Spot light in Adobe Premiere

[Philip Darling]

Can anyone advise me how to create the following effect?

The majority of the screen is darkened leaving only a circle at the original brightness. This directs attention to the part of the screen you wish people to take notice of.

I have been told it is called spotlight.

I am using Adobe Premiere 5.1

[tom hardwick]

You can make a vignette this way.

Go to your timeline and in a black section go File, Export, Frame. You'll
end up with a black "still". If you open up Photoshop you can import this
"still frame" of blackness.

You select a colour for your vignette at the edges of the frame - a pale
yellow looks suitably old fashioned. Then with the spray gun selected and a
big blurry edged brush (I suggest a figure of 100) you literally spray paint
around the edges of the black frame.

You should now have a black rectangle with a yellowish border that randomly
intrudes into the black and breaks the hard edge. Save this file.

Back into Premiere and pull this "still frame" to the time line, putting it
on video track 3 or above. Stretch it to cover the footage you want
vignetted.

Right click on this stretched out frame and go Video, Transparency. From
the selections pick Luminance. OK the box to dismiss it.

Render a small portion (a couple of seconds will do) and see if the amount
of vignetting and the colour of the vignette is to your liking.

In the transparency settings you could also select Screen, and this will
change the dissolve
into the vignette slightly. Choose the one you like the best.

tom.

[SIFI]

I may be misreading something but I don't think the vignette will achieve the desired effect. The vignette will give lighter edges to a dark centre. The requirement was a lighter highlighted circle at some point on the screen to achieve a spotlight effect.

I would do this in a similar way to previously mentioned. Open a black screen in photoshop and select the lassoo tool. Select from the options 'ellipse' and the shape you can now create on the black background will be correct. You can also select soft edges which will add a soft blend between the black and white as opposed to a harsh border. Simply set the pixels and experiment until you have what you think is the right. Make sure the background colour is white and that your circle is correctly positioned.

From the top menu bar press SELECT > INVERSE then go to EDIT > CUT. You should now have your white circle on a black background.

Now import the image into premiere and place it on video 2 or above over the clip you want highlighted. Select transparency and key out the white area of the clip. This should leave the video showing through the circle and the the opaque black surround. Adjust the black background by using the rubber band for opacity until you have the desired effect.

The easiest way however is if your editing software has a region filter where this effect can be made very easily without the use of photoshop.

Hope this helps

SIFI

[This message has been edited by SIFI (edited 01 January 2002).]

[Mad_mardy]

there is a photoshop filter (built into 5.5 onwards)which will do this called lighting effects and it will work in prem 5 and 6