Rotoscoping.

V

vousetestouscons

Carbonite Member
I use Premiere CS3 (and Cineform codec) and want to do some rotoscoping. Can I use Premiere Elements to do it? Is there a way to import the video sequence directly into Photoshop Elements and work on it Frame by Frame?
 
Difficult to impossible to do in Premiere or Elements unless maybe you are working with straight lines (garbage mattes)

After Effects is what you need. (Especially CS5.5 with Auto Roto brush function.
 
He means that Auto Rotoscope functions were introduced in AEFX CS5 and not as I mislead you ( CS5.5)
 
Rotoscoping in Photoshop would be a long and tedious process. I think you should follow everyone's advice and use AE for rotoscoping. I've used that and Mocha when I had rotoscoping projects and it worked well. I would only use Photoshop if you were just cutting out a subject in one frame.
 
Yes.

Its you that has to do the job in the app.

It wont do it for you where as CS5 automates it a lot more.
 
Excuse me for asking the silly questions, but insofat as After Effects CS3 does not automate, what's the difference between doing in on After Effects CS3 and Photoshop?
 
In After Effects, it's easier to make adjustments to moving parts and you can use the motion tracker to attach solids and such. Using the animation panel in Photoshop can be frustrating if you've only used it a few times. If you want you can look up Pete O'Connell. He did a DVD about rotoscoping in After Effects CS3 using the motion tracker and multiple solids. Rotoscoping is not an easy process no matter what program you use. It takes a lot of time and effort to do it. Also, rotoscoping will produce good results if you put in the time but it will never be perfect because there will always be some small detail that you couldn't extract. Just out of curiosity, why do you want to do rotoscoping? I think anyone myself and anyone who has answered this question would like to know so that we can assist you better.
 
Shooter said:
He means that Auto Rotoscope functions were introduced in AEFX CS5 and not as I mislead you ( CS5.5)
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I'm so glad I saw this thread. I had been under the same impression... it came out in 5.5, and not 5.0, and I'm only on 5.0. I'm trying to rotoscope out some cabinet handles popping out of a talking head (client's marketing/PR person was okay with it at the time when I shot it). I just did in an hour what I had previously done in 10, and it looks a gazillion times better. :shocked:

Vousetestouscons... if you have the money, just upgrade to 5.5. Really, you'll be saving a lot of time and energy (and if this is a paying project, that means more money in your pocket).
 
I'm in the middle of the project. It is not a good idea to upgrade in the middle of a project. To use CS5 I would have to also upgrade to Win 7. That would mean too much hassle not to mention the cost of purchasing After Effects and learning it.
 
That is true but if you are going to survive in the video editing world, After Effects is a must know. Most of the freelance jobs I get I end up using After Effects for the simple and complex. You could purchase or even rent it for a few months after you're done with your project. All we are saying is that trying to rotoscope with Premiere or Photoshop Elements is twice as tedious than using After Effects. The amount of keyframes and mattes that would need to be created would drive anyone nuts. Also, After Effects has some of the best online communities on the web with people providing either tutorials or breakdowns of creating certain effects. And if young kids as old as 9 can learn it then it shouldn't be a problem for you. With most computers going 64 bit you will eventually have no choice but to upgrade to a 64 bit OS if you want to survive.
 
Two things...CS5 comes with Premiere and AE CS4 for people still using 32bit...and, there's a 64bit version of XP if you really want to stick with it.

Actually one more thing...Windows 7 is way better than XP. ;)



Oh, and the difference between rotoscoping in Photoshop and After Effects: In Photoshop you're basically drawing a mask for each frame individually. In After Effects you're drawing a vector mask for the first frame, and then you can jump to key moments of the video and set keyframes, and then go to the inbetween points and refine the automatic keyframes that After Effects sets. Huge time saver. You'll also want to use multiple masks for different parts of what you're rotoscoping...so if it's a person, you'd have a mask for an arm, a mask for a hand, a mask for the torso, ect. This way you can mostly just move,scale and rotate your masks and only tweak points for fine tuning. Huge huge time saver.
 
mmka1985 said:
Yes!!! CS5.5 is even more stable
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The only wyrdness I've had with cs5 AE is every time I exit from the program it generates an error and gives a bad exit message. I've been ignoring it but on of these days I'll reinstall the world, delete all preferences(*) and see if that fixes it.

*on FCP it was always the recommended operation for all FCP eyed eases. Delete preferences and all would be well.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
The only wyrdness I've had with cs5 AE is every time I exit from the program it generates an error and gives a bad exit message. I've been ignoring it but on of these days I'll reinstall the world, delete all preferences(*) and see if that fixes it. *on FCP it was always the recommended operation for all FCP eyed eases. Delete preferences and all would be well.
Click to expand...
I get that sometimes and I trashed preferences for CS5 a few times. CS5.5 is more cooperative. Before we get use to it CS6 will come out and some of us will have 4-5 version of Adobe apps. The original poster of this thread just needs to know that the new Adobe apps have become much more efficient and the technique he wants to perform has been addressed by a lot ppl using either CS5 or later.
 
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