How to gradually dim up and dim down a spotlight?

[nickky007]

How to gradually dim up and dim down a spotlight within a clip?
How to gradually turn on/off "Lighting Effects" within a clip?

Hi all -- just joined the site after hearing about it on the Adobe forum, and will appreciate all of your help and direction!
(Borrowed these greetings from thread "Motion Tracking Feature? Trying to highlight a football" here in this forum, but I am not so lucky to have a unique object like a football for automated motion tracking.)

My current problem is to highlight a dancing couple in a crowd of dancers:
a) get some lighting equipment ready for service ~ drag/drop the "Lighting Effects" effect to the clip.
b) sometime within the clip and in addition to the normal light of the ballroom, i.e. normal brightness of the clip, switch on the spotlight
c) sometime later switch off the spotlight effect parameters, but keep the effect ready for the next highlighting in the same clip.
d) Would prefer to keep the clip as it is, not to have to cut it into numerous sub-clips!

I tried to do it with the "Lighting Effects" effect. But I cannot find how to adjust the effect's internal parameters so that I could simulate dimming up and dimming down a spotlight lamp starting with the normally lighted ballroom and ending with the normally lighted ballroom within the clip.
I do not succeed to adjust the Lighting Effects parameters so that the effect effectively _starts_ turned off to fade in from 'zero' and to fade out to 'zero', where 'zero' means like turning the effect temporarily off as it would be in its preview by clicking on the eye icon next to the effect. As soon as I drag that effect onto the clip it changes the brightness of the clip and does not allow me to fade-in the effect from the normal brightness of the clip.

How can I disable the Lightening Effect by adjusting its internal parameters in order to get a gentle fade_in/fade_out?
Or must I use a different effect? Which one? How?

Please help! Thanks in advance!

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Nickky,
Welcome to Muvipix

Probably a semi transparent graphic/title (just a square or oval around the couple dancing that you want to highlight) and a track matte effect.
How much do you know about keyframing? Would you say you are a beginner or intermediate with Premiere Elements?

Also a couple other options that would probably work, Lens Flare with correct adjustments, spot light, probably others as well.
I'm sure you will get other suggestions along the way here.

The settings for the various effects are available in the Clip Properties, right click on the clip and select Properties, that will open the clip properties window and allow you to adjust the various effects.

Have you checked out our free basic training tutorials yet?

[nickky007]

Hi Chuck,

thanks for your quick response and welcome to the forum.
Excuse me, I tried to do my best to describe my problem, but English is not my first language.
I am fairly new to Premiere Elements though I am very familiar of non re-encoding processing of SD and HD European DVB-S and DVB-S2 Satellite (Free TV) transmissions of shows and opera events using mostly freeware programs to transform, cut and trim the recorded TS streams without re-encoding and to end up with menu-authored AVCHD and DVD discs (for private use) or harddisk structures or mp4 files for my Cowon O2 and iPhone.
I consider myself a beginner regarding Pre9 and using Pre9 effects. I did not study your courses yet though I have registered to do this within the next 2 months. I hoped, with a little help about the spotlight effect I could finish my urgent little clip first and than have time to do the studies.
I already read Adobe's Help PDF and watched a video training from Lynda's. I am familiar with Photoshop processing of still images and I have done already some easier project with keyframed effects in Pre9.

To post my question here using the correct terms of the en_US version of Premiere Elements 9 I downloaded that version of Adobe's Help PDF. There I found that the effect which would perfectly suit my needs if I would learn how to fade it in from transparent/neutral and fade it out to transparent/neutral is correctly called "Lighting Effects" in Pre9. When I started to prepare it I found that it contains up to 5 different lamps - spotlight is one of them - which can be turned on or off, but it cannot simply be set to a transparent/neutral position!
I hoped to get some advice here how the internal parameters need to be set to switch the effect to 'zero' impact (neutral /transparent) to start and end its usage in the clip just like you switch on a camera light.
All other effects which I used with keyframed fades have a "neutral" setting that can be used to start it at a keyframe within the clip from transparent/neutral 'zero' impact and from there turn it up to the required impact at the next keyframe and later fade it out from the next keyframe back to neutral/transparent 'zero'.
The Lighting Effects are covered in "premiereelements_9_help.pdf" (Last updated 11/22/2010), page 168 with just three lines.
I would be glad if you or Steve Grisetti or some other experienced forum member could tell me more about how to fade-in/out the Lighting Effects, or confirm that this is not possible and give me some advice with what other 'simple' effect I can simulate switching on and off a virtual camera headlight.
Like this: (| ... keyframe)
<clip start-----|<fade-in spotlight>|<--- spotlight brightens subjects--->|<fade-out>|-------clip cntinues--->

Regards,
nickky007

[momoffduty]

Welcome Nickky to Muvipix! An option is to have the same clip on track 1 and on track 2. The clip on track 2 would have the light effect. You could then fade in and out track 2 by keyframing its opacity.

