But along with FCP X, we got some info about FxPlug 2.0. Luckily for us, Beauty Box Video is a relatively new product written from the ground up to be 64-bit. So we’re in pretty good shape to port this over to FCP X/Motion 5. It is very possible that we’ll have a new version done by August or sooner. It may be free or there may be a small charge for the upgrade. Just depends on how much work it takes to port. But we’re optimistic that we can get something going in the very near future.

One thing to note… it looks like if you want to use third party plugins you’ll need Motion. FxPlug 2.0 works with Motion and then Final Cut links to Motion. This is my understanding at the moment, but that info may change. Look for updates here and on our Facebook page.

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We’ve been developing plugins for After Effects and Final Cut Pro for a long time and we’ve never received the response to a plugin that we have with Beauty Box Video. The Videomaker award goes next to our award from TV Technology magazine for one of the top 10 products at NAB 2010.

It’s really nice to get some recognition for putting out good After Effects and FCP plugins that really solve problems that people are having. It was definitely an early Anarchismas present! ;-) We’ve got some big plans for Beauty Box in 2011, so there’ll be no resting on our laurels. Expect to see some really cool stuff in the first quarter of next year.

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An interesting aspect to Beauty Box Video is that it’s difficult to get people to admit they are using it. A LOT of production companies have bought and loved the software but they’re a little shy about singing its praises publicly. Their actor and actress clients aren’t too keen about wanting fans to know they used software to make them (more) beautiful.

This wasn’t a problem for the subjects of Aaron’s production for the Kings. It’s a behind the scenes video of the photo shoot of the LA King’s Ice Girls calendar! Some very beautiful girls who you wouldn’t think would need much retouching.

(Click on the image above to be taken to the King’s site and see the video.)

However, no situation is perfect.

Aaron and crew were shooting a photo shoot, which was set up to be ideal for photos, not necessarily for video. Most of the footage was shot with a Canon XL H1S, but a Canon DSLR was used for interviews, and a GoPro HD camera was used for underwater shots. All these cameras produce great footage, but it’s all HD. If makeup and lighting aren’t set up for video, HD is not always kind to the talent’s skin texture. This is why Beauty Box has been so popular and why Aaron really needed it on this shoot. He was nice enough to answer a few questions about the production:

AnarchyJim: Beautiful models, professional photo shoot, makeup… you wouldn’t expect a lot of  retouching would be necessary. How did Beauty Box help you out?

Aaron Brenner: The girls looked beautiful, but the lighting conditions and overall shoot were geared toward the still photographs for the calendar. Beauty Box helped us clean up some of the shadows and skin tones as well as minor blemishes here and there. In the past, we had taken our footage, separated the highlights from the rest of the image and applied a diffusion filter to affect just the skin tones. Beauty Box cut our post-production time in half.

AnarchyJim: What were some of the challenges you ran into shooting it?

AB: Overall, we shot 8 hours worth of footage, using 3 different cameras and resolutions. The second you’re working with multiple cameras, formats and resolutions, you’re going to face challenges. Mixing 720 60p footage with 1080 60i and HDV is a huge challenge. We worked in Apple’s ProRes codec and Beauty Box didn’t slow down for any shot.

AnarchyJim: How hard was it to get good results from Beauty Box?

AB: Click. Click. Boom. Manually set the skin tone to match, or auto analyze the frame, then let her render. It’s pretty impressive. We also ran almost every shot through the 3-way color corrector built into FCP. So Beauty Box fit into our workflow nicely.

AnarchyJim: Where is the video being shown?

AB: Our finished product is shown on our telecast, on our website at lakings.com/calendar and in our arena on our brand new HD scoreboard. Overall, we are producing 15 3-minute videos. The first video is the behind-the-scenes feature you saw. The next 14 videos are profiles on each girl. Those are all currently being edited.

AnarchyJim: What other kind of work are you doing for the Kings?

AB: For the Kings, we handle everything from post-game interviews, behind the scenes features and bikini calendar photo shoots. We work around the clock to deliver up-to-the-minute Kings video to our fans on our telecast, in arena and online.

