Transparent Background

Dan7312

In photoshop I can pick a color and make it transparent in the png file that photoshop generates.

I can drop a png onto a video track in Premiere. Premiere has a lot of video effects I can apply to that png, just at though it was a video clip.

Is there a way to use one of these video effects to make a color transparent like I can do in photoshop? BTW I don't really understand what most of the video effect do except for things like color curves and stuff like that. I thought one of the key effects would do what I want, but I can't seem to make it work. Key is something use when you take a picture with a green screen in the background, right? It's something I've never used.

I don't want to do it in photoshop because I want to save a step in my workflow.

Any pointers on how to make a color transparent would be appreciated.

TIA

ziggy53

Is this what you are wanting to do?:

http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/premiere/pro/opacity/

Otherwise, if you want to drop a specific color to transparent, yes, I believe that would be a "key" related effect:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS1c9bc5c2e465a58a91cf0b1038518aef7-7c6fa.html

I believe that any pure color, or narrow range of colors, may be keyed, as can luminance.

Dan7312

It's not opacity, I use that already to fade in and out icons and markers. And I've got all the timeline stuff figured out too.

Yes, I now see that keying is what I want to do. After poking at it a bit more I've got it working finally so that the backgrounds of the little png's I drop on a video track don't cover what's beind them, though I can't say I undersand the detail of how keying really works.

First of all there are a quite number of different keying effects available.... one is called "Ultra Key", that sounded good to me . Also the keying effects have a lot of variables to adjust.

It seems Adobe doc's tell where something is but rarely are clear about what it does. I often feel like the only kind of question I can ask the Adobe help is "Who's buried in Grant's tomb?"

Thanks Ziggy.

ziggy53 wrote: »

Is this what you are wanting to do?:

http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/premiere/pro/opacity/

Otherwise, if you want to drop a specific color to transparent, yes, I believe that would be a "key" related effect:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS1c9bc5c2e465a58a91cf0b1038518aef7-7c6fa.html

I believe that any pure color, or narrow range of colors, may be keyed, as can luminance.

DavidTO

Traditionally in video it's called a Key.

Luma keys are based on luminosity.

Chroma keys are based on color, and is how they put the weather man in front of the map using either a green or blue screen.

Matte keys use a grayscale image to describe the matte, just as in PS.

Dan7312

Thanks David,

That really helps.

DavidTO wrote: »

Traditionally in video it's called a Key.

Luma keys are based on luminosity.

Chroma keys are based on color, and is how they put the weather man in front of the map using either a green or blue screen.

Matte keys use a grayscale image to describe the matte, just as in PS.

Dan7312

Also there are 4, u, and 16 point garbage mattes. THe seem to have points you can set in the image. What's the garbage adjective referring to?

DavidTO wrote: »

Traditionally in video it's called a Key.

Luma keys are based on luminosity.

Chroma keys are based on color, and is how they put the weather man in front of the map using either a green or blue screen.

Matte keys use a grayscale image to describe the matte, just as in PS.

DavidTO

Yah, those are newer (i.e. not a traditional key, which was all based on existing values: luma, chroma or the luma of a separate matte). Garbage mattes were not possible in traditional broadcast, while the other 3 were.

Anyway, garbage just means that they're quick and dirty, as far as I know. They're not going to replace meticulous rotoscoping, but they'll get you by sometimes. I would use them for my editing at work, but all the work I do is offline. Someone else would replace my garbage matte (along with every frame of the footage) on a much more expensive and capable system (both hardware and software). But for your needs, one man's garbage could be your gold!

DavidTO

Yah, those are newer (i.e. not a traditional key, which was all based on existing values: luma, chroma or the luma of a separate matte). Garbage mattes were not possible in traditional broadcast, while the other 3 were.

Anyway, garbage just means that they're quick and dirty, as far as I know. They're not going to replace meticulous rotoscoping, but they'll get you by sometimes. I would use them for my editing at work, but all the work I do is offline. Someone else would replace my garbage matte (along with every frame of the footage) on a much more expensive and capable system (both hardware and software). But for your needs, one man's garbage could be your gold!

angevin1

DavidTO wrote: »

Anyway, garbage just means that they're quick and dirty,

yep! Quick and dirty. though I use that very thing for a vignette too, and along with opacity over an adjustment layer it works well~

angevin1

Dan7312 wrote: »

In photoshop I can pick a color and make it transparent in the png file that photoshop generates.

I can drop a png onto a video track in Premiere. Premiere has a lot of video effects I can apply to that png, just at though it was a video clip.

Is there a way to use one of these video effects to make a color transparent like I can do in photoshop? BTW I don't really understand what most of the video effect do except for things like color curves and stuff like that. I thought one of the key effects would do what I want, but I can't seem to make it work. Key is something use when you take a picture with a green screen in the background, right? It's something I've never used.

I don't want to do it in photoshop because I want to save a step in my workflow.

Any pointers on how to make a color transparent would be appreciated.

TIA

What you're describing here is keying. And as David said, that is the norm for removing color in Video.

Supposedly premiere has a new keying ingredients. But I tried it on CS4 and found it lacking compared to AE. Also I think Mocha is supposed to be with premiere now too. I'm busy transferring a tape to digital otherwise I'd look to see if I have Mocha.

Dan7312

I'm using CS5.5 and have found that the "ultra key" works really well for what I'm doing. Keep in mind that I'm not making "real" videos like you are.

I don't have AE, but I've gone though a number of tutorials about it. At least for animation it has a lot fo the features that CS5.5 does, so maybe it keying is close too. I use simple animations in my videos a lot and I had thought about getting AE for that purpose, but wanted to avoid the learning curve. In the end I found I could do everything I wanted with Premiere 5.5's animation features.

BTW you know about Adobe's new upgrade policy, right? You won't be able to upgrade from CS4 to CS6 when it comes out.

angevin1 wrote: »

What you're describing here is keying. And as David said, that is the norm for removing color in Video.

Supposedly premiere has a new keying ingredients. But I tried it on CS4 and found it lacking compared to AE. Also I think Mocha is supposed to be with premiere now too. I'm busy transferring a tape to digital otherwise I'd look to see if I have Mocha.

angevin1

Dan7312 wrote: »

I'm using CS5.5 and have found that the "ultra key" works really well for what I'm doing. Keep in mind that I'm not making "real" videos like you are.

I don't have AE, but I've gone though a number of tutorials about it. At least for animation it has a lot fo the features that CS5.5 does, so maybe it keying is close too. I use simple animations in my videos a lot and I had thought about getting AE for that purpose, but wanted to avoid the learning curve. In the end I found I could do everything I wanted with Premiere 5.5's animation features.

BTW you know about Adobe's new upgrade policy, right? You won't be able to upgrade from CS4 to CS6 when it comes out.

Yeah, I do, I'm presently on CS 5.5 and I hear you on the curve. I hadn't tried it (keying in premiere) since CS4 but will look at it again. Thanks

Dan7312

I found this tutorial on ultra key where the presenter speficially mentions that it has eliminated the need to go to AE.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/premiere-pro-cs5-feature-tour/get-fast-accurate-keying-on-marginal-footage-/

angevin1 wrote: »

Yeah, I do, I'm presently on CS 5.5 and I hear you on the curve. I hadn't tried it (keying in premiere) since CS4 but will look at it again. Thanks

angevin1

Dan7312 wrote: »

I found this tutorial on ultra key where the presenter speficially mentions that it has eliminated the need to go to AE.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/premiere-pro-cs5-feature-tour/get-fast-accurate-keying-on-marginal-footage-/

Thanks, will check it!