Blackmagic Forum

Howdy!

Please forgive any ignorance here, as I've done my best to research this issue, to no avail.

When using the soft clip function for lifting my blacks (to give a stylistically faded look), is there a way to avoid having it affect my matte bars on top and bottom as well?

I know I can use the "output blanking" option in the timeline menu to super impose true black matte bars, but that doesn't always suit my needs (I shoot anamorphic often, and like to use 2.66 ratio which is unavailable in that menu).

I also realize that I can just do away with matte bars all together by adjusting my output resolution in the project settings (which is my go to work around), and then Youtube/Vimeo/etc will add them anyway. However, I like to preview my work in its intended "look" while I edit, with the matte bars present, and having them lifted to a higher black point makes it hard to effectively gauge my work's overall contrast level and black level, compared to true black. Hope that makes sense.

Anyway, any help or tips are greatly appreciated. Cheers!


Chris
stantonbrothers . com

chrismstanton wrote:When using the soft clip function for lifting my blacks (to give a stylistically faded look), is there a way to avoid having it affect my matte bars on top and bottom as well?

If this is happening, are your matte/letterbox boundaries part of active video?

In that case, throw in a rectangular power window to "blank" the matte and then its a grade-within-window. Do this ALL THE TIME with pillar-box 4x3 archive media in HD projects.

If your entire project has the same AR matte, then possibly do it as a Timeline correction.

jPo, CSI

You can also create a keyframe on timeline output sizing adjustments (including letterbox mattes) by inserting an empty node in the Timeline node window and just manually marking the cuts. I routinely provide full-frame bars (without letterbox) on letterboxed timelines, and I also have the ability to render the timeline without letterbox borders and in the native widescreen resolution.