Magnum: The Edit Detector

Lloyd Alvarez has just released a super handy DV Rebel tool called Magnum—The Edit Detector. It's a script for After Effects CS3 that automatically finds edits in a layer by analyzing the imagery. It then either marks the edits with layer markers or slices the layer at the cut points.

The latter of course is a perfect first step to a DV Rebel grading workflow. Now you can easily get your cut into After Effects without worrying about EDLs or XML or whatever.

This process is known as "scene detection" in high-end grading systems, and now you've got in in After Effects. And it's free-as-in-beer. As in, Lloyd, I owe you one.

Magic Bullet Looks: Getting Started

See more at ProLost TV, or you can Subscribe in iTunes

Hue are you?

Eric is off to a great start with PrepShootPost. Today's entry is entitled "Skin Tones," and in it he explores and verifies the claim that the miriad of human ethnicities all tend to land on the same axis of the vectorscope, making that "flesh tone" demarcation a racially unbiased target.

To many, the most sought-after colorists are those who can create the most compelling skin tones. But lately I've seen a few films where actors' pinkish visages pop out of otherwise bleak palettes in a disjointed, artificial way. An empirically correct face in a completely blue-gray world can either be subtly beautiful or distractingly artificial. I find that rendering attractive, believable skin in a pushed look is one of those challenges that keeps color correction endlessly interesting and rewarding, but sometimes I'm experimenting to see how far I can go, knowing that I'd never actually want to go that far.

Magic Bullet Looks Released

Not that you'd notice by looking at Red Giant Software's site, but Magic Bullet Looks has been released! Download the demo and try it out, and see if you can discover the secret feature.