AV News Magazine | Page 9

AV News 194 - November 2013 · · · · In your 'objects panel' you will now see a new object, a 'Mask Container' and underneath that a 'Mask (Rectangle)'. On screen the mask will appear as a grey checker-board centre square with soft edges, revealing your underlying image around it. Let's make the mask shape a bit more rectangular. Select the 'Mask (Rectangle)' and while holding down the shift key, use the bounding box handles of the mask to pull the sides in a bit. Precision is not required, you can always come back and fiddle with the size later. Now add your second image. To do this make sure that the 'Mask Container' is selected by clicking on it in the Objects Panel, to give the words a blue background. Go to your 'Add image' icon (top left) and chose your image to add. Your second image is now pasted onto the mask, like the design on the Venetian Mask. This new object will also have been added inside the 'Mask Container'. You will probably want to adjust things to make the effect as you want. There is every chance of getting in a mess here, so I find it very useful to think of what I'm trying to do in terms of the Venetian mask. To change the position/size of the image on the mask, make sure that the image name is selected in the 'Objects panel' and then adjust as normal. To change the shape/size of the mask, make sure that it is selected in the 'Objects Panel'. To move/size the whole mask container (think of our physical Venetian mask) select the 'Mask Container' and adjust that. This example uses some 3D transformation as well on the mask container. Another thing you might want to adjust is the 'blurriness' of the edges of the mask. That was set when we originally created the mask. To return to that original dialogue box, select 'Mask(Rectangle)', then the 'Properties' tab. You should see a 'Mask' file name box and by clicking on the 'open folder' button, you will return to the mask creation dialogue. In that dialogue, try changing, for example, the width of the blur. As with all these things, at first it seems a nightmare, if you got lost, just click on the 'Mask Container' name in the 'Objects panel' and press DELETE and start again. However, if you try it out a few times, it will gradually get more familiar and can become a quick way of blending a second image to a slide. I said in the first article that I hoped to get round to adding text and control buttons this time. It looks like we have run out of space, so, I'm afraid that you will have to wait until the next article for those aspects. Page 7