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Importing into photoshop?

Robert

Robert

Hi, I haven't yet purchased any editing software, but am planning on getting Adobe Premiere. I am shooting a comedy short, and in one scene, I want a character's eyes to "bug out" in shock. Obviously, thats not something I can do when we shoot it, so I was wondering if I will be able to import individual frames into my photoshop 7 and manually draw in stuff and then put the frames back into the film?

If so, would there be any image quality loss? I'm shooting on super8mm with Kodachrome 40 film.

Thanks.
 
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yes and no respectively...you should be able to export as an image sequence, but...photoshop is very tedious for this purpose...you may want to look at after effects or other related sequence FX packages.

assuming you have telecine'd it at a high resolution (correct me film guys!).
 
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Well, I havent shot it yet. I'm still working on the script, so I'm checking to see what effects will be possible or not.

I have been using photoshop for years and do most of my artwork on it, hence my desire to use it to create subtle effects in my film, as opposed to using SFX programs which might look more obvious.

Also, since this is only a short, i don't want to spend the extra money on another program like After Effects if I don't have to. ;)
 
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I'm actually not sure what the FX workflow is for film...for DV, I know it...I'm assuming that it's the same workflow with telecine at the head and dumping back out to film at the tail.

keep in mind that 1 sec of screen time is 24 frames to edit w/ film...5 secs would be 120 individual images to alter (and make look like smooth motion). There are free options out there with onion skinning and other animation features...in the *nix world, there is cinepaint/filmgimp (don't know if there's a windows version of that at all).
 
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knightly said:
keep in mind that 1 sec of screen time is 24 frames to edit w/ film...5 secs would be 120 individual images to alter (and make look like smooth motion).
Click to expand...

Yes, very good point. There was really only the eye-popping effect i had in mind, but it would probably be at least a full second, if not two. That's lots of frames, which i wouldn't really mind, unless there was a better/easier way to do it that looked good (and didnt cost me and extra $300).

I guess i just need to get Adobe Premiere and see what effects it comes with and maybe try out some free programs that are out there.

Thanks Knightly :)
 
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I don't doubt After Effects could do it... my point is that I dont want to have to pay for the program for one effect. If I can import frames into Pshop and to it by hand, i would prefer that. I know its alot more work, but it's free!
 
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What you're gonna have to do is capture the footage to the PC. Trim out just that one scene. Then save that scene as a FILMSTRIP. Photoshop can read the filmstrip file.

You just have to make sure that your capture/editing SW exports or renders to filmstrip.

It works, I've done it.... Lightsabers are cool!
 
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Premiere can do that, I've output filmstrips without any problem, also, when you export the segment where you want the have effect done, make sure you export one frame prior and after the area where you want to make the filmstrip.

:)

Johnny
 
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Yes. Photoshop can export a filmstrip. The only weird thing about working with the filmstrip in photoshop though is that the whole thing opens in one window, with all the frames stuck together, as I recall they go top to bottom, then shift to the next row right and continue top to bottom left to right that way.. depends how big the clip is of course.

Likely you'll only want a very few frames for this. They have a shot like that in the old Twilight Zone movie, where John Lithgow is looking out the plane window and sees the "something" on the wing.. his eyes bulge for like at most 10 frames.. but I think it's more like 5.
 
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Yes, the entire filmstrip file opens up in photoshop. So you better make sure you have the RAM to handle it. If you're doing just 30 frames, that's fine... I did like 400 frames and when I made a mistake on frame 234 that locked the entire thing, I had to redo ALL the work.

Save often!
 
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