Using the Diamond Keyer of Combustion 4 to change a selected color

Ayman Abdel-Basset
Cairo, Egypt

© 2005 Ayman Abdel-Basset and Creativecow.net. All rights are reserved.

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In this tutorial, Ayman Abdel-Basset demonstrates how to use the new Diamond Keyer in Autodesk Combustion 4 along with Combustion's Color Correction operator to change selected color of the footage.

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WI have created this tutorial to answer some of the questions that have been appearing on the Combustion forum regarding keying and color correction in C4. I hope you find this quick exploration helpful.

Let’s begin...

Right-click and save the image below to your desktop. (Mac users can ctrl-click to the dialog window that allows you to save to your desktop.)




1. Open this image into a new workspace in Combustion 4.

2. Apply operator DIAMOND KEYER from the keyer category of operators.

3. Key the yellow color of the tiger's fur.

Click on the graphic above to see larger image.

4. Go to output menu in the Diamond Keyer as seen in figure below and change KEY to SELECTION.

Now you've converted the color selected to the selection area in which the next operator will be applied to this area of the image only.

5. Go to the SELECTIONS menu of operators and apply FEATHER SELECTION to add some softness to the area that you have selected. (thanks to Gray M. Davis for the reminder on this technbique which is useful for making the result more lifelike -- well if blue tigers are lifelike!)

6. Apply color correction operator and tweak the color wheel to the new color you want. (In our example seen below, we've changed the tiger to blue.)


Click on the graphic above to see larger image.

There you have it, a blue tiger -- perhaps the rare Siberian tiger, caught in a Siberian winter.

This tutorial is intended to give you a quick look to get you started and you may wish to explore some of the other settings and parameters in the related menus we just looked at. If you do go exploring, don't forget to activate the entire image area in case you want to apply more effects because the only selected area active now is the tiger. You can deselect the selected area by going to the SELECTIONS menu of operators where you can apply REMOVE SELECTION.

Editor's Note: Thanks to Gary , George, Michael, Brian and Met for their questions and suggestions that have been used in this tutorial.

Questions? or comments? Please post them in the Combustion forum at Creativecow.net.