User manual ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7.0

[. . . ] Chapter 1: User Guide © 2005 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Copyright Adobe® After Effects® 7. 0 User Guide for Windows® and Mac OS If this guide is distributed with software that includes an end user agreement, this guide, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. Except as permitted by any such license, no part of this guide may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Please note that the content in this guide is protected under copyright law even if it is not distributed with software that includes an end user license agreement. [. . . ] However, for faster editing, you can keep layers at Draft quality until you render a finished movie. Using Noise & Grain effects About grain and visual noise Almost every digital image that was captured in some way from the real world contains grain or visual noise caused by the recording, encoding, scanning, or reproduction processes and equipment used to create that image. Examples include the faint static of analog video, compression artifacts from digital cameras, halftone patterns from scanned prints, CCD noise from digital image sensors, and the characteristic speckle pattern of chemical photography, known as film grain. Noise isn't necessarily bad; it is often added to images to create a mood or tie elements together, such as adding film grain to a computer-generated object to integrate it into a photographed scene. However, noise can also be unwanted for aesthetic reasons. Archival footage or high-speed photography may appear unpleasantly grainy; digital compression artifacts or halftone patterns may mar the image, or noise may interfere with technical processes such as bluescreen compositing. There are also technical reasons to reduce noise. For example, compression algorithms usually achieve smaller file sizes when the input material is less noisy, so noise reduction is a valuable preprocessing step for applications such as DVD creation and video streaming. See also "Adobe Media Encoder Filters options" on page 614 About grain effects Effects such as Add Grain, Match Grain, and Remove Grain allow you to manipulate grain that appears more or less evenly over the whole image. Grain effects can't correct image problems that affect only a few pixels, such as dust, salt and pepper noise, or analog video dropouts. The Add Grain effect generates new grain from nothing; it doesn't take samples from existing grain. Instead, a number of parameters and presets for different types of film can be used to synthesize different types of grain. ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7. 0 355 User Guide The Remove Grain and Match Grain effects use a two-step process to manipulate grain without affecting the edges, sharpness, or highlights of an image. First, the grain is sampled, either automatically or manually; second, the grain is analyzed and portrayed by a mathematical model, which the effect uses to add, remove, or match the grain. Three types of grain effects: matching (left), adding (center), and removing (right) To apply a grain effect Each grain effect is applied with default settings and displayed in Preview viewing mode, which has a preview region framed by a white border and centered on the image. The preview region displays the results of the grain effect on just a portion of your image, for speed and comparison purposes. The grain effects are almost fully automatic but also offer many controls to achieve precise results. You can also selectively apply the grain effects to portions of your image using the extensive Blend With Original features provided with each effect. 1 Select the layer you want to affect. 2 Choose Effect > Noise & Grain > [effect]. 3 Choose a viewing method from the Viewing Mode control in the Effect Controls panel: Preview Displays the current settings of the applied effect in a 200 x 200 pixel area. Blending Matte Shows the current color matte or mask, or the combination of both, which results from the current settings of the Blend With Original controls group. Final Output Renders the full active frame, using the current settings of the effect. 4 Adjust the effect's controls in the Effect Controls panel; the preview region in the Composition panel reflects any changes you make. 5 Choose Final Output from the Viewing Mode control. To apply a grain effect to a selected area The Blend With Original controls group lets you precisely apply a grain effect to a particular area of your image or sequence by masking and matting the desired area. You can choose between two selection techniques or use a combination of both: Color Matching Excludes any area of the image that matches a selected color. By inverting the matte, you can also selectively process such an area. Masking Layer Uses any layer in the current composition as a mask to selectively process or exclude an area of the current layer or track. When any grain effect is first applied, the Amount value of the Blend With Original controls group is set to 0%; this value determines the percentage of blending between the original image and the processed version. At 0%, no blending occurs and the selected effect is applied to the entire image at full strength; at 100%, white areas of the blending matte are unchanged from the original image. ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7. 0 356 User Guide Any mask or matte works in a similar way: The white pixels in it exclude that area of the original image from processing by the grain effect; the black pixels process normally. At 100% Amount, the white areas fully blend with the original so that they are completely excluded from the processing. [. . . ] See keying Grid effect 451 grids preferences for 143 viewing and using 142 Group of Pictures. See GOPs Grow Bounds effect 552 guide layers 149, 161 guides creating 143 H H. 264 95, 592 halos removing 400 handheld cameras 341 hand-tinted images 407 hanging punctuation 292 hard disk cache 637 hasAudio (expression element) 579 hasParent (expression element) 568, 579 hasVideo (expression element) 579 HD pixel aspect ratio 98 HDR (high dynamic range) footage about 62 effects 63 importing 69 projects 63 using with LDR effects 553 HDR Compander effect 553 HDR Highlight Compression effect 554 HDV 95, 592 pixel aspect ratio 98 height (expression element) 577, 578, 579 Help system about 3 navigating 4 printing from 5 searching 4 updating topics 2 Hide Layer Controls command 177 hierarchy, project 53, 60 high-definition video 95, 592 highlights, adjusting 420 High-Low Pass effect 386 History command 57 history information, adding to files 37 Hold interpolation 221 hold-out matte 281 horizontal scale of text 289 horizontal scan lines 99 horizontal text, converting to vertical 292 horizontal tracking 339 hslToRgb (expression element) 576 Hue/Saturation effect 415 I ICB format importing 70 ID Matte effect 384 IFF format exporting 590 importing 69 Illustrator. See Adobe Illustrator image area 23 image noise, defined 84 IMAX frames 74 IMG format exporting 590 importing 69 importing After Effects projects 93 audio files 69 DDR-based footage 102 files into projects 71 footage items containing alpha channel 72 items by dragging 72 multiple footage items 71 preparing footage for 70 projects 93 sequences of still images 75 INDEX 667 supported formats 69 3D files 173, 107 importing. See also individual file formats improving performance 638, 639, 640 In column 154 In point 155, 162 Increase Font Size command 36 Increase Rating command 33 indenting paragraphs 291 InDesign. [. . . ]