Question about Adobe Premiere (masking related)
 

I am considering purchasing the program, if and ONLY IF

1. it allows me to properly mask moving parts of a clip from the background.

2. Is it possible to load the masked section into virtualdub, do the necessary filtering, save it and add it back to the background?

Has anyone ever used these two programs for restoration? If so, please advise.

Thanks

"Mask" has several definitions and applications.
Do you mean like this: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...rian-lips.html

Suppose I'd like to use one filter on the background of a clip, and a different one on the moving image (to avoid ghosting). I'd like to block the background, only allowing the moving image to be worked on. Load it in Virtualdub, apply the filter, save it. Then block the moving image, load it in virtualdub, apply the necessary filter, save it and so on.

By 'masking', I mean preventing the specific filter that I may be using on one item on the clip to not touch the one I"m 'masking'. Am I using the correct reference/term?

Is this possible with Premiere?

It won't work exactly like that, but the same end effect can be reached.

If I were doing this, I'd apply the filter to the entire video twice -- once for a background layer, once for a cut-out layer. I'd then do motion tracked cutouts on a foreground layer, which would have also been previous filtered as a single clip. Feather the layer, as needed. The more precise the masking, the less feathering required.

As is the case with Photoshop, there's multiple workflows to achieve the same goal in Premiere. I tend to pick the method I'm most familiar with. Sometimes I don't even know what the alternate methods might be. Conversations with fellow editors often go down like this:

• Me: Have you tried to do X before?
• Them: Sure, I do A to get X.
• Me: Oh hey, I never thought of A. I generally do B.
• Them: Oh, I never considered B! That would get X, wouldn't it?

I rarely come across fellow editors that know both A and B, or even C and D methods. Same for Photoshop, not just Premiere.
This also applies to Final Cut Pro, which I use quite a bit.

Taken without context, to "mask" means to hide something. But as I mentioned, there's several ways to actually apply the "masking" definition when editing video. Your example here is close to the type of masking used by Photoshop. You get a paint brush, draw a mask, and then anything not masked (or masked, if you choose) is subjected to whatever filters are run on it.

With Premiere, it's not much different. You'd be going frame by frame, and painting a mask. There's also some semi-automated "motion tracking" options available, which helps to alleviate the frame-by-frame approach. Tracking lets you work with several frames at a time, instead.

It's not easy. It's not automated.

I've done it. I hate it. I avoid it. Stuff like this is why I generally avoid referring to myself as a "video editor" because it would attract projects like these. While I do quite a bit of editing, it's more for presentation aspects (intros, DVD menus, Blu-ray menus, disc firstplays, etc). This kind of advanced video editing work pays more, but it's not what I want do -- mostly due to stress of impatient clients that fail to comprehend the difficulty level involved.

You'll also find that Adobe Premiere can be bested by Adobe After Effects or Nuke, as this is starting to enter the land of effects, and not mere editing. Yes, applying filters on multiple layers might seem like mere editing, but the processes used to achieve it are very much effects based.

Does that help answer your question? :)

____

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Yes, it definitely answers it. One more thing:

Can I just accomplish this with Premiere without obtaining After Effects?

Yes. :thumb:

Some things are just easier to do in After Effects, because that's the sort of work it was designed for. As the years have gone on, Premiere has added a lot of functionality previously only available in AE or Photoshop, as well as other tools (including non-Adobe software). I remember when the only export options were for uncompressed AVI. That was only 10 years ago. Adobe's buyout of Macromedia, combined with their use of the MainConcept SDK, has given us an incredible video tool. CS3 was really nice, CS4 was better yet, and CS5 is awesome. I mostly use CS4, because that's what's installed (what I have licensed on most editing systems). Also a lot of Final Cut Pro use, on some Mac workflows.