Garbage Matte & Feather

I am now getting abit more advanced with my editing however I have applied a eight point garbage matte to a clip and also added a feather. The only problem is that the feather has only been applied to the original clip and not to the garbage matte.



How can I feather the edges of the eight point garbage matte?



Many Thanks.



Stewie.
Garbage Matte %26 Feather
Make sure you're working in timeline mode. And make sure you're applying the feather to the clip on the video on the upper video track (the one that has the garbage matte applied).
Garbage Matte %26 Feather
The Edge Feather effect will apply to the four sides of the original clip, not the Garbage Matte. Remember that the Garbage Matte is merely transparency applied to your clip. It doesn't change the shape of the actual clip.

You need to use a mask with a fethered edge and use the track matte effect.

I agree with Paul. I use a mask and apply the track matte to the clip. Them I apply the gaussean blur to the mask. The result is a feathered edge clip. You can adjust the amount of blur to the mask to increase or decrease the amount of feathering.

Curt Wrigley did a nice tutorial on using the Track Matte Keying with a Feather. Now, this was written for P-Pro, but nearly all of it will translate to PE, especially the concepts.



Link: http://www.wrigleyvideo.com/videotutorial/tutdes_ppro2_smoothface.htm



Hunt

Thanks Bill, I'll give that a go.

Thanks Paul, I'll experiment with that.



Stewie.

Thanks Johnny, I'll certainly give it a go.

Stewie.

Since you have set the ''Eight point Garbage mask'' already,

I would suggest another simple way of achieving the results that you are looking for.



1) Create a white color matte on the layer 2.

2) Now copy the mask from the Layer 1 and paste it on the layer 2 clip.

3) Delete the mask from Layer 1

4) Apply ''Track matte'' effect (from the effects panel) to the Layer1 clip

5) In the Edit effects option, choose ''Matte = Video2'' and ''Composite Using = Matte Luma''



Result : The Video clip on Layer1 is seen in the shape of the EightPoint Garbage mask (the same result that you get before applying the feather.



Now

6) Apply ''Gaussian Blur'' effect to the clip on Layer2

7) Increase or decrease the blur value to achieve the desired result



I hope this helps, please do post your comments if you try this.

stewart are you looking at this thread . It would be good to know if this worked for you.

Sorry editmachine,



I am looking at this post. Sorry for the late reply as I have been busy playting with my editiing. Thanks very much for your solution to my problem. The more I seem to learn in video editing it becomes apparent that I need to learn more ... if that makes sense? I will try your solution and see how I go.



Many Thanks



Stewie.

great ! thanks. And yes, we all are learning.

Stewie,



Let me second Editmachine's sentiments. Not a day goes by, that I do not learn something. Might be just a better way of doing something, or a complete revelation.



That is one of the things, that I look to these forums for daily.



Hunt

Me too guy's,



I must say that since joining this forum it has given me a new pation for video editing. Simply knowing that there are like minded people out there willing to share their experience gives me a sense of security when it comes to some of the issues I am coming up against with my editing.



Thanks everyone for your guidance and support.



Stewie.

Thanks, Stewie. We do have a great group of people here.



You also should check out Muvipix.com, a site set up by a number of regulars from this forum who wanted to create a site to support the amateur and semi-pro videomaker.



The forum is full of the most helpful, knowledgeable people you'll find anywhere.

http://muvipix.com/phpBB3/



And the site also includes a number of products, many of them free, including tutorials, how-to articles, royalty free music, DVD templates, stock footage and sound effects. For a small annual subscription, you get unlimited downloads from this ever-growing library.



Definitely worth checking out, if you want to learn Premiere Elements inside and out.

Thanks Steve,



I've been to the site and also Vimeo which both seem to be an excellent source of information.



I'vealso watched some of your tutorials which are also interesting and informative.



Stewie.

What am I doing wrong?



I am usinf Premiere Elements 7 trying to do the blur effect.



Here is what I am doing:-



1 Copy the clip from video 1 and pasting it onto video track 2.

2 Add a blur to track 2 and setting the opacity to 70%.

3 Add a title to video track 3 and add a eclips shap to it with a white colour.

4 Add a track matte to video track 2 and set the tack to video 3.



What I end up with though in some of my project is a white eclips showing on the clip and on others t works OK ????



Aarrghhhh..... What am I doing wrong.



Stewie.

Steve,



The bizzarest thing. I have just created a new project in PE7 and the blur effect I'm trying to create works perfectly well. It took me a matter of seconds to create it so it leads me to believe that there is something worng with the project I'm working on that the effect doesn;t work.



All I get in my PE7 project is a white eclips over where the track matte is suppose to be.



Is there any experience you have had with this or know how I can fix it?



Ta Stewie.

It could be that the track matte is set up differently. Make sure that it's applied to the right track (the one you want to cut the matte through) and that its matte is set for the track right above it (the one with the white graphic on it).



