Gradient (non-radial) focus plug in for Final Cut Pro?

Hello FCPers,

I'm looking for a plug-in/filter for FCP that will mimic the gradient focus you would get from a shift-tilt lens. That is, one that would allow me to put, say, the left side of the screen out of focus then smoothly end up in focus where my subject is on the right side of the screen. And we hopefully would be able to control the amount of blur and the distance over which the gradient focus happens, of course.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Brad

Magic Bullet Looks has a tool that does a wonderful job of this.

[www.redgiantsoftware.com]

-Vance

You could also do it in Motion or Color, if you didn't want to buy anything.

Actually, I wonder if you could do this with the standard FCP set. Try this

1. Double up the clip on itself by selecting it with one click, holding option and shift and dragging up one layer.
2. Add gaussian blur to suit to the top layer
3. Add a four point garbage matte to the top layer. Adjust the position of 2 and 3 to be half the screen (or wherever you want the blur edge to be)
4. Feather the matte to reveal the clean picture underneath.

I just tried this and it worked pretty well, but in the end I added a second copy underneath the first copy which had choked but not feathered edges to clean up the left hand side of the picture.

Here is a screenshot of the gradiation from blurred to clean.

nice, Jude!
for a all-in-one solution Joe's filters has Soft gradient, and soft-spot filters.

[www.joesfilters.com]


nick

I think Bradley is looking for a focus plugin driven by a depth map gradient that you could hand create. I am not absolutely sure but I think there is a Foundy Tinderbox plug that will do that although it would have to be applied in Shake or After Effects. Tinderbox 2 has something called "T_BlurMasked" that you could look at. The same package contains "T_LensBlur" which does a great job simulating what real defocuses look like instead of just blur filters. Perhaps the two filters can be combined.

[www.thefoundry.co.uk]

Just some options.

Thanks ... looks like I have a few ideas to kick around and some software to look it!

Appreciate the time for the great answers ...

Bradley

Hello Vance,

Thanks for the idea. Red Giant seems to have quite of few offerings. Any idea which package I should be looking at?

Thanks,
Bradley

The shift/tilt tool is part of the "Looks" suite. I don't see any specific reference to that feature on their web page, however. The Looks package is used as a plugin in FCP. When you click on the editor icon in the viewer it launches a complete UI overtop of Final Cut. It is a pretty extensive package, you will need to view a tutorial to follow how it works.

-V

OK -- thanks, Vance. Appreciate it.
Bradley