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Cleaning Up Your Edges

Lesson 59 from: Adobe After Effects Fundamentals

Philip Ebiner

Cleaning Up Your Edges

Lesson 59 from: Adobe After Effects Fundamentals

Philip Ebiner

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Lesson Info

59. Cleaning Up Your Edges

Lessons

Class Trailer

Chapter 1: Introduction

1

Class Updates & My Favorite CC 2020 Updates

06:22

Chapter 2: After Effects Basics

2

Understand the After Effects Workspace

05:39
3

Starting a New Composition

08:15
4

CC 2018 Update - Starting a New Composition from Footage

01:55
5

Adding Media to Your Project and the Timeline

05:08
6

Using the Basic After Effects Tools

10:20
7

Create a Perfect Circle, Alignment, and Shape Colors

03:04
8

Working in the Timeline

10:59
9

Layer Properties

08:57
10

Quiz: After Effects Basics

Chapter 3: Animating with Keyframes

11

Animating in After Effects

07:35
12

Position, Scale, and Rotation Animations

05:17
13

Tips to Make Your Animations Look More Nautral

04:21
14

Using the Graph Editor

05:32
15

Challenge - Bouncing Ball

01:01
16

Solution - Bouncing Ball

13:00
17

Quiz: Animating with Keyframes

Chapter 4: Shapes and Solid Layers

18

Working with Solid Layers and the Ken Burns Effects

07:07
19

Working with Shape Layers, Strokes, and Paths

06:24
20

Adding Layer Styles like Drop Shadow, Bevel, and Gradients

03:44
21

Shape Effects - Trim Path Animations, Wiggle, and Zig Zag

05:54
22

Quiz: Shapes and Solid Layers

Chapter 5: Important After Effects Skills

23

Track Matte Animations - Make Layers Appear and Disappear

08:37
24

Using Pre-Compositions to Group Layers

05:34
25

Easily Reverse Complicated Animations

02:14
26

Playing with Time

05:54
27

Blend Modes

06:05
28

Stabilize Shaky Footage

04:04
29

CC 2018 Update - Previewing and Favoriting Fonts

00:46
30

CC 2019 Update - Responsive Design Time

03:36
31

CC 2019 Content Aware Fill

03:55
32

CC 2019 Create Motion Graphic Templates

08:37
33

Quiz: Important After Effects Skills

Chapter 6: Motion Graphics Projects

34

Intro to Motion Graphics Projects

00:53
35

Clean Lower Third

09:22
36

Logo Reveal Animation Bumper

13:25
37

Colorful Transition

16:59
38

Text with Mask Path Animation

10:05
39

Text Bubble Animation

13:39
40

Weather App 1

16:41
41

Weather App 2

08:21
42

Weather App 3

06:59
43

Quiz: Motion Graphics Projects

Chapter 7: Flat Animation Challenge

44

Flat Animation Challenge

02:47
45

Phil Designs his Flat Animation Scene

01:23
46

Animating Fireworks with the Repeater Effect

15:02

Chapter 8: Flat Animation Challenge

47

Removing Green Screen Background

06:46
48

Adding a Background that Matches the Foreground

07:55
49

Adding Motion to a Still Image with the Puppet Tool

06:26
50

Adding Movement with the Ripple Effect

06:07
51

Quiz: Flat Animation Challenge

Chapter 9: Green Screen (Chromakeying)

52

Intro to 3D

10:04
53

Swinging 3D Text Animation

12:11
54

Build Out Your 3D Composition

05:47
55

Animating Our 3D Scene

07:38
56

Create Stars in After Effects

05:11
57

Quiz: Green Screen (Chromakeying)