[nickky007]

Welcome Nickky to Muvipix! An option is to have the same clip on track 1 and on track 2. The clip on track 2 would have the light effect. You could then fade in and out track 2 by keyframing its opacity.

Thanks for this advice. Sounds very interesting. But also a bit complicated.

I just found the following on the *** Cool Tricks*** page

Cool Trick #29 - Highlight a Person in a Crowd
"Okay, so you've got some great video of the entire varsity football team on the field. But there's one player in particular you'd like to highlight.
You can spotlight him, as we do in Cool Trick 2, Spotlight an Area in Your Video.

Yes, that is exactly what I am up for. But it should not burst in but fade-in/out.

Or, using the Track Matte, you can create an effect that dims everything but the person you want to highlight in the shot.

I do not want to 'dim everything' but I prefer to highlight the subject.

Is there any hope that 'Cool Trick 2, Spotlight an Area in Your Video' can be done with a fade-in/out? How?

[Dave McElderry]

Nickky007 wrote:

I do not want to 'dim everything but '. I prefer to highlight the subject

You've mentioned this a couple of times and it may be the heart of your struggle. Normally highlighting is done by reducing the brightness of everythinig that surrounds the subject. That way the subject is the proper brightness and looks "normal." If you leave the background at normal brightness and then highlight the subject, the subject will be overly bright and look washed out. Chuck's semi-transparent graphic idea was based on this.

[Bob]

The lighting effect is a little tricky. You'll need to keyframe two properties -- the spotlight intensity, and the ambience intensity.

I'd start by adjusting the spotlight to look right when it's on. Write down the settings for use later. These are the on values. Then, set the intensity of the light to 0 and adjust the ambience intensity until the clip looks like it did before the effect was applied. These are the off values. Write those down too. Create a keyframe at the beginning of the clip with the properties set to the off values. When you want to turn the light on, place a keyframe where you want the light to start to turn on and then move to where you want it fully on. Set the properties to the on values and create a keyframe. When you want to turn it off. Create a key frame where you want the light to start to go off and then move to where you want the light completely off. Set the properties to the off values and create a keyframe. Repeat as desired.

[nickky007]

To avoid double posting I deleted a posting in the "I need a "spotlight" plugin for subjects in PE" thread in the "Prior Versions" forum and quote it into here for further discussion:

...But I'm not really clear what you're looking for, Nickky. What kind of effect are you trying to create? Have you tried applying the Lighting Effects effect on your video and working with its settings in the Properties panel?...

Yes. Can't get the settings right!
I have (1) and want to fade-in to and finally get (1)+(2) (see lower right corner of the attached screenshot medley) and some seconds later fade-out back to (1). Does the screenshot medley help to clarify my problem?J

Just ordered your 2 books "Cool Tricks & Hot Tips for Adobe Premiere Elements" and "The Muvipix dot com Guide to Adobe Premiere Elements 9 (color version)" at my at Amazon dot com.

[nickky007]

Last night I happened to record a TV docu where the effect which I am looking for was used.

... Yes, you should be able to spotlight somebody and then dissolve the spotlight so that you're back into uneffected video, if that's what you're trying to do.

Well, I read this in the books. I may be true for most effects. But it is not true with the "Lighting Effects".
As I repeatedly wrote and as my screenshot medley shows, I am _not_ able to set that effect to a neutral/transparent 'zero' level and, furthermore, that effect darkens the original frames, which I do not want.
The reason for my postings are to get some help to find a simple "one-click" spotlight effect for an obviously very simple intention, a spotlight effect that can be used as it is written in the books and docus.

[nickky007]

Nickky007 wrote:

I do not want to 'dim everything but '. I prefer to highlight the subject

You've mentioned this a couple of times and it may be the heart of your struggle...

Yes, that is what I am up for!

The lighting effect is a little tricky. You'll need to keyframe two properties -- the spotlight intensity, and the ambience intensity.

I'd start by adjusting the spotlight to look right when it's on. Write down the settings for use later. These are the on values. Then, set the intensity of the light to 0 and adjust the ambience intensity until the clip looks like it did before the effect was applied. These are the off values. Write those down too. ...

Thanks for this advice. Exactly that is what I tried myself before asking for help here.

>>> But I do not succeed to find neutral 'zero' off values.
>>> Unlike other effects the "Lighting Effects" effect does not have a slider to slide from "off" to "on". At least I did not find one! <<<

Maybe someone can show me please how to find and set such an "off value" in the "Lightings Effects" effect (in such understandable workflow steps as you, Bob, described your advice), or point me to another simpler "one-click and slide on/off" spotlight effect.

Thanks!

