fixing cracks on blue concrete in Apple Final Cut Studio

[Vladimir Eugene]

I panned along an outdoor basketball court, and am trying to paint out the cracks on the blue paint on the concrete floor and the spots and the water stains on the brown wall. I haven't had any success. I tried Motion, and Color but was unsuccessful in either. Any suggestions would help.

thank you

vlad

 

[Noah Kadner]

How about a few example frames so we understand the problem.

Noah

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Example frames would be good.. Might be able to do it in Motion if you go about it right, but detail and blemish removal can become a very tedious or even daunting task sometimes. You may need to delve into more specialized tracking and compositing software like the tools from Imagineer Systems (Mokey, Mocha, Monet).

 

[Vladimir Eugene]

here is the pic.

 

[Charles Angus]

You need shake or nuke and a pretty fair amount of special skill. Not a diy fix unless you're a masochist (speaking from experience - I got into compositing teaching myself).

 

[Uli Plank]

You could do it even in current Photoshop versions, but as others said: a horrible task!

 

[Jose Alvarez]

You said you tried Motion, what was your approach? I think you could do a decent job even with Motion if you put enough time into it (Shake would be better). Needless to say you will need MULTIPLE trackers to position your mattes, and even then you might need to animate your paint strokes to match the surface.

Not impossible but you'll have to decide how important is it to you and then decide how much time you want to spend doing it.

Xoce

 

[Jose Alvarez]

Looking at that still again, if you DON"T have any action on the court while you pan, it would be 1000% easier to replace the whole ground plane than trying to "fix" the cracks. Do a "corner pin" track(s) in Motion, then replace it with a real cool (photoshop?) bball court ground plane.

If you DO have action on the court then forget it, you'd have to ROTO all the people on the ground plane. Not worth it.

Xoce

 

[Curran Giddens]

Since you are panning, painting a frame to use as a background plate (for tracking) will only work for a certain amount of frames until you have to paint a new plate.

I would probably just clone (paint) and superclone frame by frame.... But I can do it pretty fast since I used to do this kind of thing everyday at work.

 

[Vladimir Eugene]

thanks guys. I will try the photoshop approach first.

vlad

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

How many frames is your sequence? Photoshop will work, but you may be in for a very long haul. Good luck!

As Jose said, if you don't have any action, or even if there is little action, it would be easier to just replace the ground and wall. Actually, this may be the best approach if the camera is locked or if there is a simple dolly move or pan. I guess you have to decide if it's easier to track the planes and replace by roto'ing out any talent or if you would rather track and mask the bad spots on those surfaces. I think the former solution may give better overall results and not be as noticeable.