Photoshop CS3 and PPro2 - Comic Effect

[Marco Wagner]

I found a really killer workflow for creating a comic sort of effect for footage.

Workflow:

Export to Filmstrip format
Import into Photoshop
Apply charcoal filter (or other filter) to the strip, adjust, save
Re-import back into Premiere
Lay that clip on the line above the original and play with the opacity.

As you can see, a neat effect. What do you think? I dare say Scanner Darkly but I was messing with this style about 5 years ago on a much slower and more tedious scale. The cool thing is some things render and others don't, like my shirt is almost totally unrendered but my jeans are all sketched.

Here is a grab.

[Jim Gunn]

That look neat. I am gonna take some of my footage and try it out for a short sequence. I only have PS CS2 though and Premiere Pro CS3.

[Dearl Golden]

What is "Filmstrip Format" and how does one export it?

[Dearl Golden]

Ummmmm....Never mind...I found it. (I normally look first and, if necessary, ask questions later, but I was in a bit of a hurry this morning)

[Emre Safak]

Sounds way too time-consuming to me. I would rather use a Virtualdub plug-in like this. RevisionFX has a nice one too.

[Marco Wagner]

Originally Posted by Emre Safak

Sounds way too time-consuming to me. I would rather use a Virtualdub plug-in like this. RevisionFX has a nice one too.

MSU Video Group software is granted free of charge for non-commercial use.
However you must obtain a license from the authors to use it for commercial
purposes or usage in commercial companies.


So if I make a commercial production using this software I have to pay? If so the time to do it myself is more worth it.

$89 for the other, not too bad.

[Jeff Mahar]

That is pretty cool. Thanks for sharing

[Pete Bauer]

Excellent, Marco. The LiveTrace function in Adobe Illustrator can also do some stuff like that for those who have that software.

[Ben Winter]

On my website in my signature, the music video "Explanations" was done with a similar method to this. (Quicktime)

Here it is in flash: www.frozenphoenixproductions.com/mftm.htm

The idea is to rotoscope necessary areas of the image to export to Photoshop where it can batch process the image sequence in TIFF format and reintroduce them into AE where they are put back to merge with the original footage.

Towards the end of the music video, the entire piece becomes batch-processed TIFF's in an image sequence. The effect is subtle but noticable at this compression, yet near-invisible on Youtube. It is a combination of fresco and cutout effects.

We did tests with filmstrips and found that while it's nice for the entire clip to be one file, it's easier to corrupt, harder for Photoshop to work with (because of the huge file size) and with TIFF sequences, if the conversion process halts for whatever reason, you can simply pick back up on the last-converted file.

I would recommend batch-converted image sequences over filmstrip .flm files, they are becoming outdated.

Also it is nice to have the option of using third-party Photoshop plugins with your footage. Some very neat effects can be achieved when layered overtop one another.

[Marco Wagner]

Very nice, THANKS!!! I'll give that a try too.

[Ray Bell]

Ben, Thats some nice footage on the music vid... can you tell us more about the workflow of getting the footage into Photoshop and what steps are used to batch process and then back out again to AE...

thanks

[Ben Winter]

Originally Posted by Ray Bell

Ben, Thats some nice footage on the music vid... can you tell us more about the workflow of getting the footage into Photoshop and what steps are used to batch process and then back out again to AE...

thanks

Sure Ray.
For the clips that needed the effect, I exported each individually to separate folders from Premiere as TIFF image sequences.

In Photoshop, I found the effect(s) I wanted to apply, and recorded an Action in the Action palette. Then under the file menu, is Automate--> Batch... which allows you to set the folder from which you want Photoshop to open files, and the action you want it to perform on each file. I selected each clip folder individually, and the action I wanted performed, and set it to save each to a new folder within that clip folder.

Now that I had a new folder with new, rendered TIFF files, I opened them in AE by selecting the first TIFF in the sequence and checking the "Image Sequence" box. AE then lists the TIFF images as one individual clip in the Bin. I then edited them as necessary overtop the original TIFF image sequence, and then exported the finished clip as an uncompressed AVI which I edited in Premiere with existing footage.

[John Hewat]

Sorry to come into this converstion 6 months late, but how do I export a clip from PPro CS3 as a TIFF sequence or whatever I need to get it into PhotoShop to manipulate it?

[Emre Safak]

You don't even need to do that, because Photoshop recognizes video through Quicktime, so anything compatible with that should be fine.

[Ray Bell]

Originally Posted by John Hewat

Sorry to come into this converstion 6 months late, but how do I export a clip from PPro CS3 as a TIFF sequence or whatever I need to get it into PhotoShop to manipulate it?

try this... from the help file... :-)

You can export a clip or sequence, as a sequence of still images, with each frame as a separate still image file. This can be useful to move a clip to animation and three dimensional applications that do not import video file formats, or for use in animation programs that require a still image sequence. For example, you could export a series of still images from Adobe Premiere Pro, import them into Adobe Illustrator to use its LiveTrace feature, and then bring the altered sequence back into Adobe Premiere Pro for further editing. When you export a still‑image sequence, Adobe Premiere Pro numbers the still-image files automatically.

Choose File > Export > Movie.
Click Settings.
For File Type, choose a still‑image sequence format (Windows Bitmap, GIF, Targa, or TIFF).
If you choose a movie format or Animated GIF, all the frames will be in one file.

Choose the frames to export from the Range menu.
Click Video, and specify options.
Click Keyframe And Rendering, specify options, and then click OK.
Specify a location to which you want to export all of the still‑image files.
It’s usually best to specify an empty folder so that the sequence files don’t become mixed with other files.

To set the sequence numbering, type a numbered filename.
To specify the number of digits in the filename, determine how many digits are required to number the frames, and then add any additional zeroes you want. For example, if you want to export 20 frames and you want the filename to have five digits, type Car000 for the first filename (the remaining files are automatically named Car00001, Car00002,...Car00020).

Click OK to export the still‑image sequence.