Showing posts with label compositing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label compositing. Show all posts

Plug-in to After Effects: Third Party Plug-in Mastery Review

Plug-in to After Effects: Third Party Plug-in Mastery
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Plug-in to After Effects: Third Party Plug-in Mastery ReviewThere is a plethora of plug-ins for After Effects and by utilizing these plug-ins, you can accomplish awesome effects using these third party plug-ins.
But before one can use "Plug-Ins to After Effects" by Michele Yamazaki, its important to note that you MUST at least have the following third-party plug-ins:
- Boris Continuum Complete
- GenArts Sapphire and GenArts Monsters
- Noise Industries FxFactory Pro
- Trapcode Suite
- Red Giant Magic Bullet Suite
- Digieffects Delirium
- Re:Vision Effects Effections Bundle
- Tiffen DFx Digital Filter Suite
- CoreMelt Complete
- The Foundry's Plug-Ins
- Adobe Pixel Bender Plug-Ins
Michele Yamazaki touches upon the following in each chapter:
CHAPTER 1 - Introduction to Plug-Ins
CHAPTER 2 - Color Correction and Color Effects (ie. using Boris Continuum complete, Red Giant Magic Bullet, Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse and more).
CHAPTER 3 - Effects (Blur, light effects, brushes, cartoon look, TV inspired effects and more)
CHAPTER 4 - Distortions, Warps, Tiling and Time Effects (Push Effect using GenArts Sapphire Distortion, Re:Vision Effects and more).
CHAPTER 5 - Creative Transitions: When a Simple Cut Just Isn't Enough! (CoreMelt Complete Transitions, Noise Industries FxFactory Transitions, Pixelan Creativeeaste Tranditions, Boris Continuum Complete Wipes and more)
CHAPTER 6 - Generators - Lens Flares, Particle Systems, Backgrounds and Textures
CHAPTER 7 - Invisible and Natural Effects (generating water, rain, atmospheric effects, fire and fireballs)
CHAPTER 8 - Text and Graphic Elements - Text Elements, FxFactory Type plug-ins, lines and paths and more.
CHAPTER 9 - Generating 3D Elements in After Effects - Utilizing Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator, Boris Continuum, mountains, cables and more.
CHAPTER 10 - Working with the 3D Camera - Digieffects Camera Mapper, Trapcode Horizon, Digieffects Snowstorm, Stereoscopic 3D Viewmaster and more.
CHAPTER 11 - Automation and Keyframe Generators (Automated Motion, Keyframes from Audio, Boris Continuum, Dance Club Eye Candy and more).
CHAPTER 12 - Keying and Compositing Greenscreen Footage (Keyers and Tools, Compositing Tools, Matte Cleaners)
CHAPTER 13 - Tracking, Matchmoving, Motion Stabilization and Rotoscoping (Imagineer mocha AE, Boris Continuum and more)
CHAPTER 14 - Fixing Video Problems (Noise and Grain, Lens Distortion/Barrel Distortion, Rolling Shutter and more).
CHAPTER 15 - Reference and Workflow
CHAPTER 16 - More on Plug-Ins: The FAQ
The DVD included with the book comes with the project files, demo versions of the plug-ins, fonts and more.
JUDGMENT CALL:
"Plug-In to After Effects" is a fantastic how-to book with project files for one to learn how to utilize these third-party plug-ins with great efficacy. But of course, this book is not for everyone as it does require you to own the third party software and these plug-ins are quite expensive. The good news is that the included DVD does have demo versions of the plug-ins but the good thing that I enjoyed about the book is that it does give you an idea of what plug-ins can be utilized to accomplish certain effects.
There are so many plug-ins out there but it helps to read from a professional who is familiar with the plug-ins to give you a good idea of how to use them and in some cases, you can tell which plug-ins Yamazaki tends to favor as they are featured quite often throughout the book.
If you are a person who wonders how certain effects are created and want to learn from one of the best After Effect gurus out there, "Plug-Ins to After Effects" is a wonderful resource and reference worth buying!
Highly recommended!Plug-in to After Effects: Third Party Plug-in Mastery Overview

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The Photoshop Darkroom 2: Creative Digital Transformations Review

The Photoshop Darkroom 2: Creative Digital Transformations
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The Photoshop Darkroom 2: Creative Digital Transformations ReviewThis slim volume covers a few areas of image-processing. Some areas are covered nicely, while others are considerably weaker.
Harold Davis excels with his backlit images of flowers which have all the delicacy of water color. His technique (he calls it 'hand hdr') of combining multiple exposures is covered in detail. He also describes his unusual compositing techniques, which have given him strange and beautiful images. He enjoins the reader to experiment with different color spaces, particularly Lab Color. Virtually all of his transformations are accomplished without the filters (pastel, gesso, brushstrokes, etc) used by first-timers. This is all valuable information.
Where I feel that Davis falls short is in his actual use of Photoshop. While his techniques work, they barely touch on more recent developments in PS. For example, Davis recommends layering varied conversions of the same RAW file. But he doesn't touch on the subject of smart layers, which both simplify this process and confer greater flexibility. Nor is there any mention of adjustment layers, which I believe would accomplish many of his effects with less fuss. Much of his compositing (I'm thinking particularly of his Escher-like staircases) would be much easier with the new puppet warp feature. He also uses a brush to paint over many problem areas; while he's good at it, it's devilishly difficult to do and shows too little faith in judicious use of the new context-sensitive features of CS5. The section on glamour retouching should have been excluded. Many of the problems could have been eliminated by more careful studio lighting. Most of the remaining touch-up looks artificial. All in all, it feels like Davis's knowledge of Photoshop has not been refreshed in quite some time.
For an overall sense of good PS workflow, I still feel that the books of Martin Evening are in a league of their own. Once the user has an up-to-date feel for the program, there are still some nice tidbits in this book.The Photoshop Darkroom 2: Creative Digital Transformations Overview

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