| 00:03 | Let's go ahead and pick a few shots
that are basically good and see if we can
|
| 00:06 | further improve upon them. Like
here is a nicely composed shot of a
|
| 00:11 | businesswoman turning around and
looking at the camera. She's nicely framed,
|
| 00:15 | she has interesting and blurred up
background behind her, she's a silhouette,
|
| 00:19 | she's taking off her glasses.
|
| 00:21 | This was basically a good idea. However,
I don't see any animation happening
|
| 00:26 | with this light. She is perhaps
little bit underlit. It could be easy to
|
| 00:32 | overlook this scene or just not get
too excited about it. So let's try adding
|
| 00:35 | some lighting to it.
|
| 00:36 | My first attempt is going to be a
lighting layer such as this. I love soft,
|
| 00:42 | amorphous, slow moving layers like this.
Just perfect for adding dancing light
|
| 00:47 | to a scene. So I'll select it and try
our first call such as Overlay mode.
|
| 00:52 | And now you see we've got animated swimming
lights in the background rather than a
|
| 00:57 | very constant background light.
So it already is an improvement.
|
| 01:01 | Now it is basically a dark layer. So
I'm going to try Color Dodge, instead of
|
| 01:05 | Overlay to see how that works. Now that's
also an interesting layer. It brightens
|
| 01:10 | the whole shot a little bit. And again
I've just got some animation and some
|
| 01:14 | movement going on in this background.
The plain background had no movement
|
| 01:18 | going on and it was easy for me to
lose interest in the shot, to be honest.
|
| 01:22 | Turn it back on and turn it off.
|
| 01:25 | Okay, let's try some other ideas.
Not all amorphous layers work. This is
|
| 01:31 | another basically nice background layer.
It's soft, it's slow moving, has moving
|
| 01:36 | highlights. But notice the composition.
It's sort of a diagonal composition.
|
| 01:41 | It's bright in the lower right; it's
dark in the upper left. But meanwhile,
|
| 01:46 | our businesswoman has a very vertical
composition. She is the center pillar and
|
| 01:51 | there's two bright pillars on either side.
|
| 01:54 | So the lighting layer is not really
composed the same as this underlying layer.
|
| 01:58 | When I turn it on and put it on
something like Overlay mode, you'll see that
|
| 02:04 | basically the layers are fighting each
other. She's lost some illumination.
|
| 02:08 | The really interesting things are happening
down here in the lower right, which was
|
| 02:12 | the most interesting area, the lighting layer.
|
| 02:14 | It's pulling my attention away from
her and putting it down in this corner.
|
| 02:19 | I can try other modes, such as again,
Color Dodge. It does add some illumination
|
| 02:23 | back but again I'm getting distracted
in to this area. I'm not supposed to be
|
| 02:29 | looking here. I'm supposed to be
looking here at this woman. So that's an idea
|
| 02:32 | of a clip that doesn't really work that well.
|
| 02:34 | Let's try something else. Here is a
really fun clip from the Dreamlight
|
| 02:39 | collection by Artbeats that has
streams of light coming down from the top of
|
| 02:43 | the frame. That has more potential
because this has a vertical orientation and
|
| 02:48 | my main footage has a vertical
orientation. My main footage is bright along the top,
|
| 02:52 | showing us where the light source
is. My lighting footage is coming from
|
| 02:56 | the top, showing me that's where the
light source is. Good combination.
|
| 03:00 | Just go ahead and pick my lighting layer.
|
| 03:03 | It's basically lights against a
black background, so let's go ahead and use
|
| 03:07 | something like Add mode. And now you
see we've added a lot of very bright,
|
| 03:11 | almost angelic lights to this scene.
And go ahead and pull the Opacity down to
|
| 03:16 | blend it in more subtly. Now I just
have a little bit of light play going on,
|
| 03:19 | little more atmospheric rather
than just the ordinary scene.
|
| 03:23 | Or again I can try something like
Color Dodge mode. Increase the effect.
|
| 03:28 | Now I've got some nice colored lights
playing across the scene, but I'm not
|
| 03:34 | distracting from the center focal point,
the businesswoman. That's what we're
|
| 03:39 | supposed to be looking at, not the
lights. So this is a lighting layer that
|
| 03:43 | does indeed enhance this piece of footage.
|
| 03:46 | Let's move from the human to
something fairly industrial, like gears.
|
| 03:51 | Let's play this one. Again, for an
industrial shot this is actually very well done.
|
| 03:56 | You got nice highlights in the front of
the gears, nice dark shadows behind the gears,
|
| 04:00 | you've done a nice job framing
this. But there's not a lot going on.
|
| 04:06 | Yes, the gears are moving and yes, the
gears have shadows, but I've got solid
|
| 04:10 | black areas in here and the gears have
very even lights across their faces and
|
| 04:15 | across the metal on the top and bottom.
|
| 04:17 | We can add some excitement to this layer.
