Using transparency in your video

Transparency allows you to create special effects, like Picture in Picture (PIP).

It can be achieved by using the color tool (Chroma Key), which is documented in Studio. It can also be achieved by using an image stored in a format that retains some parts of the image as transparent. It is this process that I refer to in the following example.

We will have 3 basic ingredients (2 of them can be downloaded on this website) :

• The picture of an interior (why not yours?)
• A photo of a flat-screen TV art
• The video of the person who must go on television

I found a photo of an Interior picture which lends itself well to what I want to do. In a program for photo retouching, it was cropped and resized to 768 x 576 pixels and saved in the BMP format. You can find this picture in the download area special.

I then discovered an advertisement for a beautiful flat screen. The photo of the television was altered in a program for photo retouching. The picture on the TV screen was replaced with a transparent background. The image was cropped and resized to 768 x 576 pixels and saved in the TIF format. You can find this picture in thedownload area special.

Finally, I have chosen the stage No. 3 of the Clowns.mpg (Pinnacle Studio), which will go on the television. But any person you choose can also switch on the television.

Now that we have prepared our parts, open your favorite Studio program.

Select your video,

Find the folder where you have your photos stored, indoors and the TV,

Insert the photo of your Interior on the video track of the time line. Insert the movie on the overlay track of the time line. If you don't see this track, right click on the Video track and check "Always show overlay track" Insert the picture of the television on the title track.

The video will run for 6.04 seconds. We will be giving the picture of the room and picture on the television the same time length. To do this, double click on the picture placed on the video track. You can modify the properties of the selected sample, and particularly its duration.

Finally, we apply in turn to the three tracks as a video "Pan and Zoom" so that:

• The table is not too high in the picture.
• Your television is positioned in the middle of the table and on the table.
• The video is framed within the TV screen.

For example, the settings used for "Pan and Zoom" are:

For a photo of Interior

For the movie

For the TV picture

A small sound file (Nightlife, variation 1 of SmartSound ®) certainly does not hurt the credibility of your timeline.
Want to see the final result? So look ...

And here, now everybody can go on television ...

{Thanks to Loosecannon for the english fine tuning}

What others users have realised with their own images: