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After Effects Lens Flare with Transparent Background

Posted At : June 9, 2008 7:33 PM | Posted By : Damon Ledet
Related Categories: Adobe, Questions, Tutorial

Question from a student I had in my After Effects training class in Hartford, Connecticut:
"Hey Damon,
You showed me how to get a lens flare with nothing else (no backgrounds/alpha keyed) on the screen using a luma matte...I think! Do you remember the actions necessary to produce such an effect? I keep ending up with a black lens flare! Help!
Thanks again,
Bryan"

Duplicating the solid with the lens flare and using the top one as a track matte can accomplish this. Here are the steps; you can download an example of this as well.

Step one: Create a solid and add the lens Flare filter to it, get the lens flare just how you would like it and duplicate the solid.
Step two: on the top solid added the Hue/Saturation filter and take the master saturation down to -100, Also add the Levels filter and slide the white point slider till it just touches the beginning of the levels histogram.
Step three: Set the bottom solid to use the top solid as a track matte (Luma Matte)

That's it transparent lens flare.

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Damon Ledet's Gravatar Another option I just thought of is you can set the solid with the Lens Flare's composite mode to screen, you would only need one lens flare layer but could not render out with an Alpha. Of course to see this work you would need to put a layer under the solid.
# Posted By Damon Ledet | 6/9/08 7:47 PM
Darby Edelen's Gravatar Here's an alternative method using the 'Set Matte' effect. There are also free 3rd party effects out there to accomplish the same thing in one step (Unmult, Xmult).

To use the Set Matte effect you need to first pre-compose your lens flare on the black solid layer and move all attributes to the new pre-comp.

Then apply the Set Matte effect to the pre-comp in your main comp and change the "Use For Matte" property to luminance or lightness.

Then change the pre-comp's blend mode to "Luminescent Premul." This should give you a lens flare that is identical to the original flare, only with alpha.
# Posted By Darby Edelen | 8/7/08 2:54 PM
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