Stencil Alpha Blend mode question

Hello guys,
I would like to achieve this: video clip embeded on BLOCKS LEFT DOWN REPLICATOR with another video as a background. So I first apply Replicator, than place the "embeded" video clip into the layer below it. Then I select Replicator to make it active, go to it's properties in Inspector and apply Blend Mode-Stencil Alpha. Up to this point everything works fine. Video plays embeded beautifully on blocks as I want. So I place my background video into another layer below. Here is where the problem starts. My background can't be seen, because it's covered by black areas between blocks. Could you please tell me what I do wrong? How can I make that black area between blocks transparent so anything behind the blocks could be seen?
Thank you so much for any tip or advise,
Cheers,
K.

Don't use Stencil.
Click on your foreground video. Type ⌘-Shift-M to add a mask layer. Drag your blocks replicator into the mask well.
post back,
Patrick

Similar Messages

Alpha, blending modes and compositions

Hello, I am an animator and have a problem with blending modes in a composition. Hopefully someone can help me.
I use After Effects CS5 on Mac OS.
Please take a look at this screenshot:
I have several layers in a composition (trees and shadows). The trees are set to normal and the shadows are set to multiply. Outside of this composition there are other elements on layers.
The problem is that I get this edge between shadows and trees where the multiply does not apply. I need it to be applyed to the "outside" layer too.
Trying to look my problem up on the internet I found out that the blending mode "alpha add" could solve my problem but I need multiply and alpha add, if that makes sense.
Can I somehow get rid of this edge?

Multiply is being applied to all pixels, it's just that the pixels around the edge are not the same color. You can use Matte tools to refine or choke the edges. (Effect>Matte>Matte Choker) If you very carefully look at the pixel values on the edges of your illustration while viewing the info palette you'll see that you have some semi transparent pixels on the edges. That is where you problem comes from. Alpha add will help in matching antialiased edges but it will not help in your situation.

Changing blend mode changes behavior

I'm trying to have words grow from very small to "swallow up" the screen—all while using them as stencils through which we see water. With me so far? Anyway, the motion is perfect when the blend mode is on normal, but when I simply change the blend mode to Stencil Alpha, at a certain point, it starts moving sharply to the right. All I've done is change blending modes, honest.
Who knows what the h-e-double hockey sticks this is, and, how to fix it? This is maddening.

Heya,
This is just a guess, as I haven't seen your project, but I think the text is sliding because it is too large for your GPU, so it's getting cropped and recentered.
Why is it happening when you change the blend mode? Good question. I think it's because picking any blend mode but 'Normal' is causing a pre-comp, and since your GPU's size limit is being exceeded, it's cropping (and recentering) the result. Or maybe it's a bug.
Here's a workaround to try: nest the text in its own layer, enable Fixed Resolution for the layer (found in the Layer tab in the Inspector, when the layer is selected), and then change the blend mode of the layer to whatever you want.
Seriously, though, you really should be using (as Patrick suggested) the Image Mask tool, instead of the Stencil Alpha blend mode. Free yourself from the AE-style blend mode tyranny! Vive la image mask!
(good luck)

Blend mode in Particle Generator

A blend mode i set for a particle generator seems to effect the partiles as a whole, but not individualy. I am using Darken for example. The particles darken the background, but not each other. Is there a way to make them darken each other?

Blend modes do not work between particles...with the excpetion of the "Additive Blend" option provided in the particle cell inspector... that's unfortunate.
You can achieve good "separation" by applying a drop shadow to the Particle Source.
You cannot get a true Darken effect, but I'm going to outline a cheat to get some interesting effects (this assumes your particle source is a shape, white in color -- colorization is controlled by the Particle Cell color controls.)
[For a quasi-darken effect, use Color Over Live, with a darker color on the left grading to a lighter color to the right. You will want to start with Additive Blend turned off -- you can turn it on afterwards to see if you like the effect.]
With the Particle source selected, in Properties, turn on the Drop Shadow (you will want to experiment with the color -- depending on the mode you choose.) Soft Light, Color Burn, Color Dodge, Hard Light, Hard Mix (sometimes) and possibly the Stencil/Silhouette group will create some interesting different effects. [Remember to experiment with drop shadow color.]
You can adjust transparency with the Particle source (Properties) Blending Transparency, the Fill Opacity (shape tab) or use the Opacity control in the Particle Cell color control.
Since we're cheating here, watch out for a specific effect "sticking" (usually you can snap out of it by sliding one of the gradient sliders in the particle cell color control.)
These settings created a sort of lozenge looking shape -- color gradient on cell is a medium dark orange to a medium light orange. Drop Shadow is a green and the blend mode set to Soft Light.
Below (same frame as above) is a white drop shadow with Silhouette Alpha blend mode...
HTH
happy hunting!

