Black & White, Blemish, Blur, Burn, Clone, Color, Color Correct, Cutout, Detail, Dodge, Drag, Eraser, Grain, Mosaic, Repair and Scatter brushes are available for any task. As you paint, every action you make is recorded as events. These events can be selectively played back on the same frame, different frames, multiple frames and with or without tracking data applied. This makes for a very powerful and versatile Auto Paint feature that provides the flexibility of vector paint with the speed of a raster paint system.

Go to the Using Paint tutorial to see how it works.

Image, Silhouette.

Once created, you can use the Alt-0 through Alt-9 keyboard shortcuts to quickly select one of the presets.

Click on a preset to select it and it will become highlighted.

Deselect a preset by Ctrl/Cmd-clicking on a selected preset or click on a blank area below the presets.

Select a preset and change the brush controls.

Rename a preset by double-clicking on the preset name to enter edit mode, type a new name and hit Enter.

Import previously exported presets.

Export the current set of presets.

Deletes all presets.

To paint with a mouse, click and drag on the screen. To paint with a pen and tablet, just press and drag.

If you press Alt, click and then click in a different location, a straight line is drawn. This will work with any brush type. If you keep Alt depressed while clicking, you will create interconnected straight lines.

Selects the method by which the color image is converted to a monochrome image.

Creates a monochrome image using the brightness of the image.

Creates a monochrome image using the average of the red, green and blue channels.

Simulates a red filter in black and white photography.

Simulates a green filter in black and white photography.

Simulates a blue filter in black and white photography.

Simulates a yellow filter in black and white photography.

Simulates a orange filter in black and white photography.

Sets the amount of blur to be applied.

Sets the brightness of the brush.

Targets the Burn operation to either shadows, midtones or highlights as well as the entire range when set to Full.

Go to the Clone Brush tutorial to see how it works.

The controls for the Clone brush are split into three tabs: Clone, Grade/Filter and Warp. The Clone tab deals with the selection, timing and transformation of the clone source. The Grade/Filter tab contains color correction (grade), blur and sharpening parameters. Last, the Warp tab has warp related controls.

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To reset the Clone offset, press Shift and without moving the cursor, click your mouse or tap your pen on the screen once.

Oftentimes, you need to align the same feature in two different images of a clip when painting with the Clone brush.

The clone source image automatically appears in the Viewer.

The Clone target image automatically appears in the Viewer.

The Clone offset is set.

Clones from the previously painted areas.

Clones from the input image.

Clones from the clips assigned to the Source 1-5 inputs.

When enabled, the Clone brush only paints using the masked area of the clone source. In addition, when transforming the clone source, both rgb and alpha channels are transformed.

For instance, if the Left View is selected above the Viewer, the clone source comes from the Left View. If the Right View is selected, the clone source comes from the Right View. If the Left/Right View is selected, the clone source comes from both the Left and Right Views so you can simultaneously Clone on both views at the same time.

The clone source comes from the Left View.

The clone source comes from the Right View.

Choose which frame number of the clone source to paint from. By default, the Frame field displays the actual frame number that you are cloning from. Alternatively, a frame offset can be displayed instead. This behavior is controlled with the Paint > Clone > Absolute Frame Numbers preference.

When the Relative box is checked, the clone source Frame value remains relative to the current frame. So, if the Frame value is different than the current frame, the offset between the two is maintained.

When Relative is unchecked, the clone source is painting from a single frame defined by the value entered in the Frame field.

Source Match Move allows you to apply the selected tracked layer to the clone source. This is useful for when you have a single frame, clean plate that needs to be tracked to match the motion of the clip you are painting on.

Sets the horizontal and vertical position of the clone source.

Sets the horizontal and vertical scale of the clone source. Typing in negative values will flip or flop the clone source.

Sets the horizontal and vertical position of the top left corner point.

Sets the horizontal and vertical position of the top right corner point.

Sets the horizontal and vertical position of the bottom left corner point.

Sets the horizontal and vertical position of the bottom right corner point.

Sets the rotation of the clone source.

The clone source can be nudged using the Arrow keys. One press of the Arrow key moves the clone source 1 pixel. Using the Shift key in conjunction with the Arrow keys moves the clone source 10 pixels. Ctrl plus the Arrow keys moves the clone source one tenth of a pixel. These nudge values can be changed in the Preferences menu located in File > Preferences > Nudging on Windows and Linux or Silhouette > Preferences > Nudging on Mac. Holding an Arrow key down slides the clone source.

Pressing Q, W or E and then clicking and dragging will translate, rotate or scale the clone source. Pressing Q, W or E a second time deactivates the mode. Also, the position of the cursor when W or E is pressed sets the anchor point for the rotation or scale operation.

When Interactive mode is enabled, you can corner-pin the clone source by dragging the handles on the corners of the image. Alternatively, you can select and move the corner points without being in Interactive mode using Ctrl/Cmd-1,2,3 or 4 to select the top left, top right, bottom right and bottom left corner points. Then, use the mouse, pen/tablet or Arrow keys to move the points. Pressing Ctrl/Cmd-1,2,3 or 4 a second time deactivates the mode.

