at it's heart is a color processor that uses a pixel's brightness as an index into a color table. this in itself is not much to write home about. the plug-in's magic lies in the following abilities:
- instead of assigning a fixed color for each brightness value, you can tell the plug-in to calculate a color dissolve between the two colors in the table
- you can dynamically change the number of colors in the table
- you can assign the colors in the table yourself
- you can set the ‘bandwidth’ of the color transition, which amounts to setting the photo paper’s sensitivity
we have provided twenty pre-sets that allow you to quickly set the plug to achieve some really cool color effects, including
- quicksilver (turns frame into something that looks like animated quicksilver)
- rainbow (andy warhol would be proud - psychedelic colors at their best)
- terminator (a rhapsody in black, white, and red)
- golden autumn (turns even the coldest clip into heart-warming colors)
and many more.
what should I use it for?
- special effects (quicksilver / mercury, gold)
- color theme
- surreal theme
- psychedelic theme
- hard contrast
- use only 2 to 6 colors / grays
- monochrome post-processing with direct control over the film’s sensitivity
features
active rect
this is the area that the effect will work on. everything outside this area will be unaffected. when live preview is switched on, you'll immediately see the result of the effect inside the rectangle.
to re-size, click and drag the rectangle's handles. to move it, click and drag inside the rectangle itself.
select all
pressing this button will select the whole clip's surface as the active area
dissolves
this checkbox controls how the effect will handle pixels that fall in-between two colors. if dissolves is turned off, the pixel will assume the color selected for the nearest brightness level. if dissolve is turned on, the plug will generate a color that lies between the two colors
band:
this slider works only with dissolves enabled. it sets the bandwidth of a color, and controls the band of values that are mapped to the same color. in real-world terms it amounts to setting the sensitivity of the photo paper.
color pop-up
this pop-up menu allows you to choose the number of active colors. you may choose any number from 2 to 6 colors. colors that are not active will appear empty in the configure dialog.
color box / eye dropper
to set a color, either click into the color box (this will bring up the color picker), or use the eye dropper to pick any color from the screen.
pre-set
this pop-up menu allows you to pick any of the twenty provided color effects.
movie slider, left, right
allows you to access the whole movie and pre-view the effect
live preview
when checked, the effect will be applied to the current frame.
all contents © 2003 -2004 by cf/x and christian franz
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