Complexion fixes in AE - suggestions please.

#1

Ok - so the company I work for had footage shot using a RED camera. Great! Fantastic footage and very clean. However - a few of the models have some minor complexion problems. Most of these kind of problems would never have shown up on regular footage but man in HD - 4k and 2k you can really see every microscopic detail and problem.

My problem is the following: Wrinkles, bags under the eyes, dark circles under the eyes and pimples.

Before you go there - yes I did the Andrew Kramer tutorial on blemish removal and it worked great for the pimples and most of the wrinkles. However - the bags under the eyes are ever present as are the dark circles.

I’ve downloaded a demo of the Beauty Box plug-in and it worked to some extent but still there are bags and circles. I do like the way it smoothed the skin though without compromising detail and it did reduce the bags to some degree - but I’m not sure if it is enough to merit purchasing the plug in.

If anyone knows of a solid plug-in or even a procedure in removing bags under the eyes and dark circles as well as pimples and wrinkles I could really use it and I’m sure that the client and model would be over joyed at the result if I can pull this off.

Thanks!

#2

Wow - no one knows I guess. It’s a sad sad day in HD my friends.

#3

This is certainly possible without any plugins, it’s just alot of work. I’ve done alot of cleaning up on actors faces for movies, and it usually involves creating clean plates by frame averaging 8-10 frames together (to remove all film grain from the image), painting the fixes into the new clean plate, then tracking it in. Tracking alone usually involves many tracks and manipulating that tracking data (which is why I had someone create TrackerViz. It’s basically a freely available tool that does what we used to use a bunch of proprietary scripts to do).

That’s all very time consuming and labor intensive. Some shots of cleaning up someones face could take over a week. Sometimes one clean frame wouldn’t be enough, and I would make many, then fade them on and off at different points throughout the shot. It can easily get very complex.

I wish I could show you, give a demo of it, but its alot of work, there’s no way around it. Mocha might be able to help with the tracks, though. If something I said isn’t clear, I’d be happy to explain further. :slight_smile:

#4

Wasn’t this one of the key issues when HD was first introduced? It sounds like you’re going to waste a lot of money in post, trying to fix a problem which should have been solved on set.

Do you have a makeup department? If not, now’s the time to look into it!

#5

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