One of our most popular instructors, Victor Perez, is back with the first of a two part course that he’s been working on for fxphd.  It looks at the key tools that are the building blocks for managing color and creating a photoreal composite. Perez provides a detailed foundation of nodes such as Grade, ColorLookUp, secondary operators (brightness, contrast, saturation), as well as valuable tips for using the Viewer and Pixel Analyzer.

For a class by class rundown of what he’ll be covering in the course, be sure to visit the course information page for full details.

The goal of the visual effects compositor is photorealism, using the art of compositing layers of images to look coherent using the physics of light at the service of storytelling. The art of compositing consists of merging two or more images making them look like they have been shot at the same time with the same camera and lenses, under the same lighting conditions.

Applying the physics of light in a photo-realistic environment could not always be artistically synthesized in simple formulas or fixed structures due to the complexity of the light phenomena. However, understanding the journey a ray of light has taken from its source to get to the screen could lead to a more scientific analysis of the image composition process to replicate and emulate the qualities and artifacts of light as the eye perceives it, interpreted by the lens of the camera.