Look on the Bright Side | If it’s Cloudy, bring the Sun | Track, Comp, Perfection

In this tutorial, we look at how to do a complex sky replacement with Adobe After Effects CS5. We take a look at a variety of tools, including Tracking, Displacement maps, exposure, Refine Matte, Edge Blur, Colour Correction with Curves, and applying a vignette.

If you wish to download the project file for this tutorial, you can grab it here: SkyReplacmentTutorialv001.zip

If you have any comments or questions, please let me know!

Thanks!

Stabilization | From Shaky Beginnings | A Tranquility

In this tutorial, we use Adobe After Effects CS5 and take a look at stabilizing a piece of footage. Once the footage is stable, we “paint” out two unwanted objects from the shot using a quick and simple technique. We then complete the shot with some quick colour corrections.

Hope you enjoy it!

If you would like to see the same tutorial, but done in a node based compositing application, check out this tutorial here:
http://vfxhaiku.com/2010/09/stabilization-and-object-removal-with-eyeon-fusion-6/

A 3D Journey | Information Parity | Stereo Knowledge

This is a recording of a presentation I gave in October of 2008 on Frantic Films work on Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D.

There’s quite a few topics covered here including:

Post-vis, 3D tracking Stereo footage, Fluid Simulations, Creature design, Compositing Passes, Creature Rigs, Particle tests with Krakatoa, Cloth Simulations, 2D look Developlemt, and common problems with 3D Stereo Footage.

There’s a bunch of behind the scenes stuff here that normally doesn’t make it out of a VFX studio, so I hope you enjoy it!

Let me know if you have any comments of questions!

Thanks!

In this tutorial, we take a look at all of the photography equipment that I use on a regular basis. There’s quite a bit of gear covered here, so I’ve provided some external links for those of you who want to get some extra information.

If you have any questions about any of this stuff, just let me know!

Thanks!

A quick walkthrough showcasing my Photoshop workflow and how I adjusted one of my photos in Adobe Photoshop.

UPDATE: I just want to welcome all the new viewers to my site! This tutorial was chosen as the winner for the ‘So you think you can teach Photoshop‘ contest held by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals

This tutorial covers one of my latest photos: Clone operation fail. This image is pretty heavily modified in Photoshop and I’m going to show you my workflow and some of the techniques that I use in order to enhance it,

One of the things I reference in the video is a set of Photoshop actions. Here’s the link: Lomo Photoshop Actions. I use these as a starting point for a lot of my pictures. Some people hate actions, and I agree, they’re a bit of a cheat. But as long as you don’t just use the action, and call it done, I think they can be used to your advantage. I generally try all sorts of different combinations, and use one as a starting point and build off of it.

Please send your comments, and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Thanks!