Hello,

I'm trying to lay some red text over some black and white video - the red does not look good (to say the least!)> I did some research and discovered that this is a common problem - that red won't look good as text, and especially over black. I was forced to turn the text white in order to get ready for a screening, but I'd prefer to have it be red. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can achieve my goal?

Thanks!

Stephen

By the way, I'm using the text function in FCP - not boris, not livetype...

thanks again
SA

[www.lafcpug.org]



www.strypesinpost.com

As a rule, red on black usually looks like a$$. In print production, when you lay red text on top of black it 'vibrates' and makes it a little hard to read, especially if you choose a small type size. In video your eyes still see the vibration and you also see the nasty jaggies that often accompany red-colored type. You can try to mitigate it by using a sans-serif typeface in a very LARGE type size. However, the problem I've run into is that the most common compression codecs (H.264, MPEG-2) are not kind to red text, especially the brightest red (R=100, G=0, B=0). I tried eight ways to sunday to get a line of red text on black to reproduce properly for a web video and the only solutions were to A) make it a darker (less rich) red, or B) use another color.

HTH,

JK

_______________________________________
SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

Quote

As a rule, red on black usually looks like a$$.

As a "rule"? No...I disagree...that's not in my rules That is a major generalization. There are shades of red. Not all codecs look like "a$$".

With DV, yes that is well documented. ProRes...looks fine...and most major Broadcast Networks take ProRes these days. That is my delivery format of choice. Even if a client asks or something else, I suggest ProRes and back it up with some samples and they almost always take it.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.