Post production on photoshop

[Sebastian Jacome]

Hey Dudes,

I have read on many threads that there is a lot of work done on post production (from color correction to major alterations) done in adobe photoshop.

How do you do this? How do I get the individual frames exported so I can retouch them in PS? and how do I assemble them back? If anyone knows this process and can explain it a bit, would be very helpful.

Sorry If this is already explained somewhere else, I really looked around and I could not find much info.

cheers,

Sebastian

[Keith Loh]

If you are talking about DV, from your NLE you can export TIFFS, TGAs or BMPs that can then be opened up in Photoshop. Once you are through fooling around with them in Photoshop, save them and then in your NLE you can reimport them on top of your footage.

[Sebastian Jacome]

thanks Keith,

yes, I am talking about DV. From your response I assume that in the case you are using an XL2 in 24P I can export 24 tiff images per second of footage, and then apply some alteration to it, even batch process it in PhotoShop and create a new set of Images.

good.

Now, for the import part, what do you mean by re-import them ON TOP of the footage? can you clarify this for me a bit? Is this done really on top of it or you replace your original images? How do you do this on Final Cut Pro??

Muchas Gracias!

[Keith Loh]

The theory is the same for all DV. With the progressive frames it works ever better because they are true frames. I don't have any camera right now but when I had the XL1S I didn't care about progressive because everything I did was exported for the web in which case in my NLE I would compress all the footage together.

When I say reimport on top of footage I assume that you have an NLE that is multitrack. On one track you have the original footage. You then create another track above the original track and import the corrected frames on the timeline to match the sequence you are replacing. Or you can cut out the sequence to be replaced and splice in the corrected frames.

I don't know about FinalCut Pro but it is such a basic thing it must have something like what I describe above.

[Glenn Chan]

QT Pro can convert image sequences (whole bunch of image files with a naming convention, like image001.jpg image002.jpg etc.) into movies and vice versa.

In Final Cut pro, QT Pro is kinda built-in so you can just export and import image sequences (they are a flavour of quicktime , so look under export --> quicktime).

2- In Photoshop, you can use 'batch actions' if you want to automate certain filters for your footage. Read the manual and ask if you need help.

3- Generally people use Photoshop for things like titles and other programs for color correction and retouching. Tools like Combustion are better/faster at color correction and rotoscoping (painting over frames). However, you can still do a lot of the same things within Final Cut or with Photoshop.

[K. Forman]

I have found that you can do just about anything with Photoshop, including touching up video. But, as Glen mentions, there are other programs designed just for video. Because of this, they will do it better, faster, and easier.

However, there are folks like me, who use Photoshop on a daily basis anyways. If it keeps me from having to buy another software title for a bit, I use it till it won't work anymore, then get a new title.

[Sebastian Jacome]

Thanks Guys, I am looking into post processing using specific software for video. I guess the fact that I know Photoshop and that I have it, makes it an obvious choice.

I am just very curious on how so many films, do specific processing, specially color correction (like "amelie" for example, that colors specifically in post, and not even the whole frame, just specific parts of the frame) and in digital. I want to learn how to process in post in such a way. Being able to change the color of the sky, or deepen the eye color of my actress... I find it very promising.

Thanks again.

[Glenn Chan]

You can do these kinds of thing within Final Cut using:
3-way color corrector. The secondary adjustments will let you isolate parts of the image based on color, brightness, and saturation. You could for example select the eye dropper on the sky and limit your color correction to it. In the controls on the top, you can increase the saturation, shift the colors slightly, and maybe lighten/darken the sky.

You can also use masking tools to isolate parts of images. You will need to stack the video into layers for this. Nesting clips may help prevent a huge mess, but watch out as nesting slows performance down for sequences with multiple nests in them.
*I don't know how good the masking tools in Final Cut are. i.e. how many points you get, whether you have bezier curves to make round/oval masks.

Some tools Final Cut doesn't have are:
1- curves??? (there are many 3rd party plug-ins that add curves) You can also get curves for saturation in programs like Combustion.
2- motion tracking. You can setup a matte that moves with the camera movement. One application is to change the logo on a building with handheld footage. You can manually keyframe things, or use Boris Red to get motion tracking.
3- Noise reduction. When doing exteme color correction you might be bringing up grain a lot.
4- White and black diffusion? 3rd party plug-ins like Magic Bullet can do this. I think it's possible in Final Cut, it just takes more button pushing.
5- Speed. A Da Vinci system can do a lot of CC filters and 'power windows' (equivalent to masks) in real-time.

That's all I can think of right now. The color grading system most Hollywood films use is the Da Vinci system. It does everything above except for motion tracking (and maybe curves for saturation and white/black diffusion- don't know about that).

I haven't use Final Cut in a long time but I've pointed out where I don't know something (i.e. whether Final Cut has a curves plug-in). With third party plug-ins, Final Cut can get really powerful and do nearly everything you want it to. It's better than Photoshop when you have better filters (Photoshop doesn't come with secondary color correction plug-ins like the 3-way CC in Final Cut) and when you can keyframes mattes so they can move.

[Sebastian Jacome]

Glenn, Thanks for your detailed post.

This is great, I will definetely use your guide to research the how to's of the situation. I will post the results of my experiments later on, let's see what happens.

Thanks from the trenches, south of the border....way south

Sebas