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PhotoMonkey76
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How to create a mask on individual frames of a video in Photoshop CS5 extended

Jan 22, 2012 12:04 PM

Tags: #photoshop #cs5 #video #masks #photoshop_cs5.1_extended

I am working on a video piece and I need to mask out a moving figure throughout the entire video, what is the best way to to this?  I know that I can import the video frames to layers in CS3 and then create a mask on each frame, but there are thousands of frames - and when I render the video from the animation it is slow to run in quicktime.  Even if I were able to edit each frame, it seems like there should be a better way... I'm not terribly familiar with using Photoshop to edit video, maybe there is another program that would do what I want in a better way?

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

931 Views   6 Replies   Latest reply: mwolda333, Apr 14, 2012 10:55 AM
 
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  • PhotoMonkey76
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    1. PhotoMonkey76,
    Jan 22, 2012 12:05 PM   in reply to PhotoMonkey76
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    Oh, also, I have CS5 extended as well, which is what I was initially using to try to edit the video.

     
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  • Mylenium
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    2. Mylenium,
    Jan 22, 2012 10:59 PM   in reply to PhotoMonkey76
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    it seems like there should be a better way...

     

    Sure. It's called After Effects (or any other compositing/ rotoscoping tool for that matter).

     

    Mylenium

     
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  • Trevor.Dennis
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    May 24, 2010
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    3. Trevor.Dennis,
    Jan 23, 2012 12:57 AM   in reply to Mylenium
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    I was wondering if it was a timelapse sequence since the OP mentioned Quicktime.  It would need to be _very_ precious footage to worth so much trouble.   The folk on DVInfo have a response for questions like that.  They tell people to use the 'Shoot it again filter'.

     

    So what is this footage like?

     
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  • PhotoMonkey76
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    4. PhotoMonkey76,
    Jan 23, 2012 9:08 PM   in reply to Mylenium
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    I usually work with still images, and for this reason generally default to photoshop.  I was also told that it would be better at making very precise masks than other video editing software, but, again, working on a 2 minute video frame by frame seems tedious.  Is there a tutorial on animating a mask in After Effects that you could point me to?  I'm not at all familiar with the program.

     
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  • Trevor.Dennis
    1,614 posts
    May 24, 2010
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    5. Trevor.Dennis,
    Jan 24, 2012 1:32 AM   in reply to PhotoMonkey76
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    Animating the mask is not difficult.  It's the fact that the mask would change its shape as well as position frame by frame, and that sounds impossibly complex and time consuming to me.  You mentioned a 'moving figure'.  What would you put in its place?  Even if you create perfect masks, the replaced background is going to vary from one frame to the next, and look like its alive!  Is the camera position fixed or moving?  If it's fixed I guess it would at least be possible by borrowing pixels from other frames to fill in the background behind the mask, but two minutes is going to be about 3000 frames!

     
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  • mwolda333
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    6. mwolda333,
    Apr 14, 2012 10:55 AM   in reply to PhotoMonkey76
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    This sounds like something Adobe Edge would be perfect for if it would just support video importing.

     

    I created a mask over a video in Flash, but I had to convert the background video (which is masked) from mov to flv. Then you import it into Flash and stick the transparent PNG on a top layer for a mask. You can also animate the mask in Flash somewhat... more so if it's a vector object.

     

    Result: Http://www2.avatarix.com/manatee

     

    I would prefer to do this in HTML5 though... which is what Adobe Edge is for. But I can't figure out how to import video into Edge. I've tried 5 different video formats... webm, ogv, mp4, mov and flv.

     

    Hoping this will be a feature when it's finally out in the market.

     

    The struggle continues.

     
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