Digital Compositing for Film and Video

Digital Compositing for Film and Video is a hands-on, how-to guide that addresses the problems and difficult choices faced by the professional compositor in real-life situations. This book presents you with tips, tricks and techniques for dealing with the badly shot elements, color artifacts, and mismatched lighting that bedevil compositors. Included in this book is: in-depth, practical methods for bluescreen matte extraction, despill operations, compositing operations, and color correction-the "meat and potatoes" of all digital effects. Written in a completely software independent style, it is totally applicable to any brand of compositing software. The second edition contains many important additions: * printed in full color with over 400 color photos and illustrations * companion DVD with 3.7 gigabytes of test images, including hard to get HiDef video and feature film scans * new section on working with HiDef video * new section on digital intermediate, the feature film finishing process of today * more Adobe Photoshop blending modes and procedures * new material that reveals the add-mix composite, light wrap, slot gags, and how to defeat banding problems .

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgements Chapter 1 - Introduction 1.1 How this book is organized 1.2 Tool conventions 1.2.1 The slice tool 1.2.1 Flowgraphs 1.2.3 The color curve Chapter 2 - Pulling Mattes 2.1 Luma-key mattes 2.1.1 how luma-key mattes work 2.1.2 making your own luminance image 2.1.2.1 variations on the luminance equation 2.1.2.2 non-luminance monochrome images 2.1.3 making your own luma-key mattes 2.2 chroma-key mattes 2.2.1 how chroma-key mattes work 2.2.2 making your own chroma-keyer 2.3 difference mattes 2.3.1 how difference mattes work 2.3.2 making your own difference matte 2.4 bump maps 2.5 keyes 2.6 color difference mattes 2.6.1 extracting the color difference matte 2.6.1.1 the theory 2.6.1.2 pulling the raw matte 2.6.1.3 a simplified example 2.6.1.4 a slightly more realistic case 2.6.1.5 and now, the real world 2.6.1.6 matte edge penetration 2.6.2 scaling the raw matte 2.6.3 refining the color difference matte 2.6.3.1 preprocessing the greenscreen 2.6.3.2 local suppression 2.6.3.3 channel clamping 2.6.3.4 channel shifting 2.6.3.5 degraining 2.6.4 poorly lit greenscreens 2.6.4.1 too bright 2.6.4.2 too dark 2.6.4.3 impure greenscreens 2.6.4.4 uneven lighting 2.6.5 screen leveling 2.6.6 screen correction 2.6.6.1 screen correction with Ultimatte 2.6.6.2 doing your own screen correction Chapter 3 - Refining Mattes 3.1 the matte monitor 3.2 garbage matting 3.3 filtering the matte 3.3.1 noise suppression 3.3.2 softer edges 3.3.3 controlling the blur operation 3.3.3.1 the blur radius 3.3.3.2 the blur percentage 3.3.4 blurring selected regions 3.4 adjusting the matte size 3.4.1 shrinking the matte with blur and scale 3.4.2 expanding the matte with blur and scale Chapter 4 - Despill 4.1 the despill operation 4.2 despill artifacts 4.3 despill algorithms 4.3.1 green limited by red 4.3.1.1 implementing the algorithm 4.3.1.2 the spillmap 4.3.2 green limited by blue 4.3.3 green by averaged of red and blue 4.3.4 green limited by other formulations 4.4 refining the despill 4.4.1 channel shifting 4.4.2 spillmap scaling 4.4.3 mixing despills 4.4.4 matting despills together 4.4.5 blue degraining 4.5 unspill operations 4.5.1 how to set it up 4.5.2 grading the backing color Chapter 5 - The Composite 5.1 the compositing operation 