Blocking out portions of video?

Simmer wrote on 1/8/2005, 6:02 AM

Hi all:

Is there some way in Vegas to block out a portion of a video?
For example. If I have a clip that has some distracting background (a fence post or something), can I somehow mask-out that distracting object?

Thanks.

-Mike

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/8/2005, 10:55 AM

One way is to use a Bézier mask. It’s located in the Pan/Crop settings. If you set the Mode to Negative, it will cut out anything you enclose in the mask (like the fence post) to reveal whatever is on the track below.

~jr

ArmyVideo wrote on 1/8/2005, 10:56 AM

Do you mean to clone it out as in photoshop? If that's what you're looking for, then no. There are some tricks you can try though. If the video isn't moving, I.e., shot from a tripod with no pans/zooms/tilts, you can save a frame import it into photoshop, clone out the post, cut out the area where the subject is (feathering the edges). Then lay that still, which is now a mask, on the track above the video. Make sure compositing mode of mask track is set to Alpha. With a little tweaking this should work well- although fades/dissolves are hard to get to match perfectly.
Hope this helps....

Brian

BillyBoy wrote on 1/8/2005, 1:11 PM

A little off the mark, but related. The other night I was watching some "skin cream" commerical that had the usual pitch about removing winkles, hiding blemishes etc..

That's old news, however what caught my eye was they showed a brief video within the commerical of some model being airbrushed in real time as the video played. It shows a zooming and cropping bounding box and you could see the effect being applied in real time. Wow, I wish Vegas could do that! Anybody know what software can or was that too just some trick?