Photoshop Overlay Options

One of the many great ways to easily edit images in Photoshop is to apply 'overlay effects' onto layers, to make them either blend in with each other, merge with other layers or change the appearance of the layer. This is the same for editing footage in Premiere Pro. Overlay effects can added to footage to make them appear differently or act differently with other footage or layers. This could be in the form of a LUT, which is a colour combination layer, that is put onto footage to make them appear differently. The most common uses of LUTs include the orange/teal LUT, which gives off a cinematic appearance, and is very common in movies and short cinematics, as the colourway looks professional and bright. Another popular LUT is greyscale, which can make scenes look sad or gloomy, or perhaps give off an old feel to the footage.

As well as LUTS, overlays can come in the form of effects. Overlays are added effects that someone else has made inside of either Photoshop or Premier Pro. They can all be made inside of the programmes, but overlays allow everyone to use an effect that someone has made and shared so everyone can use it. The overlay we were experimenting with was a set of overlays that were all different. The main one was a fast zoom effect. The effect consisted of 2 parts, zoom in and zoom out. The zoom out was used on Video 1, and zoom out was put onto Video 2. This effect acts like a transition from one clip to another, and in this specific overlay, the effect was a very fast zoom in and out transition. We used it on 2 different car videos at different locations, the fast zoom out of the first video, and zoom into the next video look like a professional transition, and worked great between the 2 clips. This overlay could be used in many different ways, and with many different clips, such as music videos, adverts and in specific movie clips such as in a clip where the character has a flashback. Overlays are quick ways to make your own work look highly edited and professional in a quick and easy way.

Overlays are very easy to install, and I will now go over the process. This process is for the installation of overlays into Premier Pro, and I was using an Apple Mac at the time (unfortunately).

1.) Open Premier Pro, and put in your clips that you want the overlay to effect, drag one of the clips onto the timeline and delete it, so the timeline is fitted to the type of video you have.

2.) Open up the effects tab on the top of the scree, which should open up a new tab on the right hand side of the screen, or wherever you have positioned the effects tab. After this, right click on the presets folder and select import presets.

3.) Find where you have saved the overlay file to, and make sure to unzip the file before you attempt to import it. Then after you have found it, select 'open'.

4.) Your overlay file has now been installed, and to find it, go back to 'effects', and then where it says 'presets', click on the arrow to show all of your installed overlays. The overlay you just installed should be here as well. I installed an overlay pack, so this is what it might look like if you do something similar.

5.) The overlays from the pack I wanted to use was the Fast Zoom (In) and (Out). I found these overlays, and prepared the two clips I wanted to apply them too, being two separate car scenes.

6.) Apply the Fast Zoom (OUT) to the first clip and Fast Zoom (IN) to the second clip. This would have added the basic effect of a fast zoom in and out between the two clips. You can then alter the overlay further, by changing the time remapping of the clips, such as how fast you want the zooms and at what specific time.

7.) You have applied the overlay, and have adjusted it to your own needs for your clips! All overlays work very similarly, but obviously some overlays are made for different reasons and different types of clips, so use them sensibly for professional looking effects and adjustments to your footage!