Hi ckatosmith -

Following up on your previous question about creating a green screen video in post, I played with a butterfly clip to see how difficult it was to make it look right. So - I had already extracted the individual frames.

This screen capture shows how to insert your edited frames at the correct point...



In the example I used, the first frame to be inserted was at 00:00:01:00 (= frame #30), so I needed to insert frames 30, 31, 32 33 (according to your 4 frame example).

Cheers - Tony
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That's brilliant! I hastily tried just one frame to make sure I understand the mechanics and it worked. I haven't actually made the edited frames yet, and the splits will be more than one group, so hope I do this sequentially, just do one at a time.

I have to wait a few days to try. So I learned a new word, 'scrubber', and I guess it is what PD calls the 'timeline slider'. I had to watch the video really close to get that.

Thank you for taking the time to make the video and I hope it helps others down the road too. I will update when I have successfully edited my clip. I think this will be a useful technique for my other 'problem' of getting rid of a logo off of a tee shirt.

I see you chose 'Insert Here and Move All Clips on the Timeline to the right'.

Could you just as well have chosen 'Insert Here and Move Clips on this track to the Right'?

In general, I will most often be dealing with just one clip, and may or may not need the sound track. Would having or not having the sound and FX tracks in use make a difference? Thanks again for the tutorial, I'm a visual learner.

You're very welcome!

Could you just as well have chosen 'Insert Here and Move Clips on this track to the Right'?

In that case it made no difference because there was only a single track being used.

Whether other tracks, like FX & audio, would be affected would depend where the media/FX were on the timeline. i.e. they'd shift if they were after the insertion point & you selected "Insert & Move All Clips on the timeline to the right".

However - since you're only removing and replacing the same number of frames - everything should land in sync on completion.

Yes - scrubber is synonymous with timeline slider. "Scrubbing" through a video is dragging/moving the slider to skim contents or locate a point.

Good luck with it

Cheers - Tony

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." (Confucius?)


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Project Management Question (I watched the PDToots 2 videos).

OK, I went back through my hummingbird clip and found more glistening spider web strands. I won't say how many, else someone is going to put me in a straight jacket for attempting this 'project'.

So that necessitated a crash course in Project Management since I will now have to do this in aliquots of time (time constraints).

I watched the excellent PDToots (2 vids on YouTube) and started accordingly.

1) It seems that I should also uncheck the 'auto save project' box under Preferences>Project, correct? Otherwise PD would save without me asking over the latest .pds file, correct?

2) What about the 'snapshots' I have saved in the project folder that need to be edited in a photo editor?

I named them according to their frame number in the trimmed file so I know exactly where to replace. When I save the 'corrected' file in the photo editor back to the project file folder, it's gonna tell me that file already exists and whether I want to overwrite it (which I want to).

Is that OK since I am not changing the file name, so that the next time I open up my project in PD, the photo NOW EDITED Snapshots will be what I see in PD's Media Library (instead of the original captured Snapshot) and I can insert them in to the timeline, as originally discussed? Does that sound correct? Thanks.

Moral: try wiping your bird feeder pole before filming your bird feeding station

Quote: It seems that I should also uncheck the 'auto save project' box under Preferences>Project, correct? Otherwise PD would save without me asking over the latest .pds file, correct?

No, you should leave that checked and active.

That writes the AutoSaved PDS into a hidden folder on your hard drive. It does not "overwrite" your pds file.
It is a safety net.

Auto Save location for Powerdirector 12 (unless changed by you).
It is a Hidden location. Change your Folder Options to show Hidden folders and files
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\CyberLink\PowerDirector\12.0\AutoSave

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Is that OK since I am not changing the file name, so that the next time I open up my project in PD, the photo NOW EDITED Snapshots will be what I see in PD's Media Library (instead of the original captured Snapshot) and I can insert them in to the timeline, as originally discussed? Does that sound correct?

That is correct! After taking the snapshots, saving the project, then closing PD:
1. Edit the snapshots and save without renaming or moving.
2. Open PD & the edited snapshots will be in the library.

That's no the only way to do it, but it'll work.

About "Auto Save". It's effectively a "Save As" process. If you look in the folder Carl mentioned, you'll see the auto saved projects named according to the date & time of the auto save. Auto saves do NOT overwrite your saved project.



Cheers - Tony

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Uh oh, First, thank you Carl312 and Tony.

The uh oh is that it seems I can't edit the inserted frames. When I choose 'Clip' in the Preview and then click on the Time Line , the inserted frames remain grey. I wanted to use ColorDirector 2. So it appears the workflow should start with CD 2 on the whole clip, then do snapshots and edit those, then do splitting for frame insertions. Does that sound right? Back to square two, I think. Thank you.

Because the snapshots are images, ColorDirector won't touch them.

You may be able to make the necessary adjustments in Fix/Enhance - but then there'd be a colour sync issue with the original clip...

So - yes - CD2 > Extract frames > Edit frames > re-insert frames would be a good workflow.

Cheers - Tony
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