5.1.1 inside the compositing operation 5.1.1.1 scaling the foreground layer 5.1.1.2 scaling the background layer 5.1.1.3 compositing the foreground and background 5.1.2 making a semi-transparent composite 5.2 the processed foreground method 5.2.1 creating the processed foreground 5.2.2 compositing the processed foreground 5.2.3 some issues 5.2.3.1 residual grain 5.2.3.2 uneven backing colors 5.3 add-mix compositing 5.3.1 when to use it 5.3.2 how it works 5.3.3 how to control it 5.3 refining the composite 5.3.1 edge blending 5.3.2 soft comp/hard comp 5.3.3 layer integration 5.4 compositing CGI images 5.4.1 the premultiplied CGI image 5.4.2 the unpremultiplied CGI image 5.4.2.1 the zero black alpha pixel problem 5.4.2.2 the partially transparent alpha pixel problem 5.4.3 adjusting the composite for unpremultiplied CGI 5.4.4 unpremultiply highlight clipping 5.4.4.1 what goes wrong 5.4.4.2 how to fix it 5.5 other ways to blend images 5.5.1 the screen operation 5.5.1.1 (no label - ooops) 5.5.1.2 adjusting the appearance 5.5.2 the weighted screen operation 5.5.3 multiply 5.5.3.1 adjusting the appearance 5.5.4 maximum 5.5.5 minimum 5.6 Adobe Photoshop blending modes 5.6.1 overlay 5.6.2 softlight 5.6.3 hardlight 5.6.4 vividlight 5.6.5 linearlight 5.7 "slot gags” 5.7.1 when to use them 5.7.2 how to make them 5.7.3 how to animate them Chapter 6 - Lighting 6.1 the color of nature 6.1.1 visible light 6.1.2 the color of lights 6.1.2.1 color temperature 6.1.3 the effects of filters 6.1.4 the color of objects 6.2 the behavior of light 6.2.1 the inverse square law 6.2.2 diffuse reflections 6.2.3 specular reflections 6.2.4 interactive lighting 6.2.5 scattering 6.3 matching the lightspace 6.3.1 brightness and contrast 6.3.1.1 matching the black and white points 6.3.1.1.1 increasing the contrast with the "S” curve 6.3.1.1.2 when you don't have good black and white points 6.3.1.2 matching the midtone 6.3.1.2.1 gamma slamming 6.3.1.3 histogram matching 6.3.2 color matching 6.3.2.1 grayscale balancing 6.3.2.2 matching the fleshtones 6.3.2.3 the "constant green” method of color correction 6.3.2.4 daylight 6.3.2.5 specular highlights 6.3.3 light direction 6.3.4 quality of light sources 6.3.4.1 creating softer lighting 6.3.4.2 creating harsher lighting 6.3.5 interactive lighting 6.3.6 shadows 6.3.6.1 edge characteristics 6.3.6.2 density 6.3.6.3 color 6.3.6.4 faux shadows 6.3.7 atmospheric haze 6.3.8 non-linear color correction masks 6.3.8.1 edge control 6.3.8.2 large area control 6.3.9 how to add a glow 6.3.8 a checklist Chapter 7 - Camera 7.1 matching the focus 7.1.1 using a blur for defocus 7.1.2 how to simulate a defocus 7.1.3 focus pull 7.1.4 sharpening 7.1.4.1 sharpening kernels 7.1.4.2 unsharp masks 7.1.4.3 making your own unsharp mask 7.2 depth of field 7.3 lens flare 7.3.1 creating and applying lens flares 7.3.2 animating lens flares 7.3.3 channel swapping 7.4 veiling glare 7.5 grain 7.5.1 the nature of grain 7.5.2 making grain 7.5.2.1 generating the grain 7.5.2.2 applying the grain 7.5.3 matching the grain of two film layers 7.5.4 adding grain to grainless layers 7.5.5 making a grainless plate with frame averaging 7.6 a checklist Chapter 8 - Action 8.1 geometric transformations 8.1.1 2D transformations 8.1.1.1 translation 8.1.1.1.1 floating point versus integer 8.1.1.1.2 source and destination movement 8.1.1.2 rotation 8.1.1.2.1 pivot points 8.1.1.3 scaling and zooming 8.1.1.3.1 pivot points 8.1.1.4 skew 8.1.1.5 corner pinning 8.1.2 3D transformations 8.1.3 