Blend mode - removing halo around edge of alpha??

This is a complicated question so I'm hoping there are some real Pros here.
I have a final image of my image to which I want to apply an alpha as a mask of an adjustment layer.
The image and the alpha have come out of 3ds Max. The problem is that there is a halo around the edge of the mask. This is caused due to transparency at the border of the alpha. I don't know how to get around this.
I was told that there may be a way to do it by dividing the alpha. I see that Photoshop CS5 has a divide blend mode. I don't have CS5. Does anyone know if this solves this issue? Or any other solutions
I've attached the render passes that I'm working with and below is an image of the problem once the alpha is applied and the hue/saturation is altered.
http://www.fileswap.com/dl/LQmX9s/Passes.zip.html
http://s919.photobucket.com/albums/ad34/elaihphotography/?action=view&current=Example-Clos eupObjectIDHalo.jpg

Thanks MTSTUNER,
That's a very interesting approach and something I hadn't considered before. I'm getting slightly different results in the look though. Is there a way to fix the alpha and mask a straight Hue/Saturation layer instead? Do you know if the divide blend mode in CS5 would help?

Alpha only CGContext does not work blend mode

Hi,
I have a Alpha Only CGContext created with
col = 100;
row = 100;
maskBuffer = malloc(100 * 100);
memset(maskBuffer, 255, 100 * 100);
memset(maskBuffer, 0, 100 * 50);
maskContext = CGBitmapContextCreate (maskBuffer, col, row, 8, col, NULL, kCGImageAlphaOnly);
As you can see, the top half is transparent. Then I want to inverse it, make the bottom half transparent. I did
CGContextSetBlendMode(maskContext, kCGBlendModeSourceOut);
CGContextSetFillColorWithColor(maskContext,[UIColor whiteColor].CGColor);
CGRect rect = CGRectMake(0, 0, 100, 100);
CGContextFillRect(maskContext, rect);
I found that the whole context was set transparent. The blend mode kCGBlendModeSourceOut does not seem to work here. Anyone has the same experience?
Thanks,
ff

Seems to me that you need to set the display width to be wide enough for all possible meanings in the LOV, rather than wide enough for the field itself. But I may have misunderstood the question. or misremembered the answer - it has been a while.

Question about using blending modes when cloning

Hi I want to clone on a blank layer above the background layer. I have the tool set to curent and below and the blank layer is set to normal blending mode. I want the cloning to be in darken blending mode. I change the blending mode of the clone stamp tool to darken. Will that work on a blank layer that is set to normal or is it necessary to also change the blending mode for the blank layer to darken as well? Thanks for your help.

Well thanks. It's not just a portion of the image that I want to clone on using different blend modes, but the entire image. I didn't want to duplicate the background to clone on as it adds a lot in size to the image and its harder to edit out incase I make a mistake. Guess I will have to have two layers, one set to lighten and one to darken. I wish that Adobe would make photoshop work in the next version so that you could just change the blending mode of the clone stamp tool in the tool bar. Wasn't it like this in versions before CS5?
So I have another question for you. Can I use the healing brush on lighten and darken blending modes on a blank layer set to normal with sample current and below selected? Or do I have to switch between two separate layers, one set to lighten, one set to darken?
Thanks again.

Question about blend modes

I have a video clip of a guy in front of a white screen (originally it was a green screen but I replaced the background with a white wall). I want to add a graphic behind him and I am not sure which blend mode to use. The graphic is also based on a white background. Would it be easier if I just had an alpha channel? Can you even export a video clip out of FCP with an alpha channel?

But if you're keying in FCP, why not create the Motion project with the proper aspect ratio, or adjust it once you bring it into FCP?
You're not gonna get there with blend modes...
Patrick

Question about stacked objects using blend modes

Say there are three stacked objects. The two topmost have a blend mode.
In the area where all 3 intersect, the bottom object interacts with the transparency. Is there a way to limit how many levels the transparency affects? If you could limit it to two levels, then in the area where all three intersect the bottom object wouldn't participate in the blending. But in the areas where it overlaps only one of the topmost objects, it would participate.
I know this can be achieved by creating another object, or using the Pathfinder, I'd just like to know if there is a simpler method to use.

The attached PDF explains this better. Page 1 - the yellow and magenta are multiplied on top. But the cyan in not participating in the area where all 3 overlap. But in the areas with only 2 levels, it does participate, so there are the green and blue overlaps.
Since the cyan is negated from the one area, the result is red – yellow and magenta multiplying
The problem is, the only way to get this is to punch a hole in the cyan. So when you move the yellow and magenta around, the red doesn't follow (see page 2)
It would be nice if the blend modes included some sort of level limit. Default would be unlimited, but you could change it to 2 or whatever number you want. In this case if the level was 2, no hole in the cyan would be required.
As far as I know Adobe has not added to transparency capabilities for a long time. You have the 16 bend modes, and opacities. And knock out group and isolate blending, which are good features. But maybe it's time to expand on this and add more points of control.