Check to the track matte settings and see if it is set to luma or alpha. Try switching it and see if that makes a difference.

Stewie,



That indicates that the Track Matte Keying Effect is NOT being applied. You Clip (the Title) is being seen as a Title, and not as a Track Matte. My *guesses* would be that the Effect is not being applied to the Video on VT2, or that the link to the Title in VT3 is not being applied, or is not taking properly.



As Steve suggests, try Luma, or Alpha. If the Matte is being applied in the opposite areas, you should be able to check Invert.



With your:

VT1=Original Clip

VT2=Blurred copy of Original Clip w/ Track Matte Keying Effect applied

VT3=Title (to be used as the Matte)



I would remove the Effect from VT2. What you *should* see would be the Blurred Clip on VT2, with a white ellipse over it. Now, re-apply the Track Matte Keying Effect to VT2, and re-link it to VT3. Try the Alpha, or Luma again, and Invert, if needed.



Good luck,



Hunt

Thanks Bill %26amp; Steve,



I'll certainly give both of those a try. It seems to work OK on a new project with the same raw files so I'm suspecting its nothing i am doing incorrect and that it may be a bug in PE7.



I'll kelp you updated.



Stewie.

Guy's,



i've tried everything with the project and it doesn;t seem to work. I've set up a new project and tried to do the same thing and it works OK so I'm suspecting that it is the actual project that is corrupt.



Is there any way of copying all of the data to a new project so i don't have to start over?



Stewie.

Try this first.



Delete the graphic from Video 3. Clear it from the timeline. Then put another graphic on and set the track matte and see if that works.



I think I remember that, in one version of Premiere Elements, the track matte would stop working if you adjusted the position of the graphic after you applied the track matte.

I'll give it a go Steve, But I think I may have already tried that in an attempt to get the track matte working.



One thing I have noticed though is that if I apply a zoom to video track 1 or 2 then I can see the track matte working?



i.e. I still see the white eclips but as the image zooms I can see around the edges of the eclips where the effect works correctly.



I have even tried reducing the size of the eclips to see if that works however I get the same results i.e. the effect works OK around the edge of the eclips as the image zooms in.



Very Strange.

Stewie,



There are a couple of ''tricks'' to fix a corrupt Project, but they only apply to PrPro, as one can Import a Project into a Project. Not really possible in PE though. You might try a Save_As_a_Copy, and then open that Project. Save_As_a_Copy also copies all Assets with the new Project (.PREL) and maybe a link that is broken will now be fixed. Shot in the dark there.



Also, in PrPro, there is a ''feature'' (from CS2-4, IIRC), that allows the Track Matte VT to re-size, once the Effect has been applied to the VT2 footage. This can throw some people off, and in PrPro, one can Nest the Clip on VT2, THAN apply the Track Matte Keying to the Nested material. One can re-size the Video footage, without affecting the Track Matte. That, however, is not what you're dealing with.



From my reading, I do not recall a Track Matte Keying issue in PE, but Steve know both the programs, and the forum articles, far better than I do.



If you can get it to work, as expected, in a new Project, I'm at a loss as to why it will not work in your existing Project. At least you know that the function does what it's supposed to, in the new Project. Corruption might well be the cause, though I would expect other problems and errors to pop up.



One thing that you might wish to consider would be to remove VT2 and VT3 (Matte) from your Project, then Export VT1's edited footage as a DV-AVI Type II, to Import all of your editing into a new Project. Create your VT2 footage, as is required, then try adding your Matte to this. This will preserve your existing edits, so you do not have to start from scratch. If, however, you do not have any editing of VT1 material, starting over would be the way that I'd go.



Let us know how the tests progress, and I wish you luck on this Project.



Hunt

I like EditMachines example. There is a situation that you would have to make an adjustment to the points of the garbage matte after you have copied the effect from the source clip to the white matte.



Something about the garbage matte is that if you cut the garbage-matte effect from one clip and paste it on another clip that has a different aspect ratio, then the garbage matte points are scaled and you'll have a different see-thru area. This would most likely happen with still images. Let's say you have a portrait image and apply the garbage matte to it. You then create a black or white matte -- which is landscape -- and cut the garbage matte from the portrait image and paste it to the black or white matte. The see-through area will be different. In cases like this, just use the same portrait image for the matte.



So in EditMachines example, instead of using a white matte, you just use a duplicate of the clip, which you know has the same aspect ratio. Then you apply the garbage matte and the fast blur or gaussian blur effect to it. That would be on track 3, let's say. You apply the track matte effect to the image just below it on track 2. When you set the properties of the track matte effect, you would use the ''alpha'' option and change the track matte option to point to the track above.



Make sure the image on track 2 does not have the garbage matte effect on it. With this method, you don't need to cut and paste the garbage matte effect anyway.