How is this achieved?

F

freelanceposter

New member
Every time I watch one of these videos which have ink squirted into an aquarium I can never understand how the ink transitions from one color to the next to the next. Each section of the tank holds a specific color without bleeding together:

http://www.shutterstock.com/video/c...?src=search/maBqk7E7bXSv1-3HznXYqw:1:18/photo

Is it some sort of polarized film attached to the glass of the tank with another polarized filter on the lens, or is this achieved in PP?

Every time I think I have it figured out, I think, "nope...that's not it".

Does anybody know how this is achieved?
 
Well clearly it's not the ink footage being colored. You can see that there are just bands of color overlaying the image. As if it were a series of colored gel strips.
How they get the ink to show such a well saturated color is the trick, right?

Seems to me it's an adjustment layer. Some or all of the layers will have to be set to "transparent" or "overlay".
Exactly what steps to take - I don't know. What exactly have you tried so far?
 
DPStewart said:
Well clearly it's not the ink footage being colored. You can see that there are just bands of color overlaying the image. As if it were a series of colored gel strips.
How they get the ink to show such a well saturated color is the trick, right?

Seems to me it's an adjustment layer. Some or all of the layers will have to be set to "transparent" or "overlay".
Exactly what steps to take - I don't know. What exactly have you tried so far?
Click to expand...

I have not tried anything yet because I don't know how it is done. :(
 
OK...well, let's dive in to the shallow end first.

Google up tutorials on using "Overlay Mode" and "Adjustment Layers". Learning about both of these primary functions won't be too hard and they are really great basic tools so you'll come out way stronger in your abilities.

The basic idea is this: You add an "adjustment Layer" over the top of your image and use it to apply changes to what "shows through" it. Make sense?
That way you're not actually altering the original layer at all.

Overlay Mode: this is used in a ton of different ways but it can work in a similar manner to Adjustment Layers.
For example: If you have a video clip of an outdoor scene at night, and you also have a scene of fireworks against an all black sky, putting the fireworks over the other scene normally will totally obscure your outdoor scene underneath it - standard video layer function.
But if you set the fireworks video to "overlay" mode - the black will become transparent, and the brighter any part gets - the more you'll see it over your underlying layer, and BOOM, your fireworks will appear over your original scene.
So maybe a video of a rainbow gradient can be used and either it or the ink layer gets set to Overlay Mode" so the darker the area of video the more the rainbow color shows up.
In fact now that I think about it - The Rainbow layer underneath and the Ink layer on top set to Overlay Mode just might do something like this.


Now that we at least have some basics laid out for how this might be done maybe one of the SUPER AWESOME members here will help flush this out.


Ahem....hello? Super Awesome Members? Anyone?
 
Last edited:
DPStewart said:
OK...well, let's dive in to the shallow end first.

Google up tutorials on using "Overlay Mode" and "Adjustment Layers". Learning about both of these primary functions won't be too hard and they are really great basic tools so you'll come out way stronger in your abilities.

The basic idea is this: You add an "adjustment Layer" over the top of your image and use it to apply changes to what "shows through" it. Make sense?
That way you're not actually altering the original layer at all.

Overlay Mode: this is used in a ton of different ways but it can work in a similar manner to Adjustment Layers.
For example: If you have a video clip of an outdoor scene at night, and you also have a scene of fireworks against an all black sky, putting the fireworks over the other scene normally will totally obscure your outdoor scene underneath it - standard video layer function.
But if you set the fireworks video to "overlay" mode - the black will become transparent, and the brighter any part gets - the more you'll see it over your underlying layer, and BOOM, your fireworks will appear over your original scene.
So maybe a video of a rainbow gradient can be used and either it or the ink layer gets set to Overlay Mode" so the darker the area of video the more the rainbow color shows up.
In fact now that I think about it - The Rainbow layer underneath and the Ink layer on top set to Overlay Mode just might do something like this.


Now that we at least have some basics laid out for how this might be done maybe one of the SUPER AWESOME members here will help flush this out.


Ahem....hello? Super Awesome Members? Anyone?
Click to expand...

That does make sense the way that you have described it. I totally appreciate you jumping in on this and trying to help me.

I hope one of the super awesome members who have the skills will take a moment to run with this a little further.

I really want to learn how to do this. I will be watching and hoping somebody can help a little more.

(Thanks DPStewart......you rock!)
 
When I do stuff like this, I'll generally approach it along these lines:

Green screen (or board) behind the water tank;

Black ink (or dark red, and front light green, with green filter on camera… whatever gives the most contrast between black or green).

I'd also do a test with a white background and black ink.

In after effects, using channel tools, keylight, etc, I'd make the footage a solid white ink on a solid black BG with gray-values where needed. Very often, the "mask" is already in your efx footage - try just the blue channel, red channel, etc. Find the one with the most contrast and use levels or curves or tint to make a pure B&W frame.

Use that as a track matte and you can do whatever you want. The screen modes can work OK, but having plain B&W footage as a matte gives you absolute control, and usually you can have a pre-rendered clip for your mask in a matter of minutes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top