Chapter 10: 3D Animations and the Camera Tool

58

Using the Rotoscope Tool

06:55
59

Cleaning Up Your Edges

07:21
60

Finishing Our Rotobrush Animation

07:33
61

Quiz: 3D Animations and the Camera Tool

Chapter 11: Rotoscoping

62

Easy Screen Replacement with Masks

09:56
63

Replacing a Screen Version 2

13:49
64

Screen Replacement with Mocha

07:13
65

CC 2019 Update - Native Mocha AE Plugin

05:08
66

Quiz: Rotoscoping

Chapter 12: Screen Replacements

67

Using the Puppet Pin Tool

04:33
68

Animating Your Puppet Pins

03:04
69

Animated Blinking Eyes

08:21
70

Adding Perspective with Animated Clouds

07:10
71

CC 2018 Update - Advanced Puppet Pin Tool

02:08
72

Quiz: Screen Replacements

Chapter 13: Puppet Tool Animations

73

Applying Text Animation Presets

05:59
74

Create a Page Turn Effect with CC Page Turn

10:05
75

Radial and Linear Wipes

03:20
76

Color Correction in After Effects

03:33
77

CC 2019 Update - Selective Color Adjustments

03:25
78

Quiz: Puppet Tool Animations

Chapter 14: Motion Tracking

79

Motion Tracking Basics

09:51
80

Tracking Text and Visual Effects to Video Clip

06:21
81

Tracking Rotation and Scale

11:33
82

Adding Details to Our Text

04:04
83

Quiz: Motion Tracking

Chapter 15: Character Animations

84

Intro to Character Animations

01:31
85

Design Your Character

14:32
86

Rigging Your Character

02:50
87

Animating Our Character

09:55
88

Adding the Animated Background

09:12
89

Adding Details to Character Movement

06:46
90

Adding the Paper Cut Out Look

05:29
91

Quiz: Character Animations

Chapter 16: Exporting from After Effects

92

Exporting an H264 File from After Effects

07:03
93

Exporting from After Effects with a Transparent Background

04:03
94

Exporting from After Effects through Adobe Media Encoder

04:40
95

CC 2018 Update - Exporting an Animated GIF from Adobe Media Encoder

02:14
96

Create an Animated GIF from After Effects CC 2017

07:03

Chapter 17: After Effects Workflow & Tips

97

Audio Tips for After Effects

02:19
98

Working with Premiere Pro

05:54
99

Quiz: After Effects Workflow & Tips

Chapter 18: Expressions

100

Expressions Basics

07:24
101

Animate a Flickering Light with Expressions

17:35
102

Quiz: Expressions

Chapter 19: Conclusion

103

Conclusion

00:44

Final Quiz

104

Final Quiz

Lesson Info

Cleaning Up Your Edges

after going through your entire video clip that you want to make a selection for and then going back to the composition window, you might see that you know some of the edges are a little imperfect, it's a little jagged so we can use our roto brush matte options over here on the left to make some adjustments. It automatically has a couple of things that like the feathering and the contrast. But if I increase feather for example to 25 it gets rid of a lot of those jagged edges. Now we also get a little bit of parts of the image or the video that we might not want. Such as this little highlight in the back of his right ear so we can either go back into our layer by clicking the layer up here and making sure that we don't have this part selected. So again going back to the very beginning of the frame and pressing option and making that selection to erase it. And we could also decrease the size of our brush as well. The keyboard shortcut for changing the size of your brush on a mac is comma...

nd option clicking and then dragging to the right or left. So for a pc that should be control alt clicking and then dragging to the right or left. So I might have to go really small and then getting in there and making sure it's deleted. So again I would have to go through all these frames, make sure it's perfect. So that's one thing with the feathering. Another thing we can do. So let's put our feathering back up to 25. Another thing we can do is increase or decrease the shift edge. So by increasing we're expanding the selection by decreasing were decreasing in a bit. So we want to make sure it's not too far because then you start to cut off his ears and parts of his body that he don't want necessarily to cut off. So that's one other tool we can do reduced chatter is another thing. So if you play through this video or if you're using another video and you get some sort of distortion around the edges, Even through this one side can clip we get this little chattering around the edges a little motion and we want to reduce that. So what I'll typically do is just test out a few different numbers. Go up 25%. See how that works. If it helps then maybe I'll increase it and then play around with it until you see what works best. We also skipped over contrast. So this looks at the contrast of the edge compared to what it's next to. So for example A lower contrast creates a more blurred edge feather look because it doesn't isn't making a selection based off of a hard edge as much as something like 100% is. So 100% will really make edges nice and sharp but sometimes that doesn't look as good compared to something like lower but of course it depends on what you're working with. It also will depend on what your background is. So let me just turn down our rotoscoping. If I duplicate this layer by pressing command D and then you take the background layer, delete the roto brush tool and then say we want to just quickly make the background black and white with the foreground in color. I'll take my hue saturation effect in my effects and presets panel, drop it onto the background rotoscoping layer and then drop my saturation. Now this doesn't look too bad, this looks really good and that's because the background is the same as what the actual background is. What if I add sort of a color background. So let's make a red background, something like this with a new solid. That was just command why to bring up your new solid and put it behind here. Now the edge looks a little funny. So depending on what you're doing, you might play with these things. So for example I might shift the contrast up to 80, might decrease the feathering to depending on what looks best with my background. Another quick option to look at is this invert foreground background. So if you want to make a selection actually and actually delete what's on the inside, you can do that. Remember those old apple commercials for I think it was the ipod where the people were. You know, just a silhouette. This is a quick way to make that color silhouette of a person. Just by inverting the foreground and background. Another way we can refine the edge of our selection is with the refine edge tool which is also underneath the roto brush tool. Select that. And this is great for the edge of people's faces and heads especially because you have their hair. And what I would do is just paint along the edge of this guy's hair and it does a better job at separating the small areas and you can see as I paint along that the white part is the hair, that is the selection and the dark part is the non selected part. And so I should actually start this from the beginning, always start from the beginning and do that. So go along like so and so it's making that selection of the hair a little bit more precise. So if we go back to our composition, you can see that his hair is selected a little bit better. And now we have these options in the roto brush and refined end edge affects control is to refine that, refine edge match. So you have smooth feather contrast, shift edge for those specific things. So if we want to add feathering just to that little selection, we can increase the contrast to try to make a better selection based off of the edges and the contrast and color from the hair to the background. And you can also reduce chatter for the hair and they have two options more detailed or smoother. This is going to be slower. It's gonna take a lot more RAM and memory power. But if you're having a really tricky instance and someone's hair, you know, you've got wispy hair blowing in the background and it's really having a hard time making that selection. You might want to choose that. We can even go in here and use the refine edge tool for the part of the ear right there to get rid of that little white spot. And so now going back to our composition, you see that that has been removed. So using both of these tools and these settings over here, you can really get a nice selection from your image now that we know how to make that selection. Let's put this to use. I'm going to show you how to make that next selection of the cup down here, which is a little bit trickier in the next lesson. Then I'm going to show you how I created that actual graphic right here with the color sort of blending on as this boy sips his delicious drink

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