Fixes for spots on lens

BarryB wrote on 2/5/2003, 10:31 PM
Some of my DV footage was recorded with a blemish created from light hitting the lens. I had shot some stuff using a wide-angle lens attachment and it seems that when the angle was just right (or just wrong) it caused a small spot to appear--not in an appealing, sun-smear kind of way but more like a dead pixel or like the lens was dirty. Luckily, the blemish is only apparent on a few shots. I'm pretty sure that I could "paint it out" of each frame in a program like After Effects, but looking for other, if not cheaper methods as I would have to buy AE. If anyone has tips on other programs, plugins, or down-and-dirty techniques to remove such blemishes, especially within Vegas, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Comments

TorS wrote on 2/6/2003, 2:20 AM
I've not tried this and I don't have the details on how you should proceed, but I can think of two things worth trying:

1. Create a text event on a track above. Write a dot or whatever, size and position it to cover your bad spot. Colour it to merge with the surroundings.

2. Make a copy of your event on the track above. Using the cookie cutter FX and/or Track motion you should be able to pan one track so that the bad spot is hidden and instead represented by the neighbouring pixels from the other track. Almost like a picture in picture. But like I said I have not gone through it myself. Experiment.

Tor
FuTz wrote on 2/6/2003, 7:15 AM
I don't know, but since it usually gets kind of a "white" dot catching the light, maybe you could put a dot (like said above), in fact a BLACK dot and then adjust your opacity with the slider on the left to create a "neutral density" dot. You then place the dot over the unwanted spot with the track motion tool. The good news: everything moves in your picture except the position of the "bad dirt spot" so it's easy to key.
The best for this would be rotoscopy... soon available on this forum I guess ...
BarryB wrote on 2/6/2003, 11:27 AM
Good things to try. Thanks!