filtering 8.1.3.1 the effects of filtering 8.1.3.1.1 twinkling starfields 8.1.3.2 choosing a filter 8.1.4 lining up images 8.1.4.1 offset mask lineup display 8.1.4.2 edge detection lineup display 8.1.4.3 the pivot point lineup procedure 8.2 motion tracking 8.2.1 the tracking operation 8.2.1.1 selecting good tracking targets 8.2.1.2 enable/disable tracking points 8.2.1.3 keep shape and follow shape 8.2.2 applying the tracking data 8.2.3 stabilizing 8.2.3.1 the repo problem 8.2.3.2 smoothing 8.2.4 3D motion tracking 8.2.5 tips and techniques 8.2.5.1 tracking preview 8.2.5.2 low-resolution/high-resolution tracking 8.2.5.3 preprocessing the shot 8.2.5.3.1 increase the contrast 8.2.5.3.2 degrain 8.2.5.3.3 lens distortion 8.2.5.4 point stacking 8.2.5.5 difference tracking 8.3 warps and morphs 8.3.1 warps 8.3.2 morphs 8.3.3 tips and techniques Chapter 9 - Gamma 9.1 what is gamma 9.2 the effects of gamma changes on images 9.3 the 3 gammas of a display system 9.3.1 monitor gamma 9.3.2 monitor gamma correction 9.3.2.1 the monitor LUT 9.3.3 the end-to-end gamma 9.4 measuring your monitor gamma 9.5 the dim surround effect 9.5.1 dim surround for TV 9.5.2 dark surround for film 9.6 the gamma of video 9.7 the gamma of film 9.8 gamma and the Mac 9.9 monitor display temperature 9.9.1 black body radiation 9.9.2 your monitor temperature Chapter 10 - Video 10.1 getting video to and from a workstation 10.2 how video works 10.2.1 frame construction 10.2.1.1 the scanning raster 10.2.1.2 interlaced fields 10.2.1.3 effects on motion blur 10.2.1.4 field dominance 120.2.1.5 color resolution 10.2.2 NTSC and PAL differences 10.2.2.1 frame rate 10.2.2.1.1 NTSC 10.2.2.1.2 drop frame time code 10.2.2.1.3 PAL 10.2.2.2 image size 10.2.2.2.1 NTSC 10.2.2.2.2 PAL 10.2.2.3 pixel aspect ratio 10.2.2.3.1 NTSC 10.2.2.3.2 PAL 10.2.2.4 country standards 10.2.3 types of video 10.2.3.1 component video 10.2.3.2 composite video 10.2.3.3 digital and analogue 10.2.3.4 interlaced vs progressive scan 10.2.4 video formats 10.2.4.1 the all-digital formats 10.2.4.2 Sony 10.2.4.3 consumer/commercial 10.2.4.4 HiDef (delete) 10.3 HiDef Video 10.3.1 image sizes 10.3.2 scan modes 10.3.2.1 progressive 10.3.2.2 interlaced 10.3.2.3 progressive segmented frame 10.3.3 video tape formats 10.3.3.1 D5 10.3.3.2 Hdcam 10.3.3.3 DVCPro 10.4 Video compression 10.4.1 sampling schemes 10.4.2 data compression 10.3 telecine 10.3.1 the 3:2 pulldown 10.3.2 pin registration 10.3.3 recommendations to the client 10.4 working with video 10.4.1 de-interlacing 10.4.1.1 scan line interpolation 10.4.1.2 field averaging 10.4.1.3 field separation 10.4.2 the 3:2 pullup 10.4.3 non-square pixels 10.4.3.1 manipulating an existing video image 10.4.3.2 creating a new image for video 10.4.3.3 PAL pixels 10.4.4 interlace flicker 10.5 working with video in a film job 10.5.1 best video formats 10.5.2 video mastered on video 10.5.3 video mastered on film 10.5.4 gamma correction 10.5.5 frame size and aspect ratio 10.5.6 cropping non-square pixel frames 10.6 working with film in a video job 10.7 working with CGI in a video job Chapter 11 - Film 11.1 terms and definitions 11.1.1 conversions 11.1.2 apertures 11.1.3 composition 11.1.4 aspect ratio 11.1.5 image resolutions 11.2 film formats 11.2.1 full aperture 11.2.1.1 super 35 11.2.1.2 common top and common center 11.2.2 academy aperture 11.2.3 cinemascope 11.2.3.1 working with Cscope 11.2.3.2 reformatting other formats to Cscope 11.2.4 vistavision 11.25 65/70mm 11.26 IMAX 11.3 film scanners 11.4 film