Playing with Adjustment Layers

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

The most underutilized ability in Producer is the Adjustment Layer. On its surface, it's simple-minded: Change the layer, and everything beneath it takes on that change. For instance, add a Solid Color to a slide and then add a photo beneath the Solid. Set the Solid as an Adjustment Layer and Colorize it. The photo changes color. Move the Adjustment Layer's White Point slider all the way to the left and its Black Point slider all the way to the right. The photo's colors are inverted. Big deal, right? You could do the same thing to the photo itself and forget about that extra layer.

But what if you have 5 photos in a slide, each fading in and out in a series, and what if you want all 5 photos to be sepia-toned? Well, you could Colorize each of the photos separately, obviously doing it 5 times, or you could do it all in one fell swoop by Colorizing an Adjustment Layer sitting above the photos.

Best of all, there's the play factor: Using a Solid set as an Adjustment Layer and a photo beneath it, do everything you can think of to layer 1, changing color, sharpness, white and black points, contrast, brightness, and maybe even adding in a vignette. Then do just as many extreme things to the photo layer. Also, change the size of the Adjustment Layer. Send it sailing across the screen. Zoom it in and out. Add another photo above the Adjustment Layer, sizing it smaller than the photo that's currently in layer 3. Give it an outline, a drop shadow, change its contrast to 0%, colorize it. Drive Producer nuts with every crazy thing you can think of. You may be surprised.

In desperate need of a play break, I decided to see what would happen if I set some extremes to an Adjustment Layer above a photo that had its own extremes. You can find the exact settings and the results over at ProShowThink where a photo was turned into a line drawing.

Playtime!

Barbara

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

I think that the reason for not using Adjustment Layers more often, is that they modify EVERYTHING beneath them. That includes the slide background!. Getting adjustments on the slide background can be a pain in too many cases, and that is why I, personally, don't like to use adjustments layers. I very much prefer the tedious task of copying my adjustment settings to all the images, and to stay in control of what gets adjusted in my slide.

Secondly, suppose your pictures don't stay put in your slide, and don't just fade in/out, as in your example.
Suppose you want to move them about, zoom, pan, tilt, whatever....
What happens to your adjustments?
In such a case, you'll have to build keyframes on that adjustment layer, to follow your pictures in all their zoom/pan/tilt motions. That's a very, very complicated task.

If Photodex would give us the means to control the layers that get affected by the adjustment layer, (like the grouping that we have now with masks), that would truly make the adjustment layers a very useful feature of Producer.

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

You can trick Adjustment Layers to go inside masks and therefore not affect everything beneath and outside the mask. First, set up the mask and everything inside it, and then create the Adjustment Layer inside and just beneath the mask. After that, add a new layer above the masking layer and then move the new layer below the masking set. It'll be outside the mask and unaffected by any adjustments. I discovered this out of sheer belligerence.

Barbara

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Yes, I also discovered this trick some time ago.
But, why add masks, when actually none are needed ?

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

But, why add masks, when actually none are needed ?

Probably because there are times when we want an adjustment layer for this little group and another adjustment layer for that little group and another adjustment layer for...?

I totally agree with you about adjustment layers being more useful and far less convoluted if only they behaved in the same way as masks. Perhaps we should harass Photodex endlessly.

Barbara

[debngar Profile Private message]

I think that the reason for not using Adjustment Layers more often, is that they modify EVERYTHING beneath them. That includes the slide background!. Getting adjustments on the slide background can be a pain in too many cases, and that is why I, personally, don't like to use adjustments layers. I very much prefer the tedious task of copying my adjustment settings to all the images, and to stay in control of what gets adjusted in my slide.

Secondly, suppose your pictures don't stay put in your slide, and don't just fade in/out, as in your example.
Suppose you want to move them about, zoom, pan, tilt, whatever....
What happens to your adjustments?
In such a case, you'll have to build keyframes on that adjustment layer, to follow your pictures in all their zoom/pan/tilt motions. That's a very, very complicated task.

-snip-.

My 2 cents on Adjustment Layers....

One can sometimes achieve similar effects with either an AL or Mask but they require different layering configurations. I found advantages to using an AL at times and prefer breaking the AL when necessary versus using a mask. I still use masks too though. It just depends on the circumstances and design of the slide.

For example, to get a soft glowing effect, I use an AL dupe of the image it sits over instead of a mask. This only takes 2 layers with only changes to image adjustment settings, not movement or size. The AL can easily follow the image below because the AL is made as a dupe of the original image after setting up movements in the original image.

To get a similar effect using a mask instead of an AL, that requires 3 layers.

For the effect described above, results are noticeably different using a mask compared to an AL. I preferred the results from the use of the AL in that particular case.

In addition, when an AL is used but not appearing until later in the slide, the image inside the AL can still be visible throughout the slide time. If a mask is used over an image below it and the mask is not visible until further into the slide time, the image(s) inside the mask isn't visible until the mask layer becomes visible.

An AL layer doesn't always have to be a duped image, obviously, but that's how I've used this tool in most cases up to this point.

Adjustment Layers can be fun to experiment with as Barbara stated in the original thread post above. Hopefully the thread will encourage users to some new playing and discoveries!

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

One of the things you can do with an adjustment layer that you can't do in any other way is double some of the settings in the Adjustment tab. For instance, you can set the photo's sharpening to 100% and no more than that, but if it's covered by an adjustment layer that also has its sharpening set to 100%, you've effectively doubled the percentage...I think. I'm not sure how 100% of 100% actually calculates out other than that the sharpened photo is sharpened further.

Barbara

[debngar Profile Private message]

One of the things you can do with an adjustment layer that you can't do in any other way is double some of the settings in the Adjustment tab. For instance, you can set the photo's sharpening to 100% and no more than that, but if it's covered by an adjustment layer that also has its sharpening set to 100%, you've effectively doubled the percentage...I think. I'm not sure how 100% of 100% actually calculates out other than that the sharpened photo is sharpened further.

Barbara

I never realized that about sharpening and use of it with an AL - nice discovery!