Cropping and effects

smashguy37 wrote on 11/27/2007, 11:12 AM
I mostly used Vegas in the past for basic editing but now that I'm getting into slightly more complicated stuff, I'm confused about something -- cropping. I'm aware of the event pan/crop box, but it only seems to really resize the video...I can make it crop the sides or the top sometimes... -- okay this is hard to explain but basically I'm used to something like entering the values for the top, bottom, left and right and that gave me good control over what portion I wanted cropped, but with Vegas I can't seem to achieve that properly.

For a quick example, say I take two identical events and stack them over each other. The top track has been brightened with a filter and I just want to make a little area in the top left corner have the brightened portion...I can't seem to do that. I'm aware of the "cookie cutter" filters too. That gives me the control I want for placement but not sizing -- I just get shape presets.

Also -- when I drop a filter onto an event is there is an option or a script to make the box containing the effect parameters not pop up? Thanks, sorry if the crop question isn't very clear.

Comments

ScorpioProd wrote on 11/27/2007, 11:38 AM
To answer your second question first: When you drop a filter onto an event, if you don't want the parameter box popping up, hold down SHIFT while dropping the effect onto the event and it won't.

As for your cropping question, I'm still trying to fully get a handle on the combination of things one can do with the pan/crop function, but one thing I can tell you is to do cropping, you turn the "stretch to fill frame" from yes to no and that changes what you can do from zooming to cropping.

I'm still confused how to combine both zooming and cropping, since changing it back and forth tends to negate what I've just set, but I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. I even watched a training DVD on it, but it was rather light on exactly how to use the functions together.
smashguy37 wrote on 11/27/2007, 11:52 AM
Awesome, thank you. The stretch to fill output option gave me my solution, though I do see your point on using it along with zooming & panning. And I'll use shift, but I'll also take a script if anybody has one. Thanks again.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 11/27/2007, 5:54 PM
Do you know what it means to "crop" a physical still picture? If not, it's when you select a portion of the picture & use only that section. If you take a picture of yourself to put on MySpace & to your left are two dogs humping, you'd go in to an image editing program & crop the image so just you are there & not the breeding animals. That's cropping: cutting out what you don't want.

"pan" means to move across an image. For still's it's no different from cropping because, well, it's still & there's no motion. For film/video it means you move across a field of view to get the image you want.

They apply exactly the same way in Vegas. The only reason they LOOK Vegas defaults to filling the frame with the cropped image. In the pan/crop window, on the left of the preview is is list of settings: position, rotation, keyframe interpolation, source & workspace. Expanse source & you'll see the option for "stretch to fill frame". Change it to "no" & it won't fill the frame any more, it will keep it the same size as the pan/crop window.

smashguy37 wrote on 11/28/2007, 5:50 AM
^ (last post). I'm aware of what each function is as I use them on a daily basis, however I don't use Vegas at work so I'm a little behind on how some things function in Vegas.
Cheno wrote on 11/28/2007, 8:19 AM
"For a quick example, say I take two identical events and stack them over each other. The top track has been brightened with a filter and I just want to make a little area in the top left corner have the brightened portion...I can't seem to do that. I'm aware of the "cookie cutter" filters too. That gives me the control I want for placement but not sizing -- I just get shape presets."

I would use the bezier masking tool in the pan/crop tool - this way you can draw exactly what you want to reveal and even feather the edges - I use this all of the time to reveal sections of layers

cheno