Warp Stabilizer, but in what order?

[Le_Four_Guys_Productions]

Hi,

I'm currently working on stabilizing a 15 min long take of a car driving through a forest. The goal is to stabilize the footage as much as possible and then add darkness around it using an inverted mask and opacity.

My question is: In what way should I perform this? Should I stabilize first and then add the mask? My theory is that the Warp Stabilizer (method: Subspace Warp) will perform better when more is visible.

Regards

[Ann Bens · Accepted solution]

I usually do the effects first, nest (if needed) then warp.

The warp will ignore the mask while analyzing.

I dont think you will be able to stabilize 15 min. 15 seconds is more feasible.

Whatever makes it work.

[Le_Four_Guys_Productions]

Hi Ann,

Thanks for your reply. Stabilizing 15 min is fully possible. It only takes lots of time for the computer to process (I'm currently using an old 4 core AMD CPU).

Whats you experience when it comes to the quality of the stabilization?

Regards

[Ann Bens]

All depends on the footage.

[James_eater]

Are you using one continuous shot of the car for 15min uninterrupted? If not I would suggest cutting up your clips first, then applying warp stabilizer to the individual clips. Not only will this help with your processing times, but it will also allow Warp Stabilizer to solve for the movement better. Remember the longer the clip, the more info Warp Stabilizer looks at the solve for the camera movement. Therefore longer clips will have a lot more "jello" because it's solving for ALL the movement in the 15min take instead of just the movement in say a 1.5sec clip.

As for adding darkness I would use the RGB Curves effect, and pull the middle of the Alpha curve toward the bottom right subtly until you achieve the "darkness" you're shooting for. Then within that Curves effect, you can add an inverted elliptical mask and feather it out.

[Le_Four_Guys_Productions]

Hello James,

Thank you for your answer. However, it's not the answer I was seeking. I'm an advanced user of Adobes Creative Suite and am looking for more technical answers regarding how the Warp Stabilizer analyses the material.

The question is: Will the stabilization turn out better if I analyze and stabilize the material before I add the "mask" which adds darkness around the car? Or shouldn't this matter due to the extra material being removed in the next step(masking)?

Regards

[juanmario]

Hi.

You can find a lot of information here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/stabilize-motion-warp-stabilizer-effect.html

There you can see the note, note that it was already given by Ann Bens :

• Note:
• The analysis does not take into account the effects that are applied directly to the same clip.

This answers your question.

If you still have doubts, stabilize the file and then apply the mask; if it affects the Warp Stabilizer, you must rerun the analysis.