[00:00:00] And then where we wanted it to - and the drop shadow looks really, really good and clean. So, this is the way it’s supposed to look, this is what we want. Okay, but this required a plug-in in Photoshop. So, what is it doing? Well, remember I explained the pre-multiplied key; let’s take a look at what the actual output file looks like.

[00:00:17] The way to do that is to save the output from the ATEM into a new folder where we’ll be able to see the graphics that this plugin actually created. So, let’s go back into the ATEM software, I’ll go to File > Save As; I’m just going to call this “Export” and click “Save” and on this menu, I’m going to turn off everything except for the Media Pool.

[00:00:39] This is going to save out the graphics that are currently stored on the ATEM. Click “Save”, it’ll export those out, let’s go ahead back over to the Finder, there’s the ATEM Media Pool folder and here’s the three graphics. So, there’s the original one that I created, the “PhotoJoseph” one without the gradient, then here’s one with the gradient in place; you can see what that PNG looks like and then here’s the one generated by the plug-in.

[00:01:03] Look at how the gradient fades out to black. It’s this weird thing that normally would not look right but in a pre-multiplied environment, is what we need. So, that’s what we have to create. We have to figure out how to create that PNG with the black; with the pre-multiplied black without using the plugin.

[00:01:19] So, to do that we’re going to switch to another app just to show that you don’t need to use Photoshop. I’m going to use Affinity Photo. In Affinity Photo, I’m going to go ahead and open up that original PNG that I made. So, “PhotoJoseph + gradient”, that’s the one that came out of Photoshop, and here’s the steps; first thing you have to do is duplicate the layer, then we’ll go ahead and hide that top layer, create a new layer I’ll move this to the very back here and I want to fill this with black.

[00:01:47] So I’ll go to the Edit menu, Fill, and I’m going to fill this with black. Now I need to take these two layers and merge them together. Right click and choose Merge Visible. We can now get rid of these extra ones here. There’s the one that we’ve just created and then here is that original background layer that we created.

[00:02:08] Remember, if I hide this and turn this one back on that’s where we started. We actually need to load a selection from this layer. So, I’m going to go to the Select menu and choose Selection From Layer, now we’ll go ahead and hide this and go back to this one here, which is merged with the black background and create a mask for that.

[00:02:24] To do that simply click the Mask button. There is our mask - I’ll deselect that and here’s the end result. You can see in here how it’s fading out to black just like what we had before in that PNG that was generated by the plugin.

[00:02:36] So now I’ll export this as a PNG. Go to the File menu and Export as a PNG file… export that and we’re going to call this one “Affinity” version. Hit Save… back over to the ATEM software, into the media pool, there’s the Affinity version, we’ll drag that into place, drag that on and with pre multiply key enabled, we can see that the key looks correct.

[00:03:04] So, let’s just do that one more time but without going through the whole process of exporting a PNG and bringing it back in again. I’ll create a new file in Affinity photo and of course, this will work in any graphic software. Once again, 1920x1080 and I also have transparent background enabled here, click “Create” and let’s do something crazy… I’ll go ahead and do the PhotoJoseph again in there because, why not? Let’s make that some other color… I’ll put not just a drop shadow… let’s go ahead and enable that and make that nice and big and soft on there, make that pretty dark as well… but I’m also going to add a glow on here because that would definitely break things… so, let’s make this a bright yellow glow and put that behind the text in there, maybe make that drop shadow a little bit bigger. Then I’ll also do a shape.

[00:04:03] Let’s go ahead and draw what would be a lower third in the end and let’s put on a gradient on this. We’re obviously getting crazy here and doing something really ugly, but that’s okay, it’s just to make a point. I’ll put a mask on here and grab the gradient tool and just make that really nice and soft; drag that out like so, grab the Arrow tool — let’s take this text here and we’ll put that on top. And again, we’re really doing something that’s ugly but no doubt, this is something that would not work without the pre-multiplied channel.

[00:04:41] Okay, so we’ve created all of this at this point but now we don’t want to have to export it out as a PNG and re-import it etcetera, etcetera. So, here’s what we’ll do. Go ahead and select these two items here and group them. I’ll duplicate this, hide the top one and create a new layer underneath this that I’ll once again, fill with black.

[00:05:11] Now, I’ll go ahead and merge down, select that top layer — you do have to enable it to load the transparency, so enable that temporarily — go to the Select menu and choose Selection from Layer, then we can go ahead and hide that, select that background layer and create the mask. There you can see the fading off to black that we need, so let’s go ahead and export this out as that PNG file that we need and we’re just going to call this one “Fancy”.

[00:05:42] Hit Save, back over to the ATEM software, take that Fancy one, load that into place and there we go. Verify that pre-multiplied key is turned on, and of course it is and now you have the beautiful gradients, the shadows, the glows and everything works right.

[00:06:00] So, that’s how you create these graphics; they have to be pre-multiplied if you want to have your transparency and your opacity look the way it was intended to. Again, you might be able to get away without doing that with generating just a simple PNG if all you have is a simple drop shadow, but if you’re seeing some anomalies in your drop shadow, this is why.

[00:06:18] Generate the graphic this way either using the plugin from Photoshop or using the technique I just showed you and that’s all you need. Hey, as always, don’t forget to subscribe, hit that Like button, share this video with another ATEM user that you know and if you have any tips that you want to see done, make sure you drop them in a comment below, I’ll do my best to get to them, thanks.