Miscellaneous filters

Slow Motion

Canopus software has excellent slow motion features.  Canopus were the first to introduce decent slow motion on their edit cards – and have now been followed by Matrox.  The RT.X100 now has decent field based slow motion.

Most slow motion effects just mix the fields to produce a smooth result where as Canopus also fades between the four frames around the current frame.  This can produce a more fluid result at low speed, although it does result in a slightly fuzzier image. 

Better slow motion is possible using other programs but is all renderable – particularly annoying if all you want to do is take and image  and slow it slightly to fill a gap!

Time remapping

The time remapping has also had a welcome addition.  When you perform a time remap - slowing sections of the clip down, the clip may get longer, but its duration on the timeline stays the same.  This means bits of the clip are no longer seen and you would have to pop out of time remap, make the clip longer then pop back in.

Now you just tick "full range" and you can see the entire clip and re-organise the footage as much as you like.  Once finished you then drag out the clip to be a bit longer on the timeline.

You can also set the field and blending options when in this effect.  Nice.

OLD MOVIE FILTER

An old movie filter in real time?  Yes.

A popular effect but it takes effort to make it look good.  You need to add decent flicker, dust scratched, grain, a random bounce and even hairs...

This effect has to be seen to be evaluated properly.  The screen shots below just give you a flavour of the effect.

Apart from making your movie look like it was made in the 1930s this effect is also hugely useful for adding a 'film' look to your videos. For example, by only using certain effects like deinterlacing plus a bit of film grain, and by adding a colour correction filter to add a yellow tint to the picture you can achieve a typical 1950s-look to an image.

These shots show the old movie effect appiled to a clip on the left - you can see a scratch running down the frame, although the jitter and grain is hard to spot on a still image!

On the right you see the same shot with a colour correction filter added to give a sepia tint.  This now looks much more like a 1930's train film.

Blur and High quality blur

      

The Original...                                                And the blurred version...

The High quality Blur is better than the basic but needs a bit more processing power.  The degree of blur can be varied and key framed.

Soft Focus

     The original....                                               ...the soft focus result
 
This is an excellent effect for a wedding video as it give a nice romantic sheen to a scene - very similar to the effects applied to all women in the original Star Trek.

Motion Blur

A very sophisticated blur which can only really be appreciated on moving scene...

Other filters

Solid colour

Add a solid colour to a project.

Colour bars

Add standard colour bars with tone.  This may sound like a pretty boring feature but it is actually very useful!

Noise

Add video noise in real time.

Mirror

Mirror the image horizontally or vertically - very useful if you have crossed the line while filming!

Emboss

Emboss the image in realtime.

Pencil Sketch

Simple really it takes the image and makes it look like it is drawn with a pencil - effective on a moving shot if you need this sort of effect

 
                         The original....                  ...The results in real time

Monochromatic

Turn the image black and white. Useful with the Chrominance effect to pick out a red dress (for example), and make everything else black and white.

Mosaic

Turn the image into a series of blocks.  Useful when combined with the region filter to take a region (say a face) and obscure it.

Raster scroll

Takes and image and applies a horizontal roll to it

Tunnel Vision

Takes and image and creates a tunnel from it.  Can be used on video or stills.  Useful for a Dr Who title sequence.

Strobe

Creates a strobe effect either by repeating frames - which would give the image the look of, say, a video made at 10 fps, or flashing a colour on screen. 

Blend effects

Available in Edius we have the equivalent of different transfer modes from After Effects/Photoshop, such as  addition, colour burn, colour dodge, difference, exclusion, multiply, screen, soft light, subtract and more...