Effects and transitions

Midtone Contrast The amount of contrast that the effect applies to the midtones. Higher values increase the contrast in the midtones alone, while concurrently darkening the shadows and lightening the highlights. A negative value reduces contrast.

Black Clip, White Clip How much of the shadows and highlights are clipped to the new extreme shadow and highlight colors in the image. Be careful of setting the clipping values too large, as doing so reduces detail in the shadows or highlights. A value between 0.0% and 1% is recommended. By default, shadow and highlight pixels are clipped by 0.1%—that is, the first 0.1% of either extreme is ignored when the darkest and lightest pixels in the image are identified. These are then mapped to output black and output white, ensuring that input black and input white values are based on representative rather than extreme pixel values.

Blur and Sharpen effects

Antialias effect (Windows only)

The Antialias effect blends the edges between areas of highly contrasting colors. When blended, colors create intermediate shades that make transitions between dark and light areas appear more gradual.

Camera Blur effect (Windows only)

The Camera Blur effect simulates an image leaving the focal range of the camera, blurring the clip. For example, by setting keyframes for the blur, you can simulate a subject coming into or going out of focus, or the accidental bumping of the camera. Drag the slider to specify a blur amount for the selected keyframe; higher values increase the blur.

Channel Blur effect

The Channel Blur effect blurs a clip’s red, green, blue, or alpha channels individually. You can specify that the blur is horizontal, vertical, or both.

Repeat Edge Pixels blurs the pixels beyond the edge of the clip as though they have the same values as the edge pixels. This effect keeps edges sharp, preventing the edges from darkening and becoming more transparent—which would result from them being averaged with many zeroes. Deselect this option to make the blur algorithm operate as if the pixel values beyond the edge of the clip are zero.

Compound Blur effect

The Compound Blur effect blurs pixels based on the luminance values of a control clip, also known as a blur layer or blurring map. By default, bright values in the blur layer correspond to more blurring of the effect clip. Dark values correspond to less blurring. Select Invert Blur for light values to correspond to less blurring.

This effect is useful for simulating smudges and fingerprints. Also, it can simulate changes in visibility caused by smoke or heat, especially when used with animated blur layers.

Last updated 1/16/2012

Effects and transitions

Original (left), blur layer (center), and result (right)

Maximum Blur The maximum amount, in pixels, that any part of the affected clip can be blurred.

Stretch Map To Fit Stretches the control clip to the dimensions of the clip to which it is applied; otherwise, the control clip is centered on the effect clip.

Directional Blur effect

The Directional Blur effect gives a clip the illusion of motion.

Original (left), and with effect applied (right)

Direction The direction of the blur. The blur is applied equally on either side of a pixel’s center. Therefore, a setting of 180° and a setting of 0° look the same.

Fast Blur effect

Fast Blur is a close approximation of Gaussian Blur, but Fast Blur blurs large areas more quickly.

Original (left), and with effect applied (right)

Gaussian Blur effect

The Gaussian Blur effect blurs and softens the image and eliminates noise. You can specify that the blur is horizontal, vertical, or both.

Last updated 1/16/2012