A track matte whine
 

When we last visited YOS, I was looking for a better way to build soft vignettes. Dropping an oval mask/title shape onto a higher track, dropping the opacity of the matte by half, and using the Track Matte effect on the footage worked, but it had some undesired effects on the color.

Being the information ferret that I am, I nosed around and figured out since I only wanted the corners to be darker, I could slide the original footage and matte up a track each and duplicate the original footage in V1. To that footage, I apply the RGB Curves effect and drag down the master brightness. Great! The corners will have the look I want under the original footage using the matte.

Now we get to the part where PP loses it's mind. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

The footage is of the same type (HDV). The matte is the same for each clip. I can drag the matte to cover all of the clips and it will work... except for on one clip. Or, I can do the same thing and it will only work on the first one.

Details:
- HDV footage all
- Matte in V3, normal footage in V2 and darkened footage for vignette in V1

Anyone have any ideas before I go completely mental?

Tripp, this may not be the problem with your inconsistency of results, but I'm pretty sure that track mattes will only effect one layer in the stack. In previous versions of PP, it used to only effect the track right under the matte, but I believe they've added a pull-down for choosing the track.

Maybe you could try to to nest the sequence into a another master sequence with your track matte and see how the results look, since nesting will flatten your two video tracks into a single one that the track matte can apply its effects.

Are you using CS3 or CS4? As I mentioned in a previous post, CS4 now supports Photoshop blending modes... among a bunch of other major improvements.

HTH,
Brian

Yes, and you're right. There is a pull-down that will let you point to any video track in the timeline.

Nesting is a PITA, but if it solves the problem it's a brilliant idea. Never thought of it.

I'm also wondering if there's an issue with only using one matte for multiple clips. If that's the way it's designed, someone at Adobe has a head full of cabbage.

I'm still on CS3 and won't upgrade to CS4 until I have a chance to demo it. I cannot upend my main system with something that might not work for me until my confidence level in its suitability is elevated enough.