Compositing Question

Videoimpressions wrote on 1/27/2008, 9:32 AM
This is probably simple for you experts, but I could not find out how to do this in all of the Help files, etc.:

My company logo is blue on white. I have several scans of this (from my business card). I want to key a lower thirds (or maybe even a bug in the lower right hand corner), so that the white background is eliminated and only the blue logo/lettering becomes keyed over the background video. Simply put, how do I accomplish this feat?

Rich

Comments

Kennymusicman wrote on 1/27/2008, 10:36 AM
logo onto its own track. Use track motion to put it where you desire, and allow you to adjust scale. Use track fx (chroma key) and select white. That will make your white transparent.

Now save this as a veg with nothing else in.

Next, new/existing project, add your media, and drag your veg into said project. Should find it's all done and you can keep using the nesting of veg's in next project(s)
kkolbo wrote on 1/27/2008, 11:07 AM
Rich,

It sounds like what you are looking to do is to chroma key the logo over your footage, then use track motion to position it and add a drop shadow. For detailed instructions of chroma keying, yes you can chroma key out the white leaving just the blue, read,
Chorma Key Article
Here is a veg file that all you have to do is replace the generated media with you logo file and footage and then adjust. Just right click and Save As..

bluelogo.veg
Videoimpressions wrote on 1/29/2008, 5:48 AM
While I believe that I was successful in creating a clean key, when I moved the logo to the lower right hand corner of the screen there was a white rectangle that popped in behind the keyed logo that I could not do anything with in the ChromaKey filter. If I moved the logo around the screen this white rectangle went away (e.g., it only showed when the logo was in the lower right hand corner). Could this possibly have been caused by the white background of my (original) logo being too bright (over 100%) and somehow overdriving the effect? I know that Spot recommends (on a VASST Training DVD) to lower the whites on titles to something lower that 100%, but I forgot what that level was (I do not have the training DVD in front of me now, nor am I at my editing PC at the moment). Can you shed any light on what this white rectangle might be and how to eliminate it (that is, if my guess is incorrect)? Where would I adjust the value of the white on my logo background if this needs such adjustment?
TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/29/2008, 9:56 AM
i would suggest, just for future ease of use, use the gimp/photoshop & save the parts you want transparent as transparent in a .png. will make things simpler down the road, for use in other NLE's, programs, future versions of vegas, etc (hey, never know, sony could sell vegas & next year it's avid vegas & all the plugins are renamed "avid blah-blah", then you have to do it from scratch again).
Videoimpressions wrote on 1/29/2008, 11:16 AM
Since I never have done this (or even had a need to) up until now, is what you are saying is to save the white area as an alpha channel and the blue (logo) as a separate layer? I have heard of this, but don't know how to do it! I need a step-by-step explanation, and once I do it, the next time I will know how. Would you therefore tell me how to create such a file, please?
rs170a wrote on 1/29/2008, 11:59 AM
Rich, trust me when I say that you'll never get a really clean key from an image scanned off of a business card. I've had to do this in the past so I feel your pain.
If you had the cards prefessionally done, go back to the place that did the printing and see if they're willing to give you a digital version of the logo. It's yours so there's no reason why they shouldn't.
Odds are that they will give it to you in EPS format. TIF, TGA & PCT are possible file formats as well.
If you've got something like Photoshop, it's no big deal to convert it to PNG.
If they're a Mac-based printing place, make sure they put the file extension on it , otherwise Windows won't know what to do with it.

If none of this is a possibilty, send me the images and I'll see what I can do for you.
Click my name to send me an email..

Mike