Fusion: Rebuilding beauty pass does not match

[Morne]

Hi all

So I'm rebuilding my beauty pass from my separate channels and using the merge to add them together.
I'm working Linear and in float so I also have my LUT enabled and set gamma 2.2 so I can see what I'm doing.

So there doesnt seem to be an "ADD" mode in the merge, so I'm using "SCREEN" mode. Is that the correct one to use?

So what I'm doing is adding (screen-ing) all these together with merge nodes
GI
Lighting
Reflection
Refraction
Specular

I then compare that to my Beauty and it's pretty close, but when I do an A/B compare I can see they don't match 100%. It's about a 97% match

The same thing in Photoshop works just fine with the layer blending mode set to Linear Dodge-ADD
Also tried Natron and in there it also works just fine with the merge nodes set to Plus.

So what am I doing wrong in Fusion? Only thing I can think of is the SCREEN mode is not the correct merge...

[val2]

Use Channelboolean and select ADD from Operation

cheers

[chriserskine]

I'm interested in this too.

would nice to see a screen shot of this setup working.

[val2]

Here is a screen grab, Channelboolean is in the tools/color folder

[chriserskine]

thanks, i haven't used them like that before.

[jacksc02]

This is a good guide to use -
http://www.compositing.ru/Research/M...ssCompositing/

[chriserskine]

thanks for sharing that link.

looks very useful.

[jacksc02]

Are there any pre made Fusion files around for this?
I can never quite get it to match the beauty.....

[Morne]

Use Channelboolean and select ADD from Operation

cheers

Cool thanks this works much better
I now get a 100% match

So the merge is also suppose to work as in the link Chris posted. Thanks for that. Will try those merge settings for the next one!

[mitviz]

is it somehow better to use fusion than photoshop?

[Morne]

is it somehow better to use fusion than photoshop?

It's a million times better.
In photoshop you loose about 80% of the program's functionality when working in 32bit. That defeats the purpose of working linear in the 1st place. For example you can't add curves, half the layer blending modes are unavailable, lens corrections etc etc etc.

In Fusion you can do anything you like to your 32bit images and the color correction tools are actually a LOT better and easier to use. When you re-render for whatever reason, you don't need to replace all the layers like in photoshop. Fusion will update itself as it reads the exr files "live" from disk. You don't have a HUGE photoshop file that just eats disk space and increase backup needs etc etc. Essentially the Fussion file is very small compared to Photoshop.

Did I mention it's node based? It makes more sense working like this because you can visualy see where what plugs into what and how it all connects

[mitviz]

nice! yeah i noticed that about photoshop too, need to look into it, hope it also has tools to do manual stuff as painting over layers etc that would be kool

[crazy homeless guy]

So there doesnt seem to be an "ADD" mode in the merge, so I'm using "SCREEN" mode. Is that the correct one to use?

Leave the merge node set to "Normal" and slide the alpha gain all the way to zero. This will give you "Add" mode.

[crazy homeless guy]

Fusion has made my workflow faster but it does not replace Photoshop, rather it is a tool I use between the raw render and Photoshop. It is fast with 32bit EXR's, has a lot of functionality, and is resolution independent... Meaning I can work at 3k resolution and render my final at 6k and all masks and adjustments will update and render out faster than what I can open a 32 bit file in Photoshop.

After I have my base done then I take it into Photoshop for any final tweaks and people comps.

Also.. Fusion does not embed ICC profile. ICC profiles are very important in still work, which is why doing the final finish in Photoshop is good.