The most time-consuming part of the video for me was was touching up the footage and creating the lightsaber effect. Of course, this kind of work has become fairly simple to do with the right video software. But without it, it can be a logistical nightmare. And, having only Photoshop at my disposal when I edited the video, it took me about two weeks, working day and night to do everything the “wrong way” one frame at a time. Yes, I know that all the real video guys out there are cringing at the very thought. But you do what you gotta do.
Armed And Dangerous
Before adding the effects, I first had to remove people in the background of some of our shots
And I also had to remove other distractions such as planes that flew through our sky shots
And I also had to replace moving objects for still ones like the chip bag that kept blowing away
There were probably between 1200 and 1400 frames of lightsaber footage to retouch alone
First I drew paths over the toy lightsbaber blade (which was on loan from my youngest son)
Then I created a new layer, filled the shape with a suitable blue and blurred it
Then I set this layer to “color” mode to add a blue “cast” around the area of the blade
Then I created a slightly smaller blue shape on its own layer, filled it with blue and blurred it
Then I created an even smaller shape, filled it with white and blurred it to complete the effect
By Richard Jacobson
To look through my online portfolio and see some of my actual
graphic design work, please check out my website.
