hey guys, this question has been on my brain for a bit. is there a way to mimic filters in photoshop. what i mean is, say i wanted a graduated ND, and id ont physically have one. could i shoot my footage, then go into photoshop and make a frame 720x480, set it to black, then change the opacity to a low setting, and graduate that vertically, then take that frame, import into fcp and lay it over the video to get a similar effect?

i know its not possible to get the EXACT same effect, because if the video was over exposed when it was theres not a whole lot you can do about that, but could a process like this mimic acutally glass filters?

-daniel out

Yes.

In Final Cut Pro, you can export an image sequence.
Use batch actions in Photoshop to automate a filter on that image sequence.
Then import that into FCP (you can use QT Pro to convert if necessary).

This process will be slightly slow.

2- I think Nattress' Film Effects / Vignette filter does something similar.

He may have the demo up on nattress.com

You can create a graduated filter effect in most NLE programs using a matte, but there is a good filter software package from Digital Film Tools that is available for Final Cut and After Effects.
http://www.digitalfilmtools.com/55mm/
You can do some very interesting work using these filters. They make a good case for shooting your footage clean and adding the filter effect in post, most of the time.

Wayne Orr, SOC