Hello,
I am working with either a swf, fla or f4v file that was already created and I need to edit the hue of the product in the video. How do I do this??
If it's a "portion" of a video you wish to edit the hue of, you can't without some extremely intensive dynamic rotoscoping-esque code. You need to go back to your source video and edit it with video editing software (most likely with rotoscoping if your product is flattened into the video).
I am working with either a swf, fla or f4v
So what is it?
From the 3 file formats you mention only f4v is a "videoformat".
The only reasonable application I can think of is to let the user experience different color solutions for products (T-shirts, Cars, Interiors)
interactively, that can not be prerendered.
If the product is reasonable differing from the background (like in a packshot) und you don`t target HD-Resolution its not so big a deal.
Adobe has it even made a standard feature of their scene7 server (Example:Visual Configurator)
The workflow between colorgrading Images or Images in Motion is not so vastly different, only more time consuming.
Bascically what you need is Alpha Gradient Masks.
Post a link to your file and describe what is the reason behind your choice of Flash (and not After Effects, which is better suited to perform such a task).
If this is video you're doing exactly as I mentioned, rotoscoping a mask per frame to handle the color areas. Scene7 doesn't magically do this for you. For a lengthy video this isn't the way to go. Using post production as I mentioned is far easier, time friendly and will always render a better result.
That is why I wrote:
The only reasonable application I can think of is to let the user experience different color solutions for products (T-shirts, Cars, Interiors)interactively
And why I concluded:
Post a link to your file and describe what is the reason behind your choice of Flash (and not After Effects, which is better suited to perform such a task).
The reason being: In my experience there are a lot of users on this forum that are confusing the terms "Flash Video" and swf.
Some days ago somebody couldn´t understand why Facebook wouldn`t her let upload "Flash Video files" until we eventually figured out, that she was trying to upload a swf file. So that is why for the future I will take this term with a grain of salt.
For the average user practically everything that moves is a Video.
I understand what a Flash file is, but unfortunately I do not have the original flash file that created the video. I only have a swf and a f4v file to work with in trying to edit what was already created. It was something sent to me, a video of a product, but unfortunately the hue of it is yellow and I need to change it to actually look like the correct coloring of the product. I exported the f4v file to a .fla file to see if that would work in editing, but I only get a box in my Scene with a reel on it.
I just was not sure if there is an actual way to edit any of these file formats, since I do not have the original with everything broken down in layers to edit.
Use this tutorial to upload your swf to youtube (its free you only have to register) and post the link.
Do you have any video editing software like After Effects, Premiere, or any free solution out there (VirtualDub, etc)? You can edit the F4V.
The general rule in the video industry is "garbage in, garbage out". If you work on the compressed f4v and need to recompress it again, you will degrade the quality of the video even more. If the original compression was light then this may not be an issue.
The best solution would be to convert the SWF into a video using free SWF to Video converter tools while specifying a container/codec that is uncompressed (AVI Uncompressed, MOV with "None" compression selected, MOV with Animation codec at max quality, etc). Then import that video, edit and then export to F4V again.
If you are not familiar with video editing techniques and have no software you can also import the SWF into a new Flash document (which will import as a series of keyframes). After that, create a mask layer above the video and draw a shape around the product so the mask properly separates just the video. Add an adjustment layer above that and use it to hopefully shift the color enough. Then use File->Export->Export Movie.
If the video is very short (seconds not minutes) I may be willing to help with my software. PM me if the video is short with a link to the SWF and F4V using any (google it) free/quick fileshare service like Dropbox.
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