Introduction
Familiar with this? How much time do you spend retouching photos? Minutes? Hours? Maybe even days? And what about videos?
It’s time to meet the video retouching plugin “Dodge&Burn OFX“.
The plugin is designed for Davinci Resolve, Sony Vegas, and other OFX-compatible video editors.
One-Click Video Retouching
To apply the plugin, create a project and place your footage on the video editor’s timeline.
To use the plugin, drag it from the “Library” window onto the node of your footage in the “Nodes” window, and the retouching will happen automatically with just one click!
That Was Quick, Right? One-click retouching is fantastic, but what if the plugin affects areas it shouldn’t have?
Working with Masks
You might notice that the girl’s hairstyle also got smoothed in our example, which looks unprofessional. Let’s fix that!
Click on the node number to disable its display with the plugin for better performance.
Switch to the “Mask” window and create a mask. In our case, we’ll use a circle since we want the plugin to affect only the face.
Next, switch to the “Tracker” tab to ensure the mask follows the object, and click “Track Forward and Reverse“.
If the mask doesn’t fit the desired size, you can edit it and click “Tracking” again.
Don’t forget to re-enable the plugin node!
Done! Now the plugin processes only the face.
Using Node Cache
Don’t forget to use “Node Cache“, this feature will make your life much easier.
If we press the playback button, the result may not be very impressive, as the plugin is resource-intensive for the GPU. Under these conditions, normal viewing and playback are not possible, so let’s fix this!
Click on the “Playback” menu. In the dropdown list, select “Render Cache” and set it to “User“.
Now, let’s set the parameters for the node. Right-click on the node with the plugin, select the “Node Cache” menu item, and switch it to “On“.
The node number will turn red, and a render bar will appear above the node’s footage. Once the bar fills up with blue, the footage is ready to work with, and playback will be smooth without any delays.
To continue working on the footage, create another node and proceed with your work there. This way, playback won’t be affected.
Fusion Mode
If using the plugin is demanding for your computer, you can operate separately with the retouching layer using Fusion mode.
To do this, right-click in the node area and select “Add tool” -> “Retouch4me OFX” -> “Retouch4me Dodge Burn OFX“.
Now, add a “Merge” node from the top panel.
Our goal is to divide the input image into two nodes, “Retouch4me Dodge Burn OFX” and “Merge“. Then, connect the image output from the plugin to the “Merge” node, and from “Merge“, connect it to the output image.
In the plugin properties, find and check the “Softlight layer” checkbox.
Press “1” on the keyboard or click the left button on the node to display its image in the left zone, while the right zone shows the output image.
Now, go to the properties of the “Merge” node and set “Apply mode” -> “Soft Light“.
Done! Now you can adjust the intensity of the plugin without putting serious strain on your computer.