Overlays using jpg files

[chromeboy007]

Hi there,

My client has given me a couple of jpg files to be used as title overlays for the video I shot for him. When I slap them onto the upper track of my timeline they are not acting as overlays, they just cover my video footage. Before I go back to my client and possibly make a fool out of myself by asking him to give me real overlays, is there something I have to do on my end to make these jpgs work as overlays?

I'm used to using Motion to make my titles so this is new to me.

Thanks

 

[Cools]

JPEGs don't have an alpha channel so you need to do some extra work to turn them into overlays.

If the area in the image that needs to disappear to reveal the video track below is white or black then you can try the Multiply (if it's white) and Screen (if it's black) composite modes (in the Modify menu) on the image. If you have fine edges and soft transitions that might not work and leave ugly artifacts.

If the overlay is a basic shape, then you can try to matte it with one of the filters in Matte (4 or 8 point Garbage Matte and Mask Shape). You can then apply a Mask Feather to soften the edges. Alternatively, you can create a separate matte clip and use Travel Matte Luma or Alpha composite modes.

Finally, if the above doesn't give you good results or is impractical (too complicated of a shape, etc.), then your last resort is to go into Photoshop and use all the tools there to create an alpha channel for the overlay and save the image out in a format that supports alpha channels (like TIFF). Then bringing it back into FCP.

Other wise, you need to ask the client to send you back the image with an alpha channel (that masks out what area needs to be hidden) in a format that supports alpha channels.

Btw, I'm in Toronto as well.

 

[chromeboy007]

Awesome Cools thanks!

The composites modes was exactly what I was looking for. The background is white so I used Multiply.

Tdot rules!