Today, we’ll learn at how to add
the double exposure effect to your videos, in Final Cut Pro.
We’ll take a look at three examples,
each one getting progressively harder.
Let’s start with the easiest one.
What you need for this effect is a shot of a dark subject,
silhouetted against a light background.
All the black in your clip will be completely transparent,
everything that’s white will be opaque,
and all the colors and shades in between will be semi transparent.
This first clip will only need a few minor adjustments
to blow out the background and darken our subject.
Add a color wheels correction,
grab the highlights exposure control
and drag it all the way up until the background is completely white.
If your pointer gets all the way to the top of the wheel,
but the background isn’t completely white,
you can just keep dragging up,
until it’s completely blown out.
Next, grab the shadows control,
and bring it all the way down until your subject is nice and dark.
Adjust the mid tone exposure
to show more or less detail around the edges.
Remember, anything that’s not black or white
will be semi transparent.
Next, grab the second clip you want to use for this effect,
and layer it directly above your first clip.
This is the easy part.
To blend these two clips into a double exposure,
select the top clip,
and in the video inspector,
from the blend mode dropdown menu, select Screen.
This blend modes makes your second clip visible through the silhouette,
for this cool, double exposure effect.
Our next clip is a bit trickier.
Because the subject in our clip is wearing a light shirt,
it would be very hard to blow out the background
without blowing out our subject with a color correction.
In cases like this, using the Lump Keyer would be a better choice.
Press Command 5 to open the effects browser,
and from the keying category,
select the Luma Keyer.
Add this effect to your clip.
In the video inspector, switch to Matte view,
and drag the black point to the right
until your subject is almost completely black.
Grab the white point,
and drag it left until the background is completely white.
Play around with these controls,
until you have just a little bit of detail left in your subject,
so just a bit of grey, which will be semi transparent.
Add your second clip above your timeline,
and in the video inspector,
change the blend mode to Screen.
If you want to leave a little bit of detail in the sky of the original clip,
select it, and in the inspector,
switch back to Composite view in your Luma Keyer tools.
Personally, I think a plain white background looks much better,
so I’ll go back to Matte view.
Whichever option you have selected,
is what your final export will look like.
Here’s my result.
Before we move onto our last example,
I want to take a minute to talk about the sponsor of this video,
Envato Elements.
Whether you need a stock clip to use as a part of your double exposure effect,
royalty free music or sound effects to make your video more engaging,
or a unique title to make your project stand out,
Envato Elements has what you’re looking for and more.
For one low monthly fee, you get unlimited access
to almost 60 million digital assets,
including stock video,
royalty free music and sound effects,
video templates,
graphic templates,
web templates,
still images and so much more.
And, with new items added every week,
their library just keep growing.
So, whether you make videos for a living,
or posting videos online is just a hobby,
you need to check out Envato Elements.
You can try it risk free for 7 days,
and if you don’t love it,
simply cancel your subscription before your trial expires
and you won’t be charged a single penny.
Trust me, a subscription to Envato Elements
WILL help YOU make better videos.
Now back to Final Cut Pro.
In our last example,
the luminance levels of our subject and the background are very similar,
so it would be nearly impossible
to separate them by adjusting exposure or using the luma keyer.
What we can do though, is isolate specific colors
and overexpose them for a white background.
Go to the color inspector,
and add a Hue/Saturation curves correction.
Scroll down to the Hue vs Luma curves,
select the eye dropper tool,
and first, use it to sample the sky in our clip.
Grab the middle control point,
and drag it all the way up to blow out the sky in this clip.
Next, use the eye dropper tool
to sample the color of the ocean in this clip.
In the Hue vs Luma curves,
you get a line that represents this color.
Click on the curve line to add another control point,
and drag it all the way up.
Adjust these control points until your blow out
as much of the background as possible.
To take care of the rest, let’s add a color wheels correction,
and bring up the highlights exposure control all the way up.
Adjust the mid tones and shadows
until you get a nice silhouette of the subject,
while retaining a little bit of detail.
Add your second clip on top of this one,
and change the blend mode to screen
for this cool double exposure effect.
If you found this video helpful,
or learned something new from it,
let me know by hitting the like button or in the comments below.
Thanks for watching,
and I’ll see you back here next week!