly from the company's website at http://www.newbluefx.com. Fully-functional trial versions are available for download, as well.

About NewBlue, Inc.
NewBlue, Inc. delivers innovative audio, video and multimedia technologies for leading companies throughout the world. Founded in early 2002, NewBlue develops and licenses a range of proprietary technologies-- including NewBlueFX video plugin technologies, the NewBlue Audio Engine and the NewBlue Audiomatrix technology platform-- that meet the varied multimedia needs of consumers and mid- to large-sized companies. Experienced developers, musicians, artists, and software professionals with a unique and commanding set of skills, experience and talent comprise the NewBlue team.

The company unveiled its NewBlueFX product line in 2006 to meet the needs of digital video editing enthusiasts. The NewBlueFX collection of software plugins includes special audio and video effects, such as audio filters, noise reduction, equalization, compression and dozens of sophisticated graphic filters and transitions. To date, the NewBlueFX line includes 5 audio-oriented plugin collections and 7 video-oriented effects and transitions collections for the Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Premiere Elements, Avid Media Composer, Avid Liquid, Avid Xpress Pro, Pinnacle Studio, Sony Vegas and Thomson Grass Valley EDIUS desktop video editing solutions.

Labels: NewBlueFX

Professional Video Templates is celebrating their first birthday and the owner of PVT, Valerio, is celebrating his birthday on Friday, but you're getting the gift! Save 50% on all PVT Templates and Royalty Free music Wednesday, May 14 through Friday, May 16 only! Their templates are absolutely gorgeous and are guaranteed to impress your clients. The music is brand new and the Guitar Series 1 was just launched. It's quality.

Buon Compleanno, Valerio! :-)

Labels: Professional Video Templates, Royalty Free Music, Sale

Professional Video Templates is glad to present you with a set of music libraries specially designed for video professionals.

The PVT libraries have been created by professional musicians exclusively for Professional Video Templates.

The amazing and innovative side of our proposal is that some of our tracks are provided in different versions:

• standard version
• standard version + short version
• standard version + instrumental parts
• standard version + extracted loops
• standard version + alternative version

Use the music as it is or use the extracted loops to make different versions of the tracks of your desired length!

Loops can be employed with programs such as Soundtrack or Garage Band and if needed they can be optimized to be used with any loop-based sofware.

Labels: Professional Video Templates, Royalty Free Music

Sorenson Squeeze Free Training offer
Sorenson Media is including a FREE Squeeze 5 Training DVD ($99 MSRP) with any upgrade or full version purchase of the following: Squeeze 5 for Flash, Squeeze 5 for Flash Pro, or Squeeze 5.

You'll love this in-depth tutorial of Squeeze 5 presented by Nate Caplin and produced by Class on Demand. Offer expires May 31, 2008.

Maxon CINEMA 4D R10.5 (core) + Module of Your Choice!
Special Spring Promotion! CINEMA 4D R10.5 + the MODULE of your choice, NOW only $1,195! Offer expires Monday, June 30th, 2008.

There are a few other offerings too. Just check out Toolfarm's Current Specials for details.

Labels: Maxon Cinema 4D, Sale, Sorenson, Squeeze

Download Silhouette 3.0 Software & Manuals

Macintosh Software
Silhouette Standalone (Intel Mac Only)
Silhouette Shape Import/Export Plug-in for After Effects
(Mac versions require OSX 10.4 and above)

Windows Software
Silhouette Standalone 32 Bit
Silhouette Standalone 64 Bit
Silhouette Shape Import/Export Plug-in for After Effects

Linux Software
Silhouette Standalone 32 Bit
Silhouette Standalone 64 Bit

Software Manuals
Silhouette User Guide
Silhouette Shape Import/Export Plug-in User Guide
Silhouette v3 What's New

Labels: Demo, Silhouette FX