Blurring a specific part of the footage and other tips and tricks

Hi there,

I know how you blur your video footage as a whole (radial blur), but I was wondering if it was possible to blur just a specific part of the image. The non-blurred part would be more sharp. That way you could create a "fake" Depth Of field and the image won't be flat, something that is typical for camcorders.
Is this possible in Sony Vegas 8 pro?

Also, let's share some general tips and tricks to make your footage simply look better. Here's one that I found out:

If you lower the offset and the gain (be carefull with the gain, don't overdo it), the lightning will change in a positive way depending on the sort of light in your footage. When you put your offset and gain lower, you'll remove some strenght of the light on the sides of your image for exemple. Because of that, the shapes of your objects in the middle of your image will be more visible and sharp.


Sorry for my English, but it's not my native-language.

Thanks and regards,

-boegie

Certainly. This topic and so much more are discussed in the various issues of my newsletters.

and if you don't want to pay 120$ for a plugin? :o

Who said anything about a $120 plugin?
Edward was referring to the newsletters on his site which are free.
He won't say it but I've found them to be an excellent resource and recommend them all the time.

To answer your initial question, look up "Blurring Faces" or "Bézier Mask" in the Vegas online help menu.

BTW, I can tell you that this will not look as good as you're hoping it will.
If you want a shallow depth of field, this is one effect that is best done at the time of shooting.

Mike

Who said anything about a $120 plugin?
Edward was referring to the newsletters on his site which are free.
He won't say it but I've found them to be an excellent resource and recommend them all the time.

To answer your initial question, look up "Blurring Faces" or "Bézier Mask" in the Vegas online help menu.

BTW, I can tell you that this will not look as good as you're hoping it will.
If you want a shallow depth of field, this is one effect that is best done at the time of shooting.

Mike

Oh, my bad.

Anyway, I already found it. Duplicate the video layer in Vegas, mask the part out of the footage that should be blurred, blur it (obviously :p) and there you go.

Let me add another plug for Edward's excellent newsletters. They should be required reading for anyone new to Vegas. They explain in clear language a lot of basic operations of Vegas as well as some pretty advanced techniques. Edward knows his way around Vegas and he shares his knowledge through his newsletters and his Vegas site.

Good luck.

Dennis

Wow... I just now checked back. This wasn't a plug for Excalibur. Excalibur doesn't even have a blurring tool. Instead, I was referring to Vol 1 #12 of my newsletters which has an article titled: Blurring Faces a la “Cops”

The newsletters are free. I just didn't bother to look up which particular issue had that article. Plus there's other issues that have other masking techniques mentioned.