Hi.
I´ve recorded some ink drops into water videos and I would like to know how to convert the white background into transparency so i can use only the ink color information.
Thanks a lot
Manu
Re: alpha doubts by Joey Foreman on May 15, 2008 at 10:39:54 pm
Your best bet would probably be a Luma Key. There is a Luma Key already included in AE as an effect, and you can try it first, but you'll have more control if you do the following.
Duplicate the ink-drop layer. In the comp window, look at the individual channels. Make a note of the one with the highest contrast. Then apply the Shift Channels effect. Leave Alpha alone, but shift the other channels to the one with the highest contrast. You want the drops on the layer to be pure black and the background to be pure white. If not, add a Levels effect and push the left and right triangles in towards each other until you've achieved the highest contrast possible.
Then back in the timeline, on your bottom layer turn on the Luma Inverted track matte (TrkMat - L.Inv).
And there you have it.
Sometimes you'll need to tweak the levels command, particularly if you have a lot of edge detail you're trying to preserve. And sometimes I find that in the shift Channels effect, it works better to shift all the color channels to Luminance. And of course some footage will require garbage mattes as well if you have extraneous elements.
Joey Foreman
Editor/Animator
Nowhere Productions, Athens, GA
Re: alpha doubts by Darby Edelen on May 16, 2008 at 11:43:16 pm
I would recommend making your footage into a grayscale matte that you could use as a luma matte. In this case white is entirely opaque, black is entirely transparent and the grays in between are semi-transparent.
You could do this by applying a Channel > Invert effect to make your white background black, then using a Color Correction > Levels effect to bring the lighter portions of the image that you want fully opaque into the white range. If there are colors in the image you don't want for the matte, use a Color Correction > Tint effect.
Darby Edelen Lead Designer Left Coast Digital Santa Cruz, CA
