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SpiceFX 6 FilmTouch Wizard Has Hundreds of Adjustable Film Looks!
 The FilmTouch™ Wizard includes 200 professional presets of popular film looks for Windows Movie Maker. These effects are more than just tints and tones -- they include subtle film grains, blending, diffusing, etc. to create a truly rich, professional film look. What's especially terrific is that every one of these film look effects is completely adjustable for brightness, contrast and effect power. And you can save your effect presets to create your own re-usable custom film looks. So you really have for Movie Maker a near-limitless range of professional-caliber film looks on hand with FilmTouch!
NOTE: This Wizard requires a DirectX 9 or later video card and is a free extra available only with a WIZARDS Bundle or POWER Bundle purchase. If you do not have a compatible video card, no worries -- all other portions of SpiceFX 6 will be unaffected and will install/operate fine. |
A Few Example Film Looks -- Hundreds Are Possible, All Customizable
Major categories of film looks included in the FilmTouch Wizard are:
• Cool: Many different ways to cool the scene with blue, dusk, shade and other tones.
• Warm-Hot: Tones that increase the temperature of the scene to various degrees.
• Desaturate: Beautifully subtle partial desaturation that leaves a hint of color tone remaining.
• Duotone: Black plus a single color tone leads to gorgeous sepias, warmstone, silver, and other looks.
• Monochrome: Many filmic ways to produce a monotone -- much more attractive than pure desaturation.
• Filmic: Classic/modern film looks that evoke the feeling of big screen cinema, plus decayed old film looks.
• Stronger: Film looks that pump up the contrast and color in interesting ways for unique moods.
• Soft-Dreamy: Diffused looks that are awesome for wedding videos, dream sequences, memories/flashbacks.
• ColorShift: These are essentially film tints that are blended with existing colors in the scene.
• Abstract: Very cool artistic film looks, such as drawing textures, posterizing/cartooning, and more.
• Special: A catch-all category for film looks we love but didn't fit in any of the above.
• Gradiated: Film looks that vary in color, blend, or focus within the scene -- handy for skies, vignettes, etc.
Tutorial: 5 Easy Steps to Using FilmTouch
Double-click the Wizards for Movie Maker icon on your desktop (installed by our demo or purchased version). Or choose it in your Start > Program Files > Pixelan menu. Then the Wizards window will appear. If necessary, choose FilmTouch effects from the top submenu to see the below.
 1. Optionally, click the Reference Clip button to load a representative still-image of the background video (.wmv, .avi, or .mpg format) or photo (.bmp, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tga, or .pct) you will use with this effect, for reference to better decide the film look desired.
TIP: Reference images are ONLY for reference in a Wizard. They are NOT part of your custom effect. The Movie Maker TIMELINE is where you will apply your exported effect to any video/still-image. Therefore, if you have several clips in a Movie Maker project to apply the same film look to, one FilmTouch effect can do it.
2. Choose a film look preset from the 12 categories of effects included in FilmTouch. All presets appear visually with your reference clip shown, simplifying the selection process.
3. Click the Mid Contrast and Gamma buttons to adjust those visual qualities interactively in the selected film look. To adjust the effect intensity, click the Original Mix button, which alters the effect’s blending with the original image.
4. To create more than one custom FilmTouch effect, click the Bin button to select another bin, then repeat steps 1-3 above. Forty bins are available.
5. When you are done creating film looks, click the Click here to export button to send your custom FilmTouch effects into Movie Maker. Re-start Movie Maker, then they will appear at the TOP of Movie Maker’s Effects list as "FilmTouch 01" "FilmTouch 02" etc., ready to be dragged onto any video/still-image in the Movie Maker timeline.
FilmTouch Effects -- Tips and Tricks
 Note: All of these tips are also in the built-in Help panel that appears with FilmTouch.
• To revise a previously exported FilmTouch effect in Movie Maker: 1. Revise the effect in this Wizard. 2. Click the Click here to export button. 3. Re-start Movie Maker. 4. Drag the SAME effect onto your clip to replace the prior version. Important Tip: Revisions will NOT affect any other project. Each Movie Maker project file retains the Wizards information that was active at the time of applying it, no matter what Wizards changes occur later.
• To apply a FilmTouch to only part of a clip’s duration, split the clip into a couple of pieces in the Movie Maker timeline (use Movie Maker’s Clip > Split command) where you want the effect to start/end, then apply the exported FilmTouch effect only to the desired piece.
• To apply multiple FilmTouch effects to the same clip... Movie Maker allows up to six effects per clip. So this is a great way to combine different film looks into a new unique treatment! Just create your FilmTouch effects, each saved in a Bin, then export and apply several to the same clip in the Movie Maker timeline. Play with the order of effects, as desired.
• To load a Reference Clip image that has a different format than the Wizard can show (thus a clip that is not in .wmv, .avi, .mpg, .bmp, .jpg, .png, .tif, .tga, or .pct. format), place the video clip or still-image in your Movie Maker timeline, display a desired frame in the Movie Maker preview window, then choose Tools > Take Picture from Preview. This will save a separate image file on your drive. Then load that image into a Wizard by clicking its Reference Clip button.
• To copy/paste a Bin's effect to another Bin in the same Wizard, right-click the Bin. This is handy to organize your effects and to create several variations of a complex effect.
 • To undo/redo, click the small buttons at the window's top right corner (if active). Up to 100 undo/redo levels are possible -- great for experimenting with different looks.
 • To optionally append up to 16 characters to an effect’s name to help you remember its intent when viewing Movie Maker’s list of effects, use the Add to Name text box.
 • To change the Wizard’s preferences, such as preview duration, video format (NTSC or PAL), aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9), and more, click the white Preferences button at the bottom of the window. For best preview accuracy in the Wizard, match the video format and aspect ratio to your Movie Maker project. These values will not alter your exported effect; they are only for the Wizard’s preview.
 • To save a favorite FilmTouch effect (or a set of effects), click the Save Favorites (disk) button. To load it later, click the adjacent Load Favorites (folder) button. Note there is no need to save a favorite unless you intend to use the same effect in a future project, because each Movie Maker project file holds all Wizards info applied in that project. That remains true even if you later use the same bin to make a new custom item for a different project.
 • To clear only the currently displayed effect, or all effects in this Wizard, or all exported items in Movie Maker from this Wizard, click the yellow Clear (-) button at the window’s bottom. Clearing all exported items is how you can create a fresh set of custom film look effects for each new project. Note that existing projects will still retain their earlier FilmTouch effects unchanged.
 • To exit the Wizards, click the green Save and Exit (check mark) button in the lower corner of the window. Although you must re-start Movie Maker each time you export items from a Wizard, you can keep the Wizards window open for reference or further changes.
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