Blurring a Face (or Any Portion of a Video) |
You’ve seen the effect on daytime talk shows and police dramas (and if you’re lucky, you weren’t the one being blurred). The effect is simple to recreate using and Bézier masking.
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Before Masking |
After Masking |
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Right-click the track that contains the video you want to blur and choose Duplicate Track from the shortcut menu. This creates a copy of the video where we can apply the blurring effect.
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Create a mask to limit the blurring effect:
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Click the Event Pan/Crop button
on the upper event to display the Event Pan/Crop dialog.
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Select the Mask check box in the keyframe controller.
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Select the anchor creation tool
on the left side of the Event Pan/Crop window and click in the workspace to create a mask.
The following image shows how we created a simple Bézier curve around a face. We added anchor points around the perimeter of the face and then adjusted the tangent control to match the curvature of the hairline more closely. For more information about creating Bézier masks, click here.
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Expand the Path heading on the left side of the window and choose Positive from the Mode drop-down list.
If you want to blend the blurring effect with the unblurred video, use the Feather type and Feather % controls to feather the edges of your mask.
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If the subject you want to blur moves within the frame, use the keyframe controller at the bottom of the Event Pan/Crop window to establish distinct mask settings throughout the duration of the event so the mask follows the portion of the video you want to blur.
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Apply a plug-in to create the blur effect:
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Click the Event FX button
on the upper event to display the Plug-In Chooser.
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Add a plug-in to the event. The Pixelate plug-in works well with the Medium or Large preset.
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Play your project. The blurring is applied to the video and its effect is confined to the mask you created in step 2.