There are so many magical things that can happen in post-production, and this week’s episode is another example of that. I demonstrate how to apply an effect called Skin Smoothing to make your video subject’s skin tones smoother. This process can smooth the little bumps, freckles, and blemishes that are part of everyday skin to make a person’s skin look nearly flawless.
This video is for members only. If you would like to learn more about an Izzy Video Membership, please visit this page.
Several viewers asked me how I created shadows around the edges of the video clip in last week’s episode. It’s an effect called a “vignette”, and it’s very easy to do. This week’s tutorial is an in-depth explanation on why you might want to use a vignette, and how to create it.
What you’ll find in this video:
When to use a vignette
How to create a vignette in Final Cut Pro
How to create a tracker in Color
How to animate a vignette in Color
How to adjust vignette settings to your liking
This video is available only to Izzy Video Members. If you’d like to watch it, please visit the membership information page to see how you can become a member and gain access to all of the past Izzy Video archives as well as this episode.
Of course you can also watch several of the free sample episodes to see if a membership might be for you.
This week’s video tutorial is on the subject of color grading. Specifically, you get to see my entire workflow as I grade a casual video clip in Apple’s Color. Don’t worry about the specific application, though. Many of the concepts in this video should be universal among most color grading tools.
Some of the topics I cover are:
Principles of Cropping
Waveform Monitors
Vectorscopes
Primary and Secondary Color Grades
HSL Keys
Vignettes
This might be one of the single most educational episodes I’ve made so far. It certainly strays from the short, focused structure I typically use — it’s more than 20 minutes long. But I still tried to make sure it was packed with good, useful information.
And to top it all off, I’m releasing it under a Creative Commons License, so you can pass it around and share it as much as you would like.
This past weekend, my family went on a short road trip to Show Low, Arizona. On the way back, we stopped along the side of the road, put the video camera on a tripod, and shot some footage of ourselves. Since we were all in the picture, nobody was operating the camera. Also, an approaching storm was imminent, and I was afraid it would rain, so I rushed through the camera setup and forgot to adjust the exposure.
The footage turned out terrible. It’s too dark, flat, and unexciting.
In this installment of Izzy Video, I show a quick way to make the footage look (a little) better.
Many people are intimidated by the concept of “Color Grading”, which is the act of adjusting color in your final video image. I want to make it less intimidating.
In this installment of Izzy Video, I introduce you to Color Grading, and I get things started in Color, the new application in Final Cut Studio 2. This tutorial reviews basic color grading concepts like Primary Color Correction and Secondary Color Correction. What’s the difference? The answer is in this video.
If you’re not already using Final Cut Studio 2, after watching this video, you might want to check it out. If so, please use my Amazon link right here (anything you purchase will support Izzy Video financially). Apple Final Cut Studio 2 (Mac)
I received an overwhelming audience request to post small versions of all the videos, so I’m doing just that.
This is the same video tutorial, only much smaller.
The text from the original post went like this:
Time for another screencast. I had someone ask me this week how to do the “Pleasantville Effect” in Final Cut Pro. This installment of Izzy Video shows you exactly how to do it.
I get questions all the time on how to do different things in Final Cut Pro, so I’ve decided to give it another try. This one is about Color Correction. I am not an expert in Color Correction. I’ve hardly even worked my way up to the level of Novice, but I’ve found certain things helpful, and the different scopes included in FCP are useful.
Also, as I mention in the podcast, I’m showing FCP because I’ve never done video editing in Windows before. I apologize for being so specific to those of you who use other editors, but perhaps there is value in the concepts, and you could translate the specific techniques into your own workflow and software.
Also, I realized after I was done that I repeatedly used the phrase “washed out” to describe the picture, when what I meant to say was “flat”. It was more washed out after I was done, but at least it wasn’t flat! Anyway, I didn’t want to record the audio all over again, so I took the easy way out and just posted it in its flawed state. Ha! Please forgive my laziness.
In this video tutorial, I overview several items which can help you achieve better color in your mini DV footage.
If your color is still bad, there are many color correction tools that most editing software comes with. It’s best to get good original footage, but if something goes wrong, there’s always a color correction tool for you. Final Cut Pro comes with a couple different color correction options. These are the ones I use.