So let's try a few different lighting
|
| 04:22 | layers. One idea might be
something like this. It's nice and soft and
|
| 04:26 | amorphous. Its color tone also is
roughly the same as the gears. So this is
|
| 04:31 | perhaps a good starting point. I'll
select it and try a few different modes.
|
| 04:36 | For example, Overlay is my
classic starting point. And now you see,
|
| 04:41 | particularly if you look through these
center gears, some lightness going into
|
| 04:44 | shadows as the clip goes on. Very subtle
effect but it's more interesting than just
|
| 04:49 | having the same lighting during
the entire course of the shot.
|
| 04:53 | Now this is a very bright layer. So
I might try something again up in the
|
| 04:56 | Multiply area, which darkens the
overall image, or something like Color Burn,
|
| 05:00 | which is a more exciting sort of a
treatment in this area. Now you see I'm
|
| 05:04 | going for a more saturated color. I've
got basically the same composition that I
|
| 05:08 | had before but I've got some animation
and the lights across top and bottom.
|
| 05:13 | I've got some subtle color shifts going
on here. This is a more interesting shot.
|
| 05:18 | If I find this to be too strong, I'll
just back off the Opacity and blend it
|
| 05:22 | in more lightly to taste so there's a
more subtle lighting effect compared to a
|
| 05:26 | full strength effect. Turn that off and
try something else. This background is
|
| 05:32 | much more strong. It has a much
stronger color, more saturated, more movement,
|
| 05:38 | it's a lot more obvious. So
let's see how this one works.
|
| 05:41 | I'll go ahead and try it in Overlay
mode and you'll see it's added a very rich
|
| 05:46 | color to this scene. Since, this is
basically in the red-orange realm just like
|
| 05:50 | the original underlying source was,
the colors work together pretty well.
|
| 05:54 | But I've got some animation going on.
There's some light playing across the top and
|
| 05:57 | bottom metals and across the gear faces
themselves. Again, if that's too much,
|
| 06:02 | I can try something like Soft Light
or I could try reducing the Opacity to
|
| 06:06 | reduce the effect. We'll also discuss altering
the color of your lighting clips in a later movie.
|
| 06:11 | Now I'll show again something that
does not work so well. This is a fun
|
| 06:17 | interesting background. It's got lot
of very interesting motion. It does have
|
| 06:21 | some peaches and oranges that kind
of work in the background. But it's
|
| 06:24 | predominantly blue and turquoise where
my underlying layer was predominantly
|
| 06:29 | kind of a rusty or watermelon red.
|
| 06:31 | When I try this layer in something like
Overlay mode, you see that the colors kind of fight.
|
| 06:36 | I've got this strange turquoise
mixed in against my red. I've got some
|
| 06:40 | blues and greens and purples playing
across the scene. This lighting layer does
|
| 06:45 | not work as well. But again if we
really like the motion, we just don't like
|
| 06:50 | the color, we can alter the
color of that lighting layer.
|
| 06:55 | Let's say that our footage actually
looks pretty darn good and we just want to
|
| 07:00 | add even more excitement and more
hype to it. Now here is a nicely composed
|
| 07:04 | shot of a person playing a trumpet.
