Does ColorDirector lose its place, sometimes?

Clark711

Member Private Message Joined: Dec 28, 2014 11:49 Messages: 111 Offline

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Mar 23, 2018 10:17

I am a CDR6 newbie. I have used it on a couple of projects where I wanted to make the background mostly opaque, in order to lessen all the stuff going on in the background.

I did it but it was a laborious process. I had watched a couple of tutorials, mostly French. So I think I know the mechanics. But CDR kept wandering off, grabbing other areas and losing area that I wanted.

But the most disturbing thing is that it apparently lost edits/selections that I had already made. If I wanted to repeat the process, keeping the same mask, in order to fine tune my mask, very often the areas that I had masked out came back masked. Very frustrating.

Any comments or guidance?

Thanks,

Clark

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PIX

Senior Contributor Private Message Joined: Sep 21, 2011 00:02 Messages: 2361 Offline

Mar 24, 2018 18:06

Hello Clark,

It appears that you are attempting to use a Motion Tracking mask. Is that correct?

Unforunately, if that's the case, you'd have some difficulty even if you were a CDR "oldie". CDR does indeed "wander off and grab other areas", especially when there are similar coloured objects passing by.

Could you please post a screenshot of the clip showing the area you're trying to mask?

PIX PhD CDR ADR DZ MVL PP Forum Moderator
PIX YouTube channel

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Clark711

Member Private Message Joined: Dec 28, 2014 11:49 Messages: 111 Offline

Mar 26, 2018 13:34

Quote Hello Clark,

It appears that you are attempting to use a Motion Tracking mask. Is that correct?

Unforunately, if that's the case, you'd have some difficulty even if you were a CDR "oldie". CDR does indeed "wander off and grab other areas", especially when there are similar coloured objects passing by.

Could you please post a screenshot of the clip showing the area you're trying to mask?

PIX

Hi PIX,

Yes, I was using Motion Tracking. in CDR 6. I have used it for 3 videos.

But, based on my experience, I will not use it again, unless I am paid very high, or unless someone tells me how better to use it.

Rather than a screen shot, how about a link to a "completed" video, one that I did mask, and then created a video with a semi-transparent background of the initial background? Then you can see better what I was dealing with.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Kk3y39JbVndNEIL83

The final result was "pretty good", not great. But take many hours to complete. I thought I would get better as time went by, but I topped out on my learning curve after an hour or so. From then on, it was boring, click, alt-click. I couldn't get far with the continuous motion tracking tool; I often had to track frame by frame.

This video had stupid people moving in the background. That hurt. But also, even when there was no background movement, CDR keep losing/adding parts. If I kept the same mask, and started again, thinking that I could fine-tune, it was almost like starting over. CDR kept losing parts that had been masked out, so I would have to re-mask them out again.

I also wanted to be able to simply mask out an area, and keep that mask constant unless there was a big change. But there is no tolerance setting. Also, CDR wants to immediately re-mask with jaggies the area that I had just masked smoothly,

I read somewhere that YouTube was finalizing an on-line tool to do this. Hurry up, YouTube !

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