FX & Filters

[jan1]

I'm finally finding some time to experiment with the various built-in FX and filters. In reading the manual and experimenting it seems there is a lot of power hidden in these that is not clear to many new users. Sometimes the names are pretty generic, other times there are many complicated parameters.

One thing I've always missed in Mistika was some form of Frequency Separation to even out skin. Resolve has a new Blur/Sharpen effect that is divided into three bands. In reading the manual and playing with the Enhance filter, it seems Mistika too has that already built-in. You just have to stack multiple Enhance filters and setup the RadL/RadH accordingly. Is that a correct interpretation?

Maybe we can add one more edition to the Masterclass series that focuses specifically on all the effects. The manual has some 'use examples'. Going through all this more interactively with the knowledge of the Masterclass presenters would be awesome.

Edited June 27, 2019 by jan1

[Mark Driver]

If you're interested specifically in frequency separation there's a tutorial here that shows how to build that in Mistika. On the whole, however, I agree with you. It would be nice to have deeper dives into specific things. With the increase in users from Boutique I'm sure we'll see more and more tutorials popping up not only from SGO, but from users themselves. 

I've been using Mistika for 16 years and there are still things that pop up occasionally where I'm like, "Oh, I didn't know it could do that."

[Melanie Diaz]

23 hours ago, jan1 said:

I'm finally finding some time to experiment with the various built-in FX and filters. In reading the manual and experimenting it seems there is a lot of power hidden in these that is not clear to many new users. Sometimes the names are pretty generic, other times there are many complicated parameters.

One thing I've always missed in Mistika was some form of Frequency Separation to even out skin. Resolve has a new Blur/Sharpen effect that is divided into three bands. In reading the manual and playing with the Enhance filter, it seems Mistika too has that already built-in. You just have to stack multiple Enhance filters and setup the RadL/RadH accordingly. Is that a correct interpretation?

Maybe we can add one more edition to the Masterclass series that focuses specifically on all the effects. The manual has some 'use examples'. Going through all this more interactively with the knowledge of the Masterclass presenters would be awesome.

Hi Jan,

Many thanks for sharing your feedback and ideas about the Mistika Masterclasses, much appreciated.

Yes, FX is definitely a priority content for the upcoming Masterclasses.

Best,

Melanie

[jan1]

10 hours ago, Mark Driver said:

If you're interested specifically in frequency separation there's a tutorial here that shows how to build that in Mistika.

Thanks. I'm familiar with that tutorial, but it complicates the node tree by having to copy the original clip. You can work around that with a template group. Having a simpler effect to integrate into the node tree is what I was hoping to find. When I do need it, I often need it on most clips on the timeline, not just a single clip.

The Resolve OFX effect I've been using with decent success has this user interface, which seems about the same as three stacked 'Enhance' filters, which is what I figured out yesterday. If you combine that with a good alpha mask or skin key exported form a color node, it should solve most problems we use FS frequently for.

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by jan1

[Cristobal Bolaños]

Hi Jan!

That's actually a great preset for beauties. But I can think of different ways to perform that in Mistika.

On 6/28/2019 at 4:45 AM, jan1 said:

it complicates the node tree by having to copy the original clip.

First of all, I reckon that if you create a node tree with dummies, and then replace them with your footage, it will be utterly easy and quick to perform the frequency separation.

Secondly, I think that there are two tools inside the Color Grade node, which combined can work as a frequency separation with keying selections of the skin. The first one, of course, is the Keyer tool, and the second one is the ranges: 

 

With the ranges you are limiting the signal of your correction in that specific node. In this screenshot, you can see I'm selecting only the middle range of the image. With your right-click, selecting the upper left side of the square you can move to low frequencies to the right, as opposite, with the left click in the upper right of the high frequencies to the left. The orange lines are activated with the left-click of the mouse, and control the softness of the selection. Of course, if you own tangent panels, this is easy peasy to manipulate.

So, you can have a selection of your skin and then adjust the ranges to only manipulate the middle frequencies, or the higher ones, and use all the color tools to manipulate only that area.

I've told more Mistika advanced users about this issue to see if they come up with better ideas that fit your matter. Sure, they will answer shortly! 

Hope it helps!
Cheers,
Cristóbal 

 

[Yoav Raz]

Hi there Jan 

I can add to Cristóbal 

that when using this technic on a color vector you also have the option of using bland mode blur over or blur under. 

Another thing is that in the option tub.  using defocus with a combination of negativ bland you get sharpen effect. 

Hope it helps

Yoav

[jan1]

Thanks Cristobal & Yoav, I'll have to experiment with those... So many hidden gems in Mistika. 

[jan1]

There is a difference between luminosity bands and frequency bands. The band control and keyer described above allow you to focus in on specific luminosity bands. And there are good sharpen and blur effects that can be combined with keying. But they affect all detail levels at once.

Frequency separation works in a different dimension and is often used specifically with beauty retouching. Think of it as the very fine texture of skin, like individual pores, vs. medium texture of a pimple, vs. large texture of a whole cheek. When we use frequency separation we often want to affect these separately, meaning we can even out larger blemishes without loosing the finest texture of the skin to prevent it from looking fake. The level of blur (or defocus) you need to affect the medium skin would totally destroy the small texture. 

As the tutorial on the SGO website shows, the typical technique is to blur the image and then subtract the blurred version from the non-blurred version. That subtract yields the high frequency (smallest texture). Additional operation can then restore the original image. With the layers separated you can then mask or clone on them individually and only affect one range of texture. If you want three instead of two bands the stack gets a bit more complicated.

There are no primary operations that can do this on their own. It either requires a full stack that performs this (like in the tutorial) or a dedicated filter that performs these operations internally. What I found is that the enhance filter with its three bands may in fact offering a defocus/blur for different ranges, which was the exciting discovery.

[Rakesh Malik]

I think it would be a very good idea to put together a masterclass covering the node graph. That makes a lot of these more complicated stack manipulations easier, and it's a great tool to have access to even if you're not doing any compositing. I've been using it even with simple stacks just to make the dataflow easier to see, and to re-order nodes and such.

I'm going to work on a short next week that consists of almost all composite shots, though most of them composites are pretty simple chroma key shots. There are just a couple where I'm going to need to do a bit of rotoscoping, but part of why I'm doing this one in Mistika is to re-familiarize myself with the compositing tools that I used quite a while ago in MambaFX.