A region appears.

Now, when you adjust the Clone transform, the region is used.

Chooses the filtering method when transforming the clone source. Mitchell is the default.

The Point filter is not the highest quality, but fine for scaled images.

Quadratic is like Point, but more blur with fewer artifacts. It offers a good compromise between speed and quality.

Cubic is the default filter in Photoshop. It produces better results with continuous tone images, but is slower than Quadratic. If the image contains fine details, the result may be blurrier than desired.

This produces good results with continuous tone images which are scaled down, producing sharp results with fine detailed images.

Gaussian lacks in sharpness, but is good with ringing and aliasing.

A good balance between sharpness and ringing, Mitchell is a good choice when scaling up.

Keeps small details when scaling down with good aliasing.

When activated, subpixel positioning is used when moving the clone source.

Multiplies red values.

Multiplies green values.

Multiplies blue values.

Adjusts red gamma values.

Adjusts green gamma values.

Adjusts blue gamma values.

Adds red values.

Adds green values.

Adds blue values.

Adjusts hue.

Adjusts saturation.

Blurs the clone source.

Sharpens the clone source.

Resets all Grade/Filter controls.

Enables/disables warping. This is useful to turn the warping effect on and off.

A total of 20 pins can be added to an image. To create a pin, click-drag on the image. Pins have a source (green circle) and target (red circle). The farther the target is dragged from the source, the more the image warps. Click-releasing on the image sets a tack which constrains the warp.

Each pin and tack has a radius which determines its strength. Hover over a pin to display the radius. Shift-drag the radius to adjust it.

Selects point trackers and tracked layers from the input Tracker node and match moves the pins based on the input tracker data.

When you paint, both Clone presets will contribute to the painted result.

Resets all Clone brush transform controls.

Colors can be picked off of the screen using a couple of different techniques.

The Color, Hue, Sat, and Value tabs as well as the Sliders provide you with four different methods for selecting a color.

Depending on which tab is selected in the Color Palette, the vertical bar to the right of the palette controls the hue, saturation or value of the selected color.

Selects how color is applied to the image.

The Current Color is added to the image.

The Current Color is used to tint the image by replacing hue and saturation.

The Current Color is used to tint the image by only replacing hue.

Replaces the luminance of the image while leaving hue and saturation unaffected.

Pixels darker than the paint color are replaced, and pixels lighter than the paint color do not change.

Pixels lighter than the paint color are replaced, and pixels darker than the paint color do not change.

Rotates the hue.

Adjusts saturation. Positive values saturate, negative values desaturate.

Adjusts brightness. Positive values brighten, negative values darken.

Adjusts contrast. Positive values increase contrast, negative values decrease contrast.

Adjusts the contrast curve to weigh it more towards shadows or highlights. A lower value means a brighter range.

Adjusts gamma. The gamma adjustment leaves the white and black points the same and only modifies the values in-between. Positive values darken the midtones, negative values lighten the midtones.

Adds or subtracts red.

Adds or subtracts green.

Adds or subtracts blue.

If one is not defined, you can click-drag to create a source region. When a source region already exists, press Shift to display it and then optionally drag to create a new one. The source region can be reset by Shift-clicking or right- clicking without dragging.

Creates a cutout based on the RGBA channels.

Creates a cutout based on the RGB channels.

Scales the cutout.

Rotates the cutout.

Adjusts the coarse detail layer. Increasing the value sharpens while decreasing the value smooths.

The Coarse, Medium and Fine values can be ganged together. When ganged, adjust the Coarse slider to affect all values simultaneously. This will generate an overall sharpening effect if the numeric fields are increased and an overall smoothing effect if decreased.

Targets the Detail operation to either shadows, midtones or highlights as well as the entire range when set to Full.

Sets the brightness of the brush.

Targets the Dodge operation to either shadows, midtones or highlights as well as the entire range when set to Full.

Mix is the initial blend amount of the smudged area.

Determines how much of the Mix to use on the next stamp and reduces the Mix percentage with each sample.

The defaults are Mix = 50% and Decay = 90%. So, the first stamp will be a 50/50 mix of the brush start sample and the new sample, then the next will be 50% * 90% of it, etc. until it eventually fades away entirely.

Sets the size of the grain.

Controls the size of the red grain.

Controls the size of the green grain.

Controls the size of the blue grain.

Sets the intensity of the grain.

Controls the intensity of the red grain.

Controls the intensity of the green grain.

Controls the intensity of the blue grain.

Sets the softness of the grain.

Controls the softness of the red grain.

Controls the softness of the green grain.

Controls the softness of the blue grain.

When enabled, the grain is monochrome. In this mode, parameters that have no effect are grayed out.

Controls the size of the square tiles. A small size value will create many square tiles.

Sets the amount of scattering.

The Caps Lock key toggles the compare modes on and off.

