darken / brighten - 3.0.0 u

This little gem is probably one of the most under-estimated iMovie plugs-ins in our line-up. It is a general color effects plug-in whose features do sound a bit boring: it allows you to make parts of your clip darker or brighter. Still, the plug has some amazing capabilities that elevate it above most of the other one-trick pixel-pushers. It allows parallel darkening and brightening with relative and absolute values, allowing you to apply some special effects that would usually require multiple passes (and multiple plug-ins). The algorithm first applies the relative darkening or brightening, without applying any clipping to brightness. It then applies the absolute darkening/brightening, and only then clips the pixel's value to the legal range.


What should i use it for?

Use darken/brighten when you need to adjust the brightness of a clip. Remember that with all cf/x clips you can choose the area of effect. Therefore you can use it to introduce stylish-looking darker bars at the top and bottom or at the sides of the clip. Or you can use it to spotlight an interesting part of the clip (either by making the interesting area brighter, or everything else darker).


Using a combination of relative and absolute settings (in the same run!) you can achieve wash-out as well as heightened contrast effects.