2017

Table Of Contents
(a) PickersColour analysis is done in the area inside the pickers.
The area that each picker affects extends halfway towards the two adjacent mask vertices, and up to the two
softness borders, as shown in the following example.
(a) Borders of area of pickers' influence.
Using pickers, you can key objects that otherwise would be extremely difficult to key. Imagine a golden
horse with a very fine mane on an unfocused background of various colours. As long as you have some
chroma/luma differences in the background (green vegetation, blue sky, black earth or rocks), you can 'force'
the outside pickers to sample these colour values. The inside pickers can sample the golden average values,
and the Tracer can generate a soft-edged matte based on the difference between the two sets of values.
Pickers can be selected and manipulated independently of the vertices they are associated with. See
Selecting
Pickers and Softness Vertices
(page 753).
Mixing Advanced Gradient and Pickers
When the subject has a mixture of fine, wispy edges and hard, clean edges, use a mix of localized keys and
advanced gradients. Pickers are better for the fine edge areas and advanced gradient is sometimes better for
the hard edge areas. You can set the state of each vertex to advanced gradient (pickers off) or localized key
(pickers on) mode.
To convert a section of a mask from advanced gradient to pickers, select one or more vertices with no
pickers and enable the Picker button. Adjust the pickers as needed.
768 | Chapter 18 Masking and Rotoscoping