Participating Frequently

Question

Premiere Not Interpreting Alpha Transparency ProRes 4444

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
November 8, 2012
8 replies
108423 views

Hello,

I've imported a graphic, ProRes 4444 with an alpha channel but Premiere 6.0.2 is not reading the transparency. When I lay it on top of another clip the transparent part shows as black rather than being transparent and showing the layer underneath. It seems like the same error is happening in After Effects.

Final Cut 7 reads the transparency fine. I read that the same problem was happening on earlier versions of Premiere and After Effects.

I'm working with a Mac Pro, NVIDIA Quadro 4000, Lion.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Gerry

CMG Alex

Participating Frequently

Hey Adobe! FIX THIS! I'm sending alpha footage to a coworker and his mac isn't picking up the alpha channel even though my PC is!

G

GeoffCoopeUK

Participating Frequently

Just to confirm this bug is still not fixed in CC 2018.

Mac: Using Apple Motion v5.4

PC: Using After Effects v15.01 (build 73)

Apple Motion (or FCP) -> Prores 4444 (Color + Alpha) to After Effects or Premiere pro ignores alpha in entire video (the interpret footage options for alpha will be greyed out too) if first frame of the mov has no alpha in it.

Thanks to users in this thread, solution is to make sure first frame in Motion / FCP has alpha in it before sending over to Adobe products. This caused me a loss of a days work before I found this solution.

alex_

Participant

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback.

I am in Resolve, need to export an dnxhr 444 with alpha and like you I can't use the alpha channel in AE, I would like to know how I can be sure to have the 1st frame with alpha ?

How I can add the blank frame ? it's something I don't understand.

Many thanks

Alex

G

GeoffCoopeUK

Participating Frequently

Hi Alex, I think you have to use Prores 4444 (an extra 4 in the codec) for alpha. Also, for first frame, just make sure nothing is on it by sliding all your timeline layers along one frame so everything starts on frame 2. This way frame 1 is blank (full alpha).

My own issue was I had a "Solid" blue box on frame 1 so AE assumed the entire video has no alpha.

Hope that helps.

C

chrisgoor

Participant

I really can't believe that this is still an issue. I needed to do this yesterday and I used the blank first frame method and it worked!

Come on Adobe, fix this issue after 5 years.

M

mofxtv

Participating Frequently

Not sure if this applies to your situation. But we were having alpha issues where the footage was displaying the footage with an alpha, but the alpha channel looked nothing like the original in After Effects. After Interpret footage tweaks, plus trying ProRes 4444 and Lossless with Alpha and getting the same result, I saw this tip:

Apple ProRes Graphics 4444 Alpha in Premiere

In Premiere, right click on your Sequence and go to Sequence settings, then Uncheck the "Composite in Linear Color".

thatguy65364816

Participant

I realise this thread is very old, came looking for an answer but eventually found my own solution playing around with outputs.

I situation was that the AVI output with RGB+Alpha exported from After Effects didn't seem to be creating the Alpha channel when footage was imported to Premiere Pro. I tried a range of codecs, tried all the above with no success.

What I did:

Export footage as .PNG sequence from AE (making sure to export with RGB+ Alpha, and millions of colours is on etc.)

Check the sequence export folder and if the first frame is all black delete it (I think this is where the problem comes from for all the other codecs.)

Import PNG sequence into Premiere, making sure to click the import sequence button.

Add IMG sequence/clip to timeline and continue.

Hope this helps

E

eyetography

Participant

Success! I ran the file I had through Handbrake (because neither PP, AME or AE would even open it until I did), saw the black, yelled in disbelief, blah blah blah. Tried all the suggestions from this page and elsewhere (minus using Compressor), finally tried "Replace footage" and told it to use the original file (pre-Handbrake). Bam. It worked, Hope this helps someone else.

WHMB TV40

Known Participant

My solution (if it helps anyone who would read through this thread) was to simply make my Motion 5 composition 1 frame longer and slide my entire comp forward 1 frame thus making the first frame transparent and then I still exported as a ProRes 4444. Once in PP boom it worked and then I just trimmed off the first frame.

Rob

P

pudelfilm

Participant

i'm having the exact same problem. exported keyed footage from final cut pro X as prores 444 - imported the rendered file in After Effects CC -> the options for the alpha channel are greyed out in the "interpret footage" window. converting the rendered prores to animation codec via compressor first did the trick (but it unnecessarily bloats the file and adds another step).

one thing i noticed playing around... when there was transparency was in the first frame of the footage, the alpha channel of the exported prores worked as intended in after effects. but as soon as there was no transparency in the first frames (but later on), after effects interpreted it wrong - and greyed the options out in the "interpret footage" dialogue.

D

digitalkilnAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yes, it is the alpha not appearing on the beginning of the clip that was and still is causing the issue. I'm about to export a bunch of ginormous animation files for this reason.

In fact, it is just past the one year anniversary of this bug first being mentioned, now that I look at my original post. Happy Anniversary ProRes glitch bug!

I was going to update Premiere to the latest version to see if the bug was fixed but my Creative Cloud icon is greyed out with the spinning beach ball as it is 70% of the time. Maybe I'll update to Mavericks from my stable Lion system and see if that will help? Hmmm, maybe not. All in good fun, everyone.

Cheers,

Gerry

L

liascheelje

Participant

I had the same exact problem and did the opposite, I checked to ignore the alpha channel in "interpret footage" and the problem was solved.

A

Anonymous

1. In the Project panel right-click (Ctrl+click) the footage, choose Modify -> Interpret Footage... and make sure that Ignore Alpha Channel is unchecked.

2. If the above doesn't help, and a footage transparent background looks black, just set clip's Blend Mode in the Timeline to Screen (it's within Opacity property).

D

digitalkilnAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the reply.

Ignore Alpha is unchecked.

Setting blend mode to screen won't have the same result as having the opacity work properly, it will change the appearance of the graphics.

Thanks,

Gerry

A

Anonymous

Then try the following:

- duplicate your footage with lost alpha on the track above;

- nest both copies of your footage;

- inside the nested sequence set Blend Mode of the clip on upper track to Divide - that will create Luma Matte;

- place your footage with lost alpha below the nested sequence inside your main timeline, apply Track Matte Key effect on it and set Composite Using to Matte Luma - that's not perfect but somehow works.

Composite with Alpha:

Composite with the above Luma Matte:

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded