Color Averaging

T

thedocta45

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 10, 2007
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Figured I would post this here and see what you guys think.
A few years back I came up with an idea to color average pixels in each frame of a video.
I never quite figured it out.

Anyone have an idea of how I would go about taking a pixel from a frame and averaging it with all the other pixels that are in the pixels place across five other frames?

Each of the other frames would be from a different video.

Any ideas short of programing?

I did transparency a few years ago as proof of concept but it looked like you were looking through a drunk persons eyes. Which wasn't a bad thing given the subject matter.

I can explain more if that would help.
 
Why?

I get the idea of multiple exposures on one frame, (which is what you did with transparency in photoshop) but what you have described is something else completely.

What would be the purpose of that? And no, I've no clue how to do that :D
 
Absolutely no clue outside of programming, I am not sure that anyone has ever felt the need to do that before now. Or if they did, they didn't choose to share their code.
 
It would be for a video art piece.

It seems simple enough in concept, but anything with programing gets to be a pain quickly.

The concept is filming multiple trips from point a to point b.
and then effectively averaging each pixel.

I would hope to see some sort of pattern emerging.
Almost a composite of a journey.

It worked okay with the transparency, but was more of a drunken driving or sort of dream like driving effect.
Worked on both levels.

Wanted to refine it.
 
But wouldn't averaging all the pixels just turn it into a solid color (with enough frames)? What you're doing with transparency gives different results.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you completely.
 
Yeah, transparency was the wrong way to do it.
Averaging the pixels would give a solid color:
For example take 5 videos of the same trip:
Take the first frame of each video:
Take the 1st pixel from each of the frames, and average the CMYK:
Output to the 1st pixel of a new image.
Repeat with the 2nd pixel, and output to the 2nd pixel of that newly created image.
After processing each pixel in each frame you would have a composite in a new image file.
Repeat for each additional frame.
Stitch the frames up to create a video.
 
Yeah, in my mind, the end result would be a complete mess. Than again, I never understood contemporary art, so what do I know? :p

After Effects is probably the only software that might be able to do that. I doubt it, but nothing else comes to mind.
 
Get something like after effects or Premiere.

Just get 5 layers, and set the opacity blend mode of the top 4 layers as whatever (don't use normal, exclusion works well). You can use layer opacity to mix between the layers if one is too dark or too light.
 
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