"Spill" colour from one layer to another?

PG
Posted By
Peter_Goldfield
May 22, 2005
Views
1081
Replies
12
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Closed
I’ve carefully extracted and despilled a white cube shot on a green screen, using After Effects keying effects.
Now I want to "reverse" the process in PS8 by layering the white cube on different backgrounds and picking up some of the colour on the three visible sides of the cube, coming from 3 different directions! – is this asking too much? – does anyone know something I can try?
TIA
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CK
Christine_Krof_Shock
May 23, 2005
Try 3 different hue/saturation adjustment layers. To create an adjustment layer, click on the half black/half white icon on the bottom of the layers palette. Select Hue/Saturation from the dialog box. The Hue/Saturation dialog box will open. Make sure to click Colorize in the hue/saturation dialog box.

Create a color adusted layer by moving the hue/saturation/lightness sliders. When you are happy with the color, click OK. Now you will remove unwanted color.

Using a paintbrush with foreground color set to black, double click in the Second thumbnail of the adjustment layer (to make sure you are painting on the mask of the adjustment layer, not the layer itself.)and use a soft edged paintbrush to remove areas of unwanted color. If you remove too much color in one area, switch to foreground color of white to add the area back into the mask.

Repeat twice for the other 2 adjustment layers.
PG
Peter_Goldfield
May 23, 2005
Thanks very much Christine – that’s an interesting approach but not quite what I’m looking for.
I’m trying to get the colours from the background ( say blue sky and brown trees) to have a graduated reflection on the top layer object (whitish cube in this case). Just like the reflection from the "green screen" that I had to get rid of (despill) to prepare the top layer!

wrote in message
Try 3 different hue/saturation adjustment layers. To create an adjustment layer, click on the half black/half white icon on the bottom of the layers palette. Select Hue/Saturation from the dialog box. The Hue/Saturation dialog box will open. Make sure to click Colorize in the hue/saturation dialog box.

Create a color adusted layer by moving the hue/saturation/lightness sliders. When you are happy with the color, click OK. Now you will remove unwanted color.

Using a paintbrush with foreground color set to black, double click in the Second thumbnail of the adjustment layer (to make sure you are painting on the mask of the adjustment layer, not the layer itself.)and use a soft edged paintbrush to remove areas of unwanted color. If you remove too much color in one area, switch to foreground color of white to add the area back into the mask.

Repeat twice for the other 2 adjustment layers.
CK
Christine_Krof_Shock
May 23, 2005
Do the same thing with multiple copies of the "background layers" and layer masks… create several duplicates of the background layer above the cube, add a layer mask to the layer, (grey icon with "marching ants" in a circle at the bottom of the layers palette) and use the paintbrush set to black to paint out what you do not want…You can even use a gradient (Black to white only) to create a gradient look.

Also play with changing blending modes on the Layers palette for each of the background layers (Change from "Normal" to Overlay, Soft Light, Multiply) and opacity to add to the effect.
GU
Glenn_UK
May 23, 2005
Peter…

If I’m understanding you correctly (probably not)…

Select Cube Face
Save As Alpha Channel ‘Z’. Make Channel Z Active
GradientFill (Face Area still Selected); Gradient angled to Suit Ctrl+D
BackGround. Ctrl+A; Ctrl+C
Cube Layer
Select Alpha Channel ‘Z’
Paste Into
This will place the complete background into a layer above the cube, the chosen face with a gradient mask defining what of that background appears.
Ctrl+T to transform that background to a reflection (eg Rt-Clk>Flip Horiz for a start)… Lots of options of course: Fill Transparency, Blend Mode etc to refine…

As with all things in PS there’s more ways than one to get from A to B and maybe more experienced hands might suggest a less roundabout alternative..?

Glenn
GU
Glenn_UK
May 23, 2005
EDIT

And I see Ms Krof Shock has already done just that…
PC
Philo_Calhoun
May 23, 2005
I would do this with an edge mask. After you have keyed out the backgrounds, you can use the transparency area as a selection. Make a new layer and stroke the edges of the selection the colour you want. You can use a hard stroke brush and blur it afterwards or a soft stroke brush from the start. Change this new layer’s mode to "colour" and drop the opacity.
PC
Philo_Calhoun
May 23, 2005
By the way, although Keylight lacks an ability to bring back in edge colour effects (although you can soften the keyed edge to partially make up for this), another AE plugin – dvMattePro – has just such a set of controls. It can add in spill from a different background (without softening the mask).
PG
Peter_Goldfield
May 23, 2005
Thanks Christine & Glenn – that’s nearly there.

I’m intrigued by Philo’s "edge mask" – can you expand on that I bit – not really sure what it is! – and what’s a "stroke brush"? Are we talking paths here or stroking selections? – and how do I apply an edge mask once I’ve made it to the copy background? Sorry for naivete – it’s probably simple – but only when you know how!
PC
Philo_Calhoun
May 23, 2005
As mentioned, Bruce Frazier gives the steps for making an edge mask to get rid of background colour contamination, masking a tree (as I remember) in Real World Photoshop. There are a bunch of ways of creating an edge mask: stroking the selection, making a path out of the selection and stroking that etc. But I’ll give you what I think might be the easiest:

Start Photoshop. Put your background layer below your layer with transparency (your keyed foreground). Ctrl-click your layer with transparency. This will make a selection of the non keyed area. Use your menu for select>modify>border and pick something like 20 pixels. Then use your menu again for select>load selection> and pick layer 1 mask but push the button for "intersect". Now duplicate the background layer and put the duplicate on top of your layer with alpha channel. Click the layer mask button, which should mask out all but the edge. Change this top layer’s mode to "colour" and lower its opacity. If it has too strong an effect, try a "hue" layer mode instead. I hope this helps.
PC
Pierre_Courtejoie
May 24, 2005
Philo: very good tip, indeed! but it is Bruce Fraser, not Frazier… and he credits Greg VanderHouwen for that technique, IIRC.
PG
Peter_Goldfield
May 24, 2005
Amazingly useful as ever – thanks again for all your time and trouble. Many happy hours playing ahead!
PC
Philo_Calhoun
May 24, 2005
My apologies to Bruce.

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