Blending Modes ("vivid light") in After Effects?

I discovered that in After Effects CS6 (Win7) some blending modes seem to not work as expected.
I have a bitmap with transparencies above another bitmap and want to blend it with "vivid light" - but the result is the same as if i had no blending mode selected at all. The same is for "hard light", "linear light" or "hard mix".
Other blending modes like "multiply", "soft light" and "overlay" work just fine.
Does anyone have an idea what is wrong with my After Effects?

I'm sorry for not being as specific as requested in the faq. I thought it might be more helpful to reduce the problem description to the most relevant facts first, and see if it can be solved in a simple way.
My former experiences with providing all existing information in the first post is usually met with no answers at all, because people think: WOAH! Too much information. ;-)
Okay, I designed my video design in Photoshop CS6 first. This is how the design was supposed to look like - as it was composed in Photoshop.
There are two layers:
1. a pattern of semi-transparent patches on top and
2. a blue gradient background
the pattern (1) is composited with blending mode "vivid light" on the background (2).
After I exported both layers as pngs (24bit alpha) and imported them in After Effects and used the same settings as in photoshop, I got the following:
As you can see, I used "vivid light" as blending mode, but it looks exactly as if blending mode "normal" was used.
The render quality is set to final quality.
The same happens with blending modes "hard light", "linear light" or "hard mix" (i guess, you don't need screenshots, because they all look the same)
But other blending modes like "multiply", "soft light" and "overlay" work fine (in this case I used "overlay"):
So, the problem is: Why do some blending modes not work, while others work?
BTW: I also tried to import the PSD directly into After Effects with all layers retained, in case something was wrong with the pngs, that I exported - but the imported PSD produced exactly the same error. So, no difference there.
Now for all the questions from the faq. - i think most of them will not help to identify the issue, but i will try and answer all of them:
What version of After Effects? Include the minor version number (e.g., After Effects CS5.5 with the 10.5.1 update).
CS6 (11.0.2)
Have you installed the recent updates? (If not, you should. They fix a lot of problems.)
yes, I have
What operating system? This should include specific minor version numbers, like "Mac OSX v10.6.8"---not just "Mac".
Windows 7, 64bit latest version, all updates installed
What kind(s) of source footage? When telling about your source footage, tell us about the codecs, not just the container types. For example, "H.264 in a .mov container", not just "QuickTime".
any footage. it's regardless of what footage I use. in this special case it was 2 pngs (24bit alpha) - see above.
If you are getting error message(s), what is the full text of the error message(s)?
there is no error message
What were you doing when the problem occurred?
see above
Has this ever worked before? If this worked before by doesn't work now, what has changed on your computer in the intervening time?
it's the first time I tried
What other software are you running?
mainly software like Google Chrome or Microsoft Office - I'm not sure they have anything to do with the problem
Do you have any third-party effects or codecs installed?
I have Magic bullet looks installed, but since I don't use it in this project, I don't think it's got anything to do with the problem
Tell us about your computer hardware. Include CPU type and number of processor cores, amount of RAM installed, GPU, number of disk drives, and how any external drives are connected.
Intel something, 6 cores, 12GB RAM, and NVIDIA GTX 590 graphics card, (driver 306.97)
Do you have any third-party I/O hardware (e.g., AJA, Matrox, Blackmagic, MOTU)?
no
Are you using OpenGL features in After Effects?
I don't know.. I thought OpenGL in CS6 is all automatically and can not be turned off or on?
but i switched quality to "final render".
Does the problem only happen with your final output, RAM preview, or both?
everywhere
Are you using Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing?
yes. but if I turn it off, nothings changes
What is the exact sequence of steps that you are taking?
see above
hope this helps

How work this Blend Mode Mathematically ?

hi,
i need to know how work this Blend Mode :
Layer, Overlay, Hard light, Add, Subtract, Difference,
Invert, Alpha & Erase . Mathematically ?
Regards
Crimson

AlMostabed wrote:
> this like help u :
>
http://dunnbypaul.net/blends
>
> one more question mid-grey in RGB is (128 , 128 , 128 ).
how i know
> if the base color less or greater than mid-grey ??
>
> i know DARKER than mid grey will be less than 128 &
LIGHTER than mid
> grey will be higher than 128 but in each channels or
what ?
>
> ok, ( 129 , 239 , 129 ) is lighter than mid grey and (
127 , 101 ,
> 123 ) is darker than med grey . right ? and ( 235 , 128
, 107 ) is
> darker or lighter then mid gray ??
You need the L component of the HSL representation of your
colour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_color_space
L=0.5*(Math.min(Math.min(r, g), b)+Math.max(Math.max(r, g),
b))
where r, g, and b are the components of the colour.
Andrew

