Digital Compositing for Film and Video

Book excerpt: Written by senior compositor, technical director and master trainer Steve Wright, this book condenses years of production experience into an easy-to-read and highly-informative guide suitable for both working and aspiring visual effects artists. This expanded and updated edition of Digital Compositing for Film and Video addresses the problems and difficult choices that professional compositors face on a daily basis with an elegant blend of theory, practical production techniques and workflows. It is written to be software-agnostic, so it is applicable to any brand of software. This edition features many step-by-step workflows, powerful new keying techniques and updates on the latest tech in the visual effects industry. Workflow examples for: Grain Management Lens Distortion Management Merging CGI Render Passes Blending Multiple Keys Photorealistic Color Correction Rotoscoping Production Techniques for: Keying Difficult Greenscreens Replicating Optical Lens Effects Advanced Spill Suppression Fixing Discoloured Edges Adding Interactive Lighting Managing Motion Blur With brand new information on: Working in linear ACES Color Management Light Field Cinematography Planar Tracking Creating Color Difference Keys Premultiply vs. Unpremultiply Deep Compositing VR Stitching 3D Compositing from 2D Images How Color Correction ops Effect Images Color Spaces Retiming Clips Working with Digital Cinema Images OpenColorIO A companion website offers images from the examples discussed in the book allowing readers to experiment with the material first-hand.