Logos: what program?

[Chris Westerstrom]

Hi,

I have a customer who wants his logo on the upper right part of the screen. He keeps sending me logos, which are oval shaped but are set in a square white background.

Does anyone here know what program and how to make the white clear so it can look better over the video footage?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Charlie Gillespie]

Photoshop would work

[Chris Westerstrom]

thanks, I appreciate the reply. Unfortunately, I don't have photoshop. Do you know of any mac programs that work or if any of the Final Cut Studio applications can do it?

Also, what is it called when you make a backdrop clear?


thanks

[David Tamés]

If the client can send you the logo so the background is a unique color that does not appear in the logo itself, then you can set that color as the "transparency" color and superimpose the logo over the video, no Photoshop required.

[Edward Carlson]

I assume the original logo doesn't have the white square. The problem probably is that he is sending it to you as a JPG file, which doesn't support transparency. PNG, GIF, and PSD do, and they can be imported directly into FCP while retaining the transparency.

[Tim Dashwood]

If it is an oval shape the simplest immediate solution is to apply a "Mask Shape" (from the Matte subfolder of effects) and select "oval" in the filter settings. Then just adjust the horizontal and vertical scale to create your oval cutout. If necessary you can then soften the edge with a "Mask Feather."

Originally Posted by Chris Westerstrom

Also, what is it called when you make a backdrop clear?

Alpha channel aka matte or mask.

[Chris Westerstrom]

thanks for the help everyone!

The files sent to me were .tif and .pdf versions.

I went ahead and used the quick fix that Mr. Dashwood recommended for me. It worked good enough for this project but the other tips were well appreciated for future reference!

One thing I notice, however, is the scanlines on the text (impact). Is it just to de-interlace in this scenario?

Thanks

[Stephen David Smith]

I believe .tif might have an alpha channel...aside from Tim's suggestion you could use the luma key

[Don Ward]

"gimp" is a free program downloadable that is very similar to photoshop. I have it on my PC but haven't tried it on the Mac since I have photoshop on it already.

Works great for quickly dropping out backgrounds, resizing. It recognizes and creates photoshop files as well.

[David Scattergood]

Originally Posted by Don Ward

"gimp" is a free program downloadable that is very similar to photoshop. I have it on my PC but haven't tried it on the Mac since I have photoshop on it already.

Works great for quickly dropping out backgrounds, resizing. It recognizes and creates photoshop files as well.

Aye - I use 'gimpshop' which I guess is Gimp with a more photoshop front end. Cracking little free program, although I really should invest in the mighty photoshop.
Give gimpshop a whirl - it works fine on the mac.

[Noah Kadner]

totally time to invest- you cannot really do serious DVDSP authoring without photoshop.

Noah

[David Knaggs]

Originally Posted by David Scattergood

Aye - I use 'gimpshop' which I guess is Gimp with a more photoshop front end. Cracking little free program, although I really should invest in the mighty photoshop.
Give gimpshop a whirl - it works fine on the mac.

I'm just wrapping up a corporate video today where the client provided a number of images which he made using "Gimp". Very impressive. Further down the line I'd like to pick up the Adobe Creative Suite, but short-term I might check out GIMPshop. Thanks for the info, David.