Masking in FCE

[jd1]

Is there any way to mask out an image in Final Cut Express? If so, how?

 

[huntercr]

Is there any way to mask out an image in Final Cut Express? If so, how?

The best way is to do it in photoshop and import it in. I believe FCE will respect the alpha channel. Or you can mask with a color and then use the chroma keyer.

 

[jd1]

What about masking a video? Is there any software plug ins or software that will let me mask a video?(for a mac)

 

[huntercr]

What about masking a video? Is there any software plug ins or software that will let me mask a video?(for a mac)

Depends on what you're trying to do... If you haven't shot the footage yet, and you are trying to do a "green screen", then you want to shoot infront of a colored background with good lighting and use the Chroma keyer plugin.

Ken Stone has a good tutorial on this here.

If you have existing footage and want to grab only part of it, you want to "matte" it. There are 4 an 8 point garbage matte plugins the come with Final Cut Express, and there is a really great free 50 point Bezier matte by Tom Henderson here.. This one lets you treat pairs of points as curves and so you can get really sophisticated with your matte.

One of these should do what you're looking for. Good luck!

 

[deux-ex-mak]

not exactly the tool

I wouldn't expect an editing tool to be also good at compositing. Surprised to see that you actually have this plugin, mentioned above, to draw masks.

For proper rotoscoping -drawing animated masks to isolate parts of a moving image, you'd rather use Shake or After Effects.

I mean, a 50 point mask might be fine to do certain jobs, but certainly not to cut out a person walking, for example.

 

[jd1]

For proper rotoscoping -drawing animated masks to isolate parts of a moving image, you'd rather use Shake or After Effects.

yeah.... shake's not in my 5$ budget.... But i will definately look into shake and after effects to see what they can do.