Final Cut Studio 2: About the Outer Glow filter

Final Cut Pro 6 includes a video filter called Outer Glow. You may already be familiar with this filter, as it was also available in Motion 2. In Final Cut Studio 2, the Outer Glow filter is available in both applications, but in some cases, its behavior in Final Cut Pro is slightly different than it is in Motion.

The Outer Glow filter adds a glow to the outer border of an object's alpha channel. For example, if you add Outer Glow to text in Motion or Final Cut Pro, the text will have the glow applied to its edges, giving the appearance of a glowing outline for the characters.

Issue

If you add the Outer Glow filter to a video clip (or still image), there can be a difference in effect between what you might see in Final Cut Pro versus Motion.

• In Motion, the glow will be applied to the edges of the clip, essentially extending the size of the object by the radius of the glow on each edge.
• In Final Cut Pro, a clip's edges describe its total visible area. If you apply the Outer Glow filter to a clip that has no alpha channel, there will be no visible change, because Final Cut Pro doesn't display anything beyond the edges of a clip.

Workaround

You can achieve the same effect in Final Cut Pro as in Motion by nesting. The following steps describe one way to apply the Outer Glow filter to the edges of a clip in Final Cut Pro.

1. Add a clip to the Timeline.
2. Double-click that clip in the Timeline.
3. Use the wireframe handles in the Canvas (or the Scale parameter in the Viewer) to scale the clip down to the desired size.
4. Choose Sequence > Nest Item(s).
5. Click OK in the Nest Items window that appears.
6. Click once on the newly-nested sequence in the Timeline to select it.
7. Choose Effects > Video Filters > Glow > Outer Glow.

Now you should see the effect applied to the edges of the nested clip.