Digital Compositing for Film and Video, Third Edition

Abstract

This book is about hands-on digital compositing techniques in the quest for photo-realism in feature film and video digital effects. Of course, artistic training is an essential ingredient to achieving photo-realism, as it is in art class that you learn how things are supposed to look. But the other require-ment is mastery of your tools and the technology. Knowing what the picture should look like will do little good if you can’t bend the images to your vision. Reading the owner’s manual will teach you how to operate your compositing software, but it will not teach you how to pull a good matte from a badly lit bluescreen or what to do when banding erupts in a digital matte painting. It is the difference between the owner’s manual for a car and driving school. The first teaches you where the knobs are, and the second how to use them to actually get somewhere.