Removing/Obscuring Company Logos that Move Throughout the Frame

Howie

Newbie Joined: Sep 13, 2008 20:16 Messages: 4 Offline

Solved by

Jun 05, 2009 15:51

I make a video. After shooting, I realized that there was a company logo on someone's jacket that I need to remove/obscure.

My first choice would be some method of frame-by-frame pixel-by-pixel editing, but I can't find any free video editing software to do this (and since I bought PowerDirector I don't want to have to buy another app just for this one feature).

My next choice was to use a PD7 PIP object to obscure it. However, this has two problems: (1) The logo moves around the screen, and it's very difficult with PD7 to match the motion of the PIP with the motion of the logo it's trying to obscure. (2) Even when I can solve #1, the end result looks fairly bad because it's essentially a single-color block that moves around the video.

Any suggestions? (Re-shooting the scenes is not an option.)

Thanks!
Howie

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Jun 05, 2009 16:23

Howie -

If the logo is a DIFFERENT colour to the other things in the scene, there's a way to obscure it.

Place that section of the video in the PIP track.
In the main video track, place a colour board/still image that is the same colour (or similar) as the jacket.
Stretch out the colour board/image to match the length of the clip.

In the PIP track, select the clip and click modify.
Stretch the video to cover the whole screen
Click Apply Chroma Key
Click on the colour select button
Click on the colour you want to make transparent (the logo)
Adjust the intensity (I'd say pretty low for what you're doing - about 10?)

See how it looks - go back and adjust the intensity.

Now - if the logo colour is repeated in other sections of the video - eg. a nurseryman with a yellow logo at a daffodil exhibition - FORGET WHAT I JUST SAID!

Someone clever might be able to offer a better way...

Cheers -

Tony

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Jun 05. 2009 16:25

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Howie

Newbie Joined: Sep 13, 2008 20:16 Messages: 4 Offline

Jun 05, 2009 16:38

INTERESTING IDEA!!!!!

The logo is actually a single-color dark blue embroidery on a white jacket. I'm not sure that shade of blue appears anywhere else in the frame.

Your suggestion just might work!

I'm gone for the weekend, but will try that when I return.

THANKS!
Howie

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Jun 05, 2009 19:54

Howie,

Your other option might be to use the blur effect, you can control the size of the mask, type, circle or box and adjust with key frames to move about in this section of video.

Jeff

STEVE

Newbie Joined: Oct 30, 2009 00:16 Messages: 1 Offline

Oct 30, 2009 00:33

Wow! 3 minutes into membership and I found my solution. Now the phone number on the portapotty behind the guy I interviewed is gone. The BLUR effect was perfect. Thanks.