Blending Mode issue

Hello All,
I recently had to reinstall my CS4 suite. Now 3 of the Blending modes do not behave as they have in the past.
Now Classic Color Burn, Classic Color Dodge and Soft Light each change the appearance of the clip (see attachment) even though its the only layer.
However, when there is another layer underneath, the Classic Color Burn looks like Color Burn and Classic Color Dodge looks like Color Dodge, and Soft Ligth is a little different than Overlay, just as they were working in the past.
Its my understanding that if you apply a blending mode to a layer and there is no other layer beneathe it, there should be no change in the appearance of that layer. Except the application of Stencil/Silhouette Alpha or Luma will make the layer dissappear if there is nothing on beneath it..
I just need to know that my software was installed properly, and everything is as its supposed to be or do I need to re-install.
Thanks in advance
CS4 (AE 9.0.3) on a Mac OS 10.6.8

OOPS..... here's the attachments
The Image
With Classic color Burn applied
with Class color Dodge applied
with Soft light applied

Stencil Alpha revert after render??

I'm a bit neww to FCP so don't know if I'm doing anything wrong here, but as a Photoshop user I can't really think of another way to do this..
So I have a white solid background, then a clip in the background, and a white circle layered on top of it.
I set the circle to Blend mode: Stencil Alpha, and I get white background and the clip visible were the white circle was before.
BUT after FCP auto-renders my project the effect revert and suddenly I have a black background instead of a white.
Any ideas to why this is happening? Again, it looks right before rendering and wrong after..

If I understand you correctly you have a white solid generator on the storyline. You have an attached clip above it and an attached white circle shape above that. Select the top rwo clips ie the white cirle and your video clip and make them a compound clip. You should then have your white background back. FCPX composites from top down so the stencil blended circle is compposited with the video and that result composites with the white background which causes what you see. Hope this works for you.

Problems with blending modes

Hi,
I have a layer with a solid color (212º,93,78) on top of which I have another layer with a solid color (205º,100,74). Call this second layer the blend layer. I then choose for it a blending mode of Color, and the resulting color in the top layer is (205º,100, 74). If instead I choose the luminosity blending mode, the resulting color in the top layer is (212º,93,78).
---all these are HSB coordinates.
According to the documentation. color and luminosity blending modes should behave differently:
Color
Creates a result color with the luminance of the base color and the hue and saturation of the blend color. This preserves the gray levels in the image and is useful for coloring monochrome images and for tinting color images.
------ the luminance of the base color is 78 (at least the brightness anyway - I know of no method to get the luminance)
Luminosity
Creates a result color with the hue and saturation of the base color and the luminance of the blend color. This mode creates the inverse effect of Color mode.
------- in this case everything is equal, which seems to me is not right.
Some light?
Juan Dent

Generally speaking, Photoshop works fine with Windows 8 but the display drivers aren't all up to the task yet, and Photoshop uses the GPU for a lot of stuff.
What video card do you have?
You might find you can go into Edit - Preferences - Performance in Photoshop and disable the usage of GPU (the setting is called [ ] Use Graphics Processor in Photoshop CS6, and [ ] Enable OpenGL Drawing in earlier versions). It's also possible that you might find things to work better if you leve the GPU enabled but change the advanced mode for it to a lower setting, such as Basic.
In a general answer to your question, yes, I imagine there will be updates through Windows Update and from Adobe that will correct the problems. You may be able to accelerate the fix by visiting the web site of the maker of your video card and downloading their recent driver release (though I caution against this with ATI drivers right now - their latest aren't really too good).
-Noel

Formulas for blending modes

Hi,
I want to truly understand layer blending modes so I can use them better and predict their impact. I know from Bruce Fraser's books that the formula for the Multiply Mode is:
result = (top_pixel * bottom_pixel) / 255
This is great for me (I have a BS in Math). The question is: how are the other modes calculated? For instance, i am having trouble figuring out the Color Burn Mode...
Thanks,
Juan Dent

Color burn is a little easier to calculate in CMYK because the numbers are expressed as %
Base % / (1 – Blend %)
For example, bottom layer is 40M. Make a layer above with Color Burn, fill with 50M
.4 / (1 – .5) = .8
The color result is 80M
Because of this relationship, if the base % is half of the blend % the color result matches the blend color:
.25 / (1 – .5) = .5
You could probably arrive at a reliable result using a similar formula in RGB, but the numbers get crunched differently when dealing with 0 - 255
To get multiply in CMYK I always use
(Base % + Blend %) – (Base % x Blend %)
So if bottom layer is 40M. Layer above is multiply, 50M
(.4 + .5) – (.4 x .5) = .7
Perhaps this formula is wrong somehow but it seems to work for me.

Stencil Alpha Blend mode question

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