Very strong diagonal composition to it,
|
| 07:10 | strong spectral highlights off of the
metal trumpet, fun lighting going on and
|
| 07:14 | shadows going on his hand, good shot
to begin with. But his face is pretty
|
| 07:20 | consistent here, the lighting going
against the tube of the trumpet is also pretty
|
| 07:24 | consistent. So let's try some lighting layers.
|
| 07:26 | Now this has a diagonal composition. So
for a lighting layer we may indeed want
|
| 07:31 | something that has a diagonal
composition as well. This is the layer
|
| 07:35 | we rejected on the businesswoman but
because of this composition it might work
|
| 07:39 | better with the trumpet
player. So let's give it a shot.
|
| 07:43 | I'll select it and put it in a mode
such as say Overlay to start with. Overlay
|
| 07:48 | tends to both darken and brighten
something. It's maybe added too strong of a
|
| 07:52 | shadow in this case. So instead I'll
pick something that basically lightens like
|
| 07:56 | Add, Screen, or Color Dodge modes. Now
it's going to add just more interesting
|
| 08:04 | color highlights on his jacket,
across his face and cheeks. Just add some
|
| 08:09 | coloration onto the tube of the
trumpet. But it is not too distracting.
|
| 08:13 | The lighting does not become a hero;
it just becomes an enhancement.
|
| 08:17 | Now we do have a case here where his
jacket's getting some interesting colors.
|
| 08:20 | His hands aren't really all that affected,
and that's because this layer is more
|
| 08:25 | interesting in the lower right than it
is in the upper left. Well, in that case
|
| 08:28 | we might want to rotate it to put the
most interesting part of our lighting on
|
| 08:32 | the most interesting
part of our underlying shot.
|
| 08:35 | So I'm going to select this layer, open
up its Inspector, rotate it 180 degrees
|
| 08:41 | so now that I have got my bright area
up in the upper left. And then go ahead
|
| 08:45 | and apply a mode such as Color Dodge.
Now you see that I got lighting and
|
| 08:51 | animation and color going on in his
hand, which is my focal point to start with,
|
| 08:55 | and I don't have any extra
light going on in his jacket and the other
|
| 08:59 | background out of focus parts of the
scene. My lighting is enhancing where I'm
|
| 09:03 | supposed to be looking at.
And that's the whole idea.
|
| 09:06 | Okay, let's try something else. Here is
that bright orange layer that we played
|
| 09:10 | with earlier, very intense. And the
colors in it might enhance the colors of
|
| 09:15 | the metal in the trumpet. It's not too
far from skin tone. So we select it and
|
| 09:19 | we'll pick a mode such as say Overlay.
|
| 09:22 | Now you see we've got a very intense,
very rich orange scene, we have got light
|
| 09:27 | playing across his shirt, light
playing a little bit across his cheeks and face.
|
| 09:30 | It's enhancing the mood
lighting of the shot. I mean this is just a
|
| 09:36 | trumpet player with a spotlight on him.
This is the trumpet player out of a
|
| 09:39 | really cool dream. And if it's too
strong, Soft Light is a less severe version
|
| 09:44 | of the mode. Or back off the Opacity to
vary just how strong our lighting effect is.
|
| 09:50 | Finally, I'll show one more well-lit
scene that we're going to try to enhance
|
| 09:54 | even further. Here's a woman working
out. A good job is already been done with
|
| 09:58 | the lighting. The background wall is
out of focus and indistinct, there is nice
|
| 10:02 | highlights, good lighting on her,
orange tone or filter on the whole scene.
|
| 10:07 | As we play through, it's a strong vertical
composition as we go from her head down to her feet.
|
| 10:13 | Basically a very good scene. Let's see
if we can enhance it any further with
|
| 10:18 | lighting. So again let's select some
different lighting layers. Here's a layer
|
| 10:23 | that has lots of fun lights chasing
around and basically has the same color
|
| 10:27 | range as our background.
|
| 10:29 | Now normally I might say that this
layer is on the very edge of what might work
|
| 10:33 | for lighting layer because it does
have a lot of motion in it, a lot of
|
| 10:36 | activity but so does our underlying
footage. So maybe the action in two will
|
| 10:40 | be a match. Again we'll pick something
like Overlay mode, see how this works.
|
| 10:46 | Now we have some very interesting
bright animated lights going on across the
|
| 10:50 | background. These are too strong and
again I'm really seeing the light pattern
|
| 10:53 | on her legs. I'll pick something like
Soft Light mode, which makes it less
|
| 10:57 | obvious. Or back off the Opacity. So
it's just Highlights and it comes across
|
| 11:03 | as specular and lens flares rather
than a strange layer being multiplied on
|
| 11:07 | top of original footage.
|
| 11:08 | This is nice now. This is a nice subtle
enhancement and just adds even more to
|
| 11:13 | this already interesting shot.
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| Collapse this transcript |
