Video effects

Video effects

Choose a video effect from the Add Video Effect pop-up menu in the Video inspector:

  • Black/White Restore: Compresses the solid black and white areas (luminance) in the video, such as backgrounds. This effect can restore nearly black colors to pure black and restore nearly white colors to pure white without affecting colors in the rest of the image. Drag the sliders to set the black and white values between 0 and 100. (You can also double-click the values and type new values.)

  • Brightness and Contrast: Brightens or darkens the overall color and luminance of the video. For example, use this effect to counteract the darkening to video that some QuickTime codecs can cause. It’s recommended that you avoid extreme settings, because they can make colors look washed-out. Drag the sliders to set brightness and contrast values between –100 and 100. (You can also double-click the values and type new values.)

  • Color Correct Highlights, Color Correct Midtowns, Color Correct Shadows: Corrects white balance inaccuracies and creates color effects on the bright, midtone, or dark areas of the video. Drag the sliders to set red, green, and blue values between –100 and 100. (You can also double-click the values and type new values.)

  • Fade In/Out: Adds a dissolve and a matte color at the beginning and end of the clip. This effect has the following properties:

    • Fade in duration/Fade out duration: Enter a time (use a decimal to specify tenths of seconds) in the text field to set the duration of the fade-in and fade-out effects.

    • Fade in opacity/Fade out opacity: Drag the sliders to set the opacity of the clip’s video at the first and last frames. (You can also double-click the values and type new values.) A value of 0.0 sets the clip video to be completely covered by the matte color; a value of 0.5 sets the clip to be 50 percent covered by the matte color; and so on.

    • Fade color: Click the color well to set the fade-in and fade-out color.

  • Gamma Correction: Controls the range of brightness in an image. This effect can be used to remove detail from an underexposed clip or to reduce the saturation of an overexposed clip. Drag the slider to set gamma values between 0.1 and 4.0. (You can also double-click the value and type a new value.)

    Note: Computers using different operating systems have different monitor settings. For cross-platform viewing, correcting the gamma will improve the image for all platforms.

  • Noise Removal: Reduces random flecks of noise in the video file, including noise introduced by codecs. This effect allows you to blur areas of low contrast while leaving high-contrast edges sharp, creating results that are imperceptible to the human eye but that improve the final compression of the transcoded file. The effect’s properties include:

    • Apply to: Use this pop-up menu to set the channels from which noise is filtered. Choose “All channels” to filter noise from all channels including the alpha channel. Choose “Chroma channels” to filter noise from the two chroma channels (U and V) in the YUV color space.

    • Iterations: Choose the number of noise-smoothing passes (between 1 and 4) from this pop-up menu. For instance, if you choose 2 passes, the noise-removal algorithm is applied to the media file twice. The file resulting from the of first pass is used for the second pass, and so on, so that the more times a pass is performed, the fuzzier the image becomes.

    • Algorithm: Choose a noise-smoothing algorithm from this pop-up menu. Choose Average to modify each pixel’s color by taking an average of pixels around it, including its own color value. Choose Replace to modify each pixel’s color by taking an average of pixels around it, while ignoring its own color value. Choose Merge to modify each pixel’s color by taking a weighted average of surrounding pixels and itself (with the pixel’s own color value given greater weight).

  • Sharpen Edge: Sets the contrast around object edges. This effect can counteract the softening caused by noise removal or blurred source material and increase the perception of sharpness in the video. However, note that too much of this effect can make video look grainy. Drag the slider to set sharpening between 0.0 and 100.0. (You can also double-click the value and type a new value.)

  • Text Overlay: Superimposes text onto the image. The Text Overlay effect contains the following properties:

    • Position: Choose a position for the text overlay from the pop-up menu, such as Center, Lower Left, Lower Left–Title Safe, and so on.

    • Alpha: Drag the slider to set the text opacity between 0 (completely transparent) and 1 (completely opaque). You can also double-click the value and type a new value.

    • Overlay text: Type text in this field.

    • Text color: Click the color well to set the text color.

    • Font: Click the Select button to set the font, style, and size.

  • Timecode Generator: Superimposes the clip’s timecode onto the video. The Timecode Generator effect contains the following properties:

    • Position: Choose a position for the timecode overlay from the pop-up menu, such as Center, Lower Left, Lower Left–Title Safe, and so on.

    • Alpha: Drag the slider to set the text opacity between 0 (completely transparent) and 1 (completely opaque). You can also double-click the value and type a new value.

    • Label: Optionally, type text that you want to appear to the left of the timecode number.

    • Start timecode at 00:00:00:00: Select this checkbox to have the timecode start at zero. When the checkbox is not selected, the timecode starts at the video’s timecode.

    • Text color: Click the color well to set the text color.

    • Font: Click the Select button to set the font, style, and size.

  • Watermark: Superimposes a still image or a movie file onto the video. This effect contains the following properties:

    • Position: Choose a position for the watermark from the pop-up menu, such as Center, Lower Left, Lower Left–Title Safe, and so on.

    • Scale by: Drag the slider to set the watermark image’s scaling between 1 (actual size) and 10 (10 times the actual size). You can also double-click the value and type a new value.

    • Alpha: Drag the slider between 0 (completely transparent) and 1 (completely opaque) to adjust the watermark’s opacity. You can also double-click the value and type a new value.

    • Repeat: If you are using a video clip for the watermark image, select this checkbox to loop the playback of the watermark clip throughout the duration of the source file.

    • Watermark: Click the Select button specify a still image or video file to use for the watermark.