Importing .psd for graphic and text overlay

[sftrevor]

Hello Everyone-

I am trying to import a .psd graphic as well as text into Avid Xpress Pro and am not having any luck. I was first trying to import 16 bit files, but they were very blown out. Then I switched to 8 bit and still the text doesn’t look much like the original at all. The aim is to have some fairly transparent text that overlays the video. Any hints or tips greatly appreciated.

good day!

[Grinner Hester]

You have to invert you alpha channel when bringing in psd files. You’ll have better luck with shadows and such with png files.

[Rob]

In the Actions Palate in Photoshop, there is a folder labled “Video Actions.” The first action in that folder should be called “Alpha Channel from Visable Layers.” Apply that action.

Then save your graphic as a tiff. Make sure you DONT check the “savetransparency” checkbox in the dialogue box. This will confuse photoshop.

Then you should have a file with a perfect alpha channel. At least, this is what I do with FCP.

[jerronsmith]

>>In the Actions Palate in Photoshop, there is a folder labled “Video Actions.” The first action in that folder should be called “Alpha Channel from Visable Layers.” Apply that action.<<

The Video actions may not be loaded so you might have to load them by going to the options menu for the Actions palette and choosing Load Actions from the menu. The Video actions are located in the presets folder inside the Photoshop folder on your hard drive.

>>Then save your graphic as a tiff. Make sure you DONT check the “savetransparency” checkbox in the dialogue box. This will confuse photoshop.<<

No it won’t confuse photoshop. But it might confuse the editing program you are bringing the file into as a lot of them do not support native TIFF transparancy.

>>Then you should have a file with a perfect alpha channel. At least, this is what I do with FCP.<<

Except that as Grinner said AVID uses the reverse Alpha channel of every other video editing program around. One of the actions in the video set should say Make Alpha Channel form Visible layers (inverted). That should work for AVID.

While I believe TIFF, PSD, and PNG will all work in most editing applications. From my experience TIFF is the standard image format for most graphic uses in Video and Print.

[Grinner Hester]

no need for actions in PS. Avid will regognize alphas with the psd or png I mentioned.

PNG is it’s favorite and you can save much time and frustration by just making those. psd files are really only handy when need one layer at a time and you’d be dinking with those in After Effects anyway as Avid’s DVE still aliases graphics to this very day.

[jerronsmith]

Grinner,

I have had trouble with the way that Avid converts the native photoshop and png transparency to an alpha channel sometime. From what I have seen it doesn’t always perform the conversion properly.

[Grinner Hester]

it does with png files.

again, you’ll have to invert these alphas upon import.

[Author]

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