Black cropped area shines through

St_Bosse

Lower levels video tracks shine through.

First, my take on how the track setup works:-

Track 1 is the main video track/clip
Track 2 (maybe shorter clips) overrides track 1 (ie. Track 1 won’t be visible for track 2’s duration)
Track 3 (still shorter clip pieces, etc), will again override track 2 and 1. (ie. Track 1&2 won’t be visible)
. . . and so on.

The highest track # has “video show” priority.

This works all perfectly until the other day when I started to do some “cropping” on the top levels.
I noticed that that in the “black area” of the cropping, the lower level tracks will shine through and become visible instead of the black cropped area staying solid black.

The only way I could solve this problem was to add another track with black “blank” inserts below the cropped track to block the shine through effect.

Now this works, but it is a clumsy work around. What is the correct way to solve this problem?

Any suggestions?

St B

borate

Can't replicate same here. Please upload the project - without the black blank clip - so the issue is evident.

Here's a clip with two overlays, both cropped. All seems to be clean.

St_Bosse

Upload on its way. Sorry, I see it's a bit of a stiff size.

Track 2 at +/- 0:59.204 had a black blank. I see this is a bit different because it is not cropping involved but fading. As the fading de/increase lower levels' shine thru increases.

Track 3 at +/- 1:52.758 has cropping where you will see a shine thru across the top.

Thanks

St B

[deleted]

"....Lower levels video tracks shine through....."

They will if the upper images are cropped to a smaller size.

As you correctly say; Upper tracks will obscure lower tracks. The caveat here is that the lower track will be totally hidden only if the upper clip is the same size as the lower clip.

If you trim around the upper track using Crop you will make it smaller. VP will not enlarge it). The effect will be identical to placing a small image on top of a larger image - you will see the larger image where it doesn't get covered up.

Note that when you apply the Crop effect and reduce the size, the cropped off area becomes chequered and therefore transparent.

If the cropped clip is placed over a lower clip you will see the lower clip in the cropped off area. If, on the other hand there is no lower clip (or the cursor is moved to a point where the clips are not above one another) you will see the transparent area as black. (There is nothing to be seen as the lower track at that point is empty.)

However the black area should not remain black!

Nat

St_Bosse

Thanks Borate,

So I assume the same goes for fading on the upper levels, i.e. fading also goes transparent thus revealing the track underneath at that point in time.

Nationalsolo wrote:

However the black area should not remain black!

If not, what then? Not sure I understand this.

St B

borate

St Bosse wrote:

So I assume the same goes for fading on the upper levels, i.e. fading also goes transparent thus revealing the track underneath...

Precisely.

[deleted]

Hi St B

".......This works all perfectly until the other day when I started to do some “cropping” on the top levels.
I noticed that that in the “black area” of the cropping, the lower level tracks will shine through and become visible instead of the black cropped area staying solid black...."

You are suggesting that the "black area" of the cropping is expected to stay black. Is this what you are wanting to get?

Under normal working..and its one way to get a picture in Picture......

With a single clip on the time line that has a Crop, the Clip Preview shows a chequerboard area but the Sequence Preview shows this as black......

This is normal .....The area in fact is transparent. Put this on Track 2 and then put another clip beneath it and you will see what I mean. The clip on Track one is a seascape...

What you see however depends on which track you click.

If the focus is Track 2 the Clip Preview shows the Track 2 clip with the chequerboard pattern whilst the Sequence Preview shows that the area (previously black with no underlying clip) is indeed transparent and revealing the sea clip....(Both previews show the orientation markings related to the image on Track 2)

If the focus is Track 1 then the Clip Preview shows the Track 1 image only (the sea clip) and the Sequence Preview the Track 1 clip (the sea) in the cropped area. This is correct and is one way the effect is meant to be used.

The black cropped area doesn't stay black and this is normal. It is not a problem or a bug.

"...The only way I could solve this problem was to add another track with black “blank” inserts below the cropped track to block the shine through effect......"

You have cropped the upper image correctly which will reveal part of the lower image as a result. Why do you then want it to go black and block the appearance of the lower image? Adding a black blank below this as you have done will achieve this? Are you just wanting a cropped image with a black surround?

If this is what you are after your method is correct and is the only way you will achieve this without placing the cropped image over nothing or placing it on Track 1 in which case the transparent area will be black and export as black as well.

Nat

St_Bosse

Nationalsolo wrote:

You have cropped the upper image correctly which will reveal part of the lower image as a result. Why do you then want it to go black and block the appearance of the lower image? Adding a black blank below this as you have done will achieve this? Are you just wanting a cropped image with a black surround?

If this is what you are after your method is correct and is the only way you will achieve this without placing the cropped image over nothing or placing it on Track 1 in which case the transparent area will be black and export as black as well.

Hi Nat,

Thanks for the response. I think I now fully understand the fading and cropping transparency characteristics. I used the cropping and fading to get some special effects and also to hide actor dance errors in the footage (all I had to work with). So placing the black blank on track 2, solved the problem and track 3 showed exactly what I wanted without track 1 now starting to shine thru during track 3's cropping or fading moves, confusing the flow. (ie. from a viewers point of view, they may think, oops, the editor forgot something). 🤦‍♂️

St B

[deleted]

Hi St B

Got it! That's what makes editing the more fun. Building your house with what bricks you have. But you get dancer errors??? We NEVER make mistakes in our orchestra, every bar and phrase perfect every time!! ...(Don't you believe it ! 😃) And as far as the editor forgetting something ...... doesn't happen. Good luck with the production.

Nat

St_Bosse

Thanks Nat,

I'm sort of done, for the "n" th time. Now to experimenting to get the optimum compression and other specs to not loose picture quality when uploading to YouTube and/or Vimeo.

I've checked through all the sequences which will be exported to become cuts in the final sequence, and all the cropping and fading is moving to black. (check)

Thanks for you and Borate's assistance.

St B