Mask That Color!

Today I'm going to be talking about how to execute the color masking effect in Sony Vegas 8.0. This effect is incredibly useful if you need to insert or change specific colors in video, photography, or drawing. This is another effect that I have seen being hidden across the RuneScape video making community, which is another reason why I am going to be exposing it to everyone as well. So, lets begin, shall we?

This effect applies to both in-game and real life post production:
The nice thing about color masking is that is takes very little time to do. To start off, you're going to need some kind of footage to put into the track. It can be RuneScape, or real life. To explain in this tutorial, I'm going to use RuneScape. You do the exact same steps to color mask for real life footage, so don't feel like you're missing out!

Footage in Sony Vegas, not yet color masked.

 Next, you want to apply to Color Corrector Secondary effect to the footage. Now, you will see that the Color Corrector Secondary has two levels to it. The top level color corrects the footage very straightforwardly. The bottom level is far more complex. The bottom level is the level we're going to use to color mask. You will see a line of text in this level that says, "Select effect range" with an eye dropper directly to the right of it.

The select effect eye dropper button that allows you to pick what colors will be masked.

This will allow you to select what colors are going to be masked within the footage. Next, we're going to check the show mask box. This will immediately make your footage appear like this in the preview screen.

The footage in the preview screen once "Show mask" has been selected

Next! To get rid of that blackness, you'll see a section named "Limit luminance" that has the bars "Low" and "High" extended. Move both bars to 0.0. Next you'll see a section named "Limit saturation" that has the bars "Low" and "High" as well. Turn those to 0.0. The only section that you have left is "Limit hue." Don't do anything to "Limit hue" yet.

The Color Corrector Secondary menu so far in this tutorial. *Note* Your "Center" bar in the "Limit hue" section of this menu may be different from the picture, depending on the color you're choosing to mask.

 Now comes the tricky part. You need to mess around with the "Center" bar and the "Width" bar until you see the shape of what you're trying to mask is highlighted. For me, I'm masking the tree's color from a dark brown and green, to fully green. In order to do this, you need to move your "Chrominance" to the color you wish to be replacing the old color. After you've tinkered with the settings on the "Limit hue" and selected the color you want, you will need to deselect the "Show mask" button, and voila, you're done! Congratulations, you have officially color masked.

The finished product, with some minor errors on the archers outfit.

 

As you can see, there are small errors, and part of the scene around it is color corrected as well. This is partly because I did this very quickly, and also because I didn't tinker around the width and other settings as well. It helps to use all of the tools in the Color Corrector Secondary menu to your advantage, as well as to take your time! It never hurts to experiment when it comes to this. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Have a good one!