recorders 11.4.1 how film recorders work 11.4.2 comparison of laser vs crt film recorders 11.4.3 calibrating the workstation to the film recorder 11.4.3.1 dark surround 11.4.3.2 contrast ratio 11.4.3.3 primary colors 11.4.3.4 film layer effects 11.4.3.5 monitor calibration Chapter 12 - Log vs. Linear 12.1 dynamic range in the real world 12.2 the behavior of film 12.2.1 film response curves 12.2.2 exposure 12.2.3 the balloon story 12.2.4 meanwhile, back at the film. 12.2.5 opacity 12.3 representing film data in log format 12.3.1 the three film zones 12.3.2 the three reference points 12.3.3 over and under exposure 12.4 digitizing film 12.4.1 linear data problems 12.4.1.1 banding 12.4.1.2 data inflation 12.4.1.3 limited dynamic range 12.4.2 log data virtues 12.4.2.1 banding 12.4.2.2 full dynamic range 12.4.2.3 data efficiency 12.4.2.4 conclusion 12.5 bit depth 12.5.1 affect on images 12.5.2 changing bit depth 12.5.3 coping with low bit depth 12.5.3.1 eliminating banding 12.5.3.2 the moray mask 12.6 issues of gamut Chapter 13 - Working with log images 13.1 converting Cineon log images 13.1.1 log to linear conversions 13.1.1.1 the conversion parameters 13.1.1.1.1 the white reference 13.1.1.1.2 the black reference 13.1.1.1.3 display gamma 13.1.1.2 customizing the conversion parameters 13.1.1.3 soft clip 13.1.2 linear to log conversions 13.1.2.1 the conversion parameters 13.1.2.1.1 the white reference 13.1.2.1.2 the black reference 13.1.2.1.3 display gamma 13.2 working with Cineon log images 13.2.1 viewing cineon log images 13.2.2 color correcting 13.2.3 compositing log images 13.2.3.1 converting log to linear 13.2.3.2 the compositing operation 13.2.3.3 converting back to log 13.2.3.4 color correction 13.2.3.5 transparency 13.2.4 compositing a linear image with log images 13.2.5 the screen operation 13.2.5.1 screening a linear image with a log image 13.2.5.2 the weighted screen 13.2.6 matte paintings 13.2.6.1 tips and techniques 13.2.7 CGI 13.2.7.1 rendering 13.2.7.2 compositing 13.2.8 transformations and blur operations

About the Author :
Steve Wright is a visual effects compositing veteran with 70 broadcast television commercials and over 60 feature films credits. He's developed video games at Atari, done 3D animations for Robert Abel and Associates, and was senior compositor and 2D technical director at Kodak's Cinesite. Steve is now a freelance, digital-compositing guru, who teaches, trains, writes, and develops on-line training programs.

Review :
"From start to finish, Digital Compositing for Film and Video gives you the much needed knowledge to be competitive in the business...If it's a process involved in compositing it is in this masterpiece of a book." - Filmmaking Central "In Digital Compositing for Film and Video, his 400-page-plus bible for all things compositing, Wright painstakingly describes every step of pulling mattes, tracking pixels, correcting green-screen pill, working with film and video-you name it." -Ben Rock, Back Stage, Sept. 2006 "Anyone whose business it is to know how to do compositing, motion graphics, green - or blue-screen work, or even high-end titles must have this book in his or her collection."-Ben Rock, Back Stage, Sept. 2006 "Whilst some areas are specifically aimed at specialist compositors, it is nonetheless a very good book to have many areas of technical knowledge explained in a colourful and practical way. A vital book in the current technological age we now live and work in." British Cinematographer, Sept. 06