AnarchyJim: So far the Kings are doing pretty well. Any plans to ‘beautify’ the hockey players if they make it to the Stanley Cup?

AB: We don’t have any plans… yet.

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The only downside is that  our engineer now wants new business cards with ‘high lord of Photoshop’ as his title. I keep telling him to take the ‘freaking genius’ title and be satisfied.

By the way, the tech support issue that we solved is regarding our new Beauty Box Photo plugin, a fast, easy skin smoothing tool for Photoshop. There is a conflict with Apple’s ATI video card when you are running Photoshop CS5 and OS X 10.6.4. The solution to the crash is to upgrade Photoshop CS5 to version 12.0.1 and make sure Beauty Box’s ‘Use GPU’ switch is turned off.

regards -debbie

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The example above shows one before/after image with only a little skin correction needed. The example below shows a more extreme example of skin smoothing. The plugin is great for both kinds of situations because it always gives a natural look.

You can still purchase Beauty Box Photo for it’s introductory rate of $79 until July 31, 2010.

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Our first release has been our Beauty Box Video skin retouching plugin for After Effects CS5. We’re very excited about this product being ready for After Effects 64-bit use in a timely fashion. (Boxers are often not good with time management; that’s why they have managers.)

Go here to try the Beauty Box Video demo for Adobe After Effects CS5. Click here to read our line-up of CS5 contenders.

Photo by Maggie Mae Percell, www.maggiemaephoto.com, our favorite anarchist-in-training. “He coulda been a contender!”

regards -debbie

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One that I found interesting is #9.“DO make sure to separate the arms from the waist. Arms flat against the side of your subject create the illusion of a very wide waist.” Or you can always adjust for that in Photoshop ;)

There was some uproar last September about Self Magazine’s cover model, Kelly Clarkson who appeared to be much slimmer then she is in reality. What do you think of the controversy? Read about it here.

And one more tip; Jim Tierney wrote a great article about skin retouching in Photoshop, which is also important for creating great portraits after the photoshoot.

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We had two terrific models participating in the shoot, which took place at Jim’s apartment. Towards the end of the day, his fluffy cat got curious and investigated the scene. I don’t think that cats need skin retouching but maybe we will come out with a fur smoothing product.

Molotov Cupcake got a little indignant when we booted her from the ‘set’. The model got a little mock indignant when Jim proclaimed that the cutest shot all day was of the cat!

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I asked Ross about his work. He said, “My history is around AE but I’m using FCP for this. The footage is owned by me, shot on a canon 7D. It’s glamour and the model had really bad scarring on her face.”

Thanks Ross. We wish great success to your project. And continued success to our skin smoothing product, for which you can see examples here.

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Michael Maller emailed us regarding his recent purchase of Beauty Box. This is our new skin retouching software for video footage in After Effects and Final Cut Pro. Michael had some great things to say about the subtle effect that Beauty Box provides when smoothing away wrinkles, blemishes and other skin issues.

Michael didn’t realize he’d become an ‘anarchist in training’, replete with an official t-shirt, from giving the compliment. We really appreciate hearing from him (and you) because comments, questions and even complaints are what improve our products.

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Before the models arrived, Digital Anarchy spent the morning preparing the shoot area. We decided to convert the living room of our Chief Executive Anarchist, Jim Tierney, rather than renting a space. His purple velvet couch made a terrific rich backdrop and we hung black striped curtains to frame the shots. Some of the footage was shot outside; luckily the weather held. San Francisco in December can be very cold or very warm, often within the same three hour period.

Sitting in for the models before they arrive:

We shot both video footage and still photographs for the Beauty Box examples. Because of the video, we needed continuous lights. We used two 750W Lowel Totas for main and fill lights, a Lowel Pro for the hair light, and a 32″ reflector. For the photos, we added a Canon 580EX flash and used a Canon 5D. We used the Canon 5D Mark II to shoot the HD video and a Panasonic DVX100 for the SD footage.

Outside with our model, just before the SF weather turned from 70 to 60 degrees.

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