Beauty Retouching in DaVinci Resolve Fusion

Would it be possible to use a clean slate, a shot of the background without the model, and use some form of subtract blending mode to extract the background faster and more exact, or will film noise make this hard?

Not fluent enough in Fusion yet to understand what nodes to use to try this myself. 😳  

1 hour ago, Tomas Pettersson said:

Would it be possible to use a clean slate, a shot of the background without the model, and use some form of subtract blending mode to extract the background faster and more exact, or will film noise make this hard?

Not fluent enough in Fusion yet to understand what nodes to use to try this myself. 😳  

You can try using the Clean Plate tool to generate a clean plate with the averaged background color and then use it with the Delta Keyer to key the background. Alternatively, the Difference Keyer is will create a key after comparing a clean plate and the footage with the model. Noise always makes difference keying more difficult. Using the Subtract blending mode may remove too much background color from the foreground to make it viable.

Is this course complete?  Or are them more lessons to come?

Thanks
K

5 hours ago, karl ellison said:

Is this course complete?  Or are them more lessons to come?

 

Thanks
K

Hi Karl, the course is complete but we might add some new lessons later.

Thanks. Learnt lots.  Appreciated.

k

hi Lee, 

Hope you're well. Thanks again for your work. 

Following these various courses, I'm now trying to emulate a Dodge And Burn Technique used in Photoshop for some beauty enhancements 

(I work as a photo retoucher that's why I'm trying these techniques. But you may consider that's not a relevant choice for video stuff. Don't hesitate to correct me if you think I'm looking in the wrong direction 😉

As you may know, in Photoshop, DB is easily achieve with a neutral grey layer set in SOFTLIGHT (that's an important point, as you may see below) blending mode, on which you can paint in white zones you want to lighten, and black where you want to darken. Same results can be achieved with to curves layer, one for dodging, one for burning, but we usually find it faster to use the neutral grey layer (you only have to switch for white to black when working...).

Let's go back to Fusion now. I can easily create a grey layer and paint it as I wish, and planar transform it to fit my source. I can also load a neutral grey layer created it PSP and planar transform it. I can then merge this on top of my background which might give the expected result.

My problem there is about SoftLight blending mode in my merge node. 
Actually, Fusion doesn't seem to use the same maths than PSP for SoftLight : In PSP, a neutral grey layer set to softlight doesn't affect the pixels' luminance. Only the painted zones are affected. 
In Fusion the same softlight neutral grey layer affect the whole image luminance. Overlay Blending seems more consistent with PSP blending modes, but also has stronger effects and need to be seriously reduced...

Do you have any hints about this particular issue, or maybe about the maths used in Fusion blend modes ? 

I may also have another question about creating animated matte in Fusion and using them as external mattes in Resolve color page. On a few tests I successfully created planar transformed masks for some very interesting results, except that I encountered a tilt shift on the 10-15 first frames of my external, that doesn't occur in Fusion... But I need to run some more tests cause it might be an export settings issue...

Thanks a lot for your help if you can, 

best

Julien

ps : as mentionned previously I work with Fusion Studio standalone, definitely more stable than Resolve... And I can share my various comp attempts if needed

51 minutes ago, Julien Souloumiac said:

My problem there is about SoftLight blending mode in my merge node. 
Actually, Fusion doesn't seem to use the same maths than PSP for SoftLight : In PSP, a neutral grey layer set to softlight doesn't affect the pixels' luminance. Only the painted zones are affected. 
In Fusion the same softlight neutral grey layer affect the whole image luminance. Overlay Blending seems more consistent with PSP blending modes, but also has stronger effects and need to be seriously reduced...

Do you have any hints about this particular issue, or maybe about the maths used in Fusion blend modes ? 

I haven't compared Photoshop blending modes directly to Fusion apply modes, but here is information on the math used:

Fusion:

http://www.designimage.co.uk/merge-tool-maths/

Photoshop:

http://www.deepskycolors.com/archive/2010/04/21/formulas-for-Photoshop-blending-modes.html
https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference_archive/blend_modes.pdf

If you want to upload an example project, i can take a look when I get some time.
 

hi Lee, 

thanks a lot for your answer and for these documents. I'm gonna have a look at these and send you a clean comp. 

By the way, do you think this can be a relevant approach for Dordge and Burn work ? 

Thanks a lot 

Julien

55 minutes ago, Julien Souloumiac said:

thanks a lot for your answer and for these documents. I'm gonna have a look at these and send you a clean comp. 

By the way, do you think this can be a relevant approach for Dodge and Burn work ? 

 

I'm sure there's a way to emulate more standard dodge and burn techniques - the question is: is it efficient and worth the time to set it up? I come from a VFX background, so I tend to think in terms of VFX solutions.

Hi Lee and thanks a lot for your answers. 

Actually that's exactly my point of view : I'm also quite sure it's possible, but not sure that's the most efficient way to deal with animated source. We have so many VFX and Color tools that this technique might be totally irrelevant or inefficient.

Coming from a photo retouching background, I still find it interesting to investigate. My partner (who doesn't have any video background, if I do...) fantasizes an animated DB layer, so... As I can afford some time running tests about this, I find it an interesting way to improve my knowledge of Fusion and take advantage of all your lessons ;-). Even if at the end I may consider that's not an efficient workflow.

Nevertheless, I don't want to bother you with irrelevant questions about possible irrelevant techniques, I really appreciate your help and background about this, that's a great help !

(and if I can suggest, this might be a very interesting insight/lesson about your in-depth experience of a professional workflow involving different professionals in a production point of view)

Meanwhile I checked the various links you shared about PSP and Fusion Maths, and it's quite difficult to conclude about them. Different sources suggest different formulas, so... As far as I understand, Overlay maths seem the same, Softlight is unclear. 

I will take some time to run more tests and send you a clean comp, 

Once again thanks a lot for your help and great work !

Best

Julien