[RJ Johnston]

On that Lighting effect, setting the Ambience Intensity to 50 will keep the rest of the area unchanged.

For Light 1, I would set Focus to 100.

When the Intensity value is zero, then the light is off. Any value from 1 to 100 makes the light come on. The higher the value, the brighter the light.

[Chuck Engels]

I replied in the wrong thread, sorry. Here is what I found;
It is generally called Highlighting, rather than spotlight. That is probably why your search didn't turn up anything Nickky.
Here are a few topics that might help you, but learning to keyframe is going to be a big part of it no matter what.
There may be other ways in other programs but in Premiere Elements it is using the timeline with multiple tracks and keyframing.
viewtopic.php?p=8131#p8131
viewtopic.php?p=36821#p36821
viewtopic.php?p=77282#p77282

The way to make this effect look the best and have the most control is to use a matte and place the effect on the matte rather than on your clip. Then you will control the effect from the Matte which will only effect the portion of the clip that the matte covers, just s single person, or a very small circle or oval. This is not the most difficult of tasks but it is more of an intermediate level effect. Learning how to use a matte, keyframing, multiple tracks, timeline functions, and changing effect properties are necessary if you are going to do very much with Premiere Elements.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Albeit for a slightly different effect, there are some detailed instructions here that may help you achieve the results that you seek.

http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/s ... hp?t=61852

[nickky007]

Hi,
Thanks to all! Thanks to your kind help and valuable advice I accomplished my first PrE edited DVD!
My first project is almost complete! I managed to 'highlight/spotlight' my subjects throughout the scene, apply other effects and transition, do some modest audio editing, create nice intro, closing and chapter overlays using audience wake up jingles and chapter intro-titles, etc.
Well, I didn't try to create Lawrence of Arabia with my first project. But it felt like doing it. Spent many hours reading Steve's books and following your links in the forums and and many more hours of keyframeing. Thanks to your guidance I guess I have learned a lot and feel ready now for forthcoming projects.
Finally I did the project using RJ Johnston's advice and using the Lighting effect with his suggested settings. With the knowledge of these settings and with some practice in keyframeing it was pretty simple! Again, thank you all!

On the other hand my list of "still need to learn - pending questions" piled up quicker than my modest knowledge. Please forgive me when I will keep asking for further help.

The list of new questions and need-to-know challenges is growing with whatever I intend to accomplish. It already comprises some dozend questions.
It starts with
1) "Why can't I get the project profile to completely match my input and output needs?
Project Properties := Input footage properties
Project Properties := Output footage properties
(The PrE option panes simply do not include all needed properties)"

2) How can I extract some seconds (or minutes) out of a clip's effects-audio track, save it to a wav-file and re-insert the same audio portion after editing (in an external audio editor, e.g. Cool Edit/Adobe Audition) from the edited wav-file?

3) Why does the zoom-to-timeline shortcut “\” not work in my localized (German) PrE version though it is confirmed in its help-file that it should work?

4) Why does PrE re-encode its previously re-encoded m2t file as often as I use it to experiment with different menu themes? To re-encode the menu part is obviously necessary. But it only takes some minutes whereas the superfluous re-encoding of the unchanged timeline content takes many, many hours! (With the freeware software multiAVCHD I get a new BDMV folder with a new menu within the 2 or 3 minutes it takes to make the new menu m2ts plus the 5-7 minutes it takes to copy the 6 to 8 GiB of content m2ts! And I can verify the result with a software player on the computer before starting the rather long BD burning session!)

5) Why does PrE not allow to output BD-content to a folder? (It surely, does it in the background before finally burning the temporary BDMV folder to BD. But it does not start its endless re-encoding orgy before having the BD in the BD-burner. To make it perfect, my BD burner broke just when I was ready for the first test run. My PS3 and my standalone BD-player happily accept and nicely play AVCHD content burnt on BD5 and BD9 (DVD+R SL and DL discs). PrE even does not include an option to share in that way!)"

And there is much more!

Please note, there are further handicaps: When I get stuck with a new problem, then I never know whether it is because I am too differently abled to do it right, or I work with a localized (translated) PrE version, or I should have used a different strategy,… and whether it may sum up to a better be a help request, a feature request or an error report. I only know for sure, that I need some more learning from my side and help from those who know how it should be done.

Well, how should I proceed? Should I open a thread for each individual item, starting with the top three open questions, or should I open a new thread for all the items? Or should I retire and try to find another playground?

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Nikky,
It might be best to open each item as a separate topic, items 1, 2 and 3.
As for items 4 and 5 those are good questions for Adobe and if you get any answers from them we would surely like to hear them too

I am not sure about your questions 1 and 3 but number 2 is fairly easy. We have a tutorial on using the Work Area Bar, watching that will help you with this. We can go into more detail when you start the new topic.