The split is useful for determining the brush settings prior to painting.

The split is useful for determining the brush settings prior to painting.

A circle or square brush can be selected from the pop-up menu.

The brush profile is set to a circle.

The brush profile is set to a square.

When on, brush samples are generated at 30 samples/sec as long as the mouse button or pen is held down.

Allows the opacity to accumulate so it doesn't get clamped by the Opacity parameter value.

Sets the size of the brush. The brush can also be resized in the Viewer with the bracket keys, [ and ], or by holding Ctrl/Cmd and dragging the brush outline.

Sets the opacity or transparency of the brush.

Sets the brush softness.

Controls the feather contour of the brush.

Sets the flatness of the brush.

Sets the angle of the brush.

Sets the brush spacing.

The selected brush paints on the RGB channels.

The selected brush paints on the red channel.

The selected brush paints on the green channel.

The selected brush paints on the blue channel.

The selected brush paints on the alpha channel.

Separates the image into color and detail layers. The color and detail layers can be painted separately or simultaneously. Painting on the color layer preserves detail while painting on the detail layer preserves color.

Determines the detail layer to be used. 0 is coarse, .5 is medium and 1 is fine.

Presets the detail to the coarse layer.

Presets the detail to the medium layer.

Presets the detail to the fine layer. The fine layer typically includes details such as skin blemishes, pores, hair, and wrinkles.

When enabled, the intensity of the alpha channel controls how much the image will be affected by a particular paint operation. At any given pixel in the image, the more transparent the value in the alpha channel, the more transparent the application of the paint operation.

Inverts the alpha channel used for the Obey operation.

Enabled once the A button is turned on, the Opaque control ensures that a solid paint stroke is created when painting into the alpha channel. When Opaque is off, the brush will also affect the alpha channel. So, it's possible to blur and drag the alpha channel, for instance.

Selects which input source to use when Obey is enabled.

Obeys the alpha from the Input.

Obeys the alpha from the Source 1-5 inputs.

Uses the Paint node’s output alpha as the obey alpha source. This option is handy for painting temporary alpha to control where you paint in the RGB channels.

Selects either Input or Output as the paint source.

The brush paints from the input. For instance, this is useful for painting multiple strokes to perform a constant color correction or blur adjustment.

The brush paints from the Output, with each new stroke affecting what was previously painted.

Selects point trackers and tracked layers from the input Tracker node, or other nodes that contain trackers, for use in match moving paint strokes or the clone source during event playback.

Sets the range to the current frame.

Sets the range to the in and out points in the Timebar.

Sets the range to the entire frame range.

Auto Paint is a highly unique automated paint feature that records all paint activity with tight integration of both point and planar trackers. Paint strokes can be match moved or stabilized giving Silhouette the speed of raster paint with the repeatability of vector paint. The beauty of the system lies in the automatic recording of the paint strokes and brush settings. Individual paint strokes can be selected and repeated over many frames, as well as deleted. If the original footage changes, the entire paint history can be used to rebuild the painted shot automatically. Go to the Auto Paint tutorial to see how it works.

Groups are created each time painting is started on a frame and are recorded with the current time stamp. So the first time you begin painting on frame 1, for instance, a renameable “event group” containing a current time stamp is created. Then, events are created for the current paint state: channels/flags, brush, brush profile, and brush parameters. And finally, a new stroke event is created for the new stroke. After the first stroke, state changes are stored in their own events (ie. brush size, opacity, etc).

Sets the range to the current frame.

Sets the range to the in and out points in the Timebar.

Sets the range to the entire frame range.

Sets a custom range as defined by the numeric entry fields. To quickly set custom in/out points, press the arrows in the numeric fields to enter the currently parked frame.

Sets the range to the start frame ending at the current frame.

Sets the range to the current frame ending at the end frame.

Plays selected events in the Paint History either forward or backward.

If a layer with tracking data applied is selected and Match Move is enabled, the selected strokes will be match moved when played back.

Match Move allows you to apply the selected tracked layer while playing back paint events.

Duplicates strokes from one view to another for the current frame. If a layer with a stereo offset is selected prior to duplicating, the stereo offset is taken into account when duplicating the strokes.

Replays the last stroke. This can be used to apply the last stroke with changed settings and/or on a different frame.

Rebuilds the paint events for all frames defined in the Frame Range in the order in which they were painted. This is useful if you replace your footage with a different color correction than the original and want the result of painting with the Clone brush to match the new footage.

Go to the Stereo Paint tutorial to see how it works.

When the Paint node is being edited in the Trees window, parameters specific to the Paint node can be adjusted in the Paint > Node parameters.

Selects either a hard or soft edged alpha channel when using the Paint Only output.

Creates a hard edge alpha channel around brush strokes.

Creates a soft edge alpha channel around brush strokes.

Outputs the result of the paint node.

Outputs only the painted portions of the frame along with an automatically generated alpha channel (where the brush painted). This will allow you to seamlessly composite the painted areas in a Composite node without having to do a difference matte.