These effects provide useful tools for improving the quality of your video footage and fixing common issues.
Clone Stamp
The clone stamp is useful for duplicating or removing specific parts of a layer. Combined with HitFilm’s feature tracking this is a very powerful feature.
A separate layer can be used as a clone mask, defining the area to clone. Using a simple plane is usually the easiest way to do this, as the plane can be easily resized and positioned if necessary.
The clone source can be from the applied layer or from another layer, as defined by the Clone From property.
The Source and Target positions can then be specified, or linked to other layers. This enables the cloning to be linked to points containing tracking data.
Denoise ![]()
Professional noise reduction is possible with the denoise effect.
Core workflow
After the effect is applied to a noisy layer a highlight box will be displayed in the Viewer. This can be adjusted using the two control points.
This box should be positioned over a noisy area of the frame. This will provide the effect with input to analyze the video. Ideally select a flat region with mid-level brightness.
Click the Analyze button to analyze the selected area.
Some noise will be removed immediately.
To further refine, change the View setting to Analysis Box.
Move the control points so that the analysis box is over darker noisy area.
Click the Analyze Brightness button in the Analyze control group.
This will analyze the difference in the noise levels, between the brightness of the original analysis and the brightness of the new analysis region.
This will refine the noise removal.
The process can be further improved by increasing the number of frames used during the analysis. The more frames it uses, the more time it will take to render, but usually with superior results.
Controls
- Analyze button – Only visible when image has not yet been analysed. Uses the selected analysis area, to analyse the noise of the image.
- Frames – The number of frames used to remove the noise. It should be kept at ‘1’ if applied to an image.
View modes
- Result – shows the result of the noise reduction
- Analysis Box – shows the region that will be used for analysis if one of the analysis button is pressed
- Frequency Y – shows how much the brightness changes at the selected frequency level
- Frequency U – shows how much the u color changes at the selected frequency level
- Frequency V – shows how much the v color changes at the selected frequency level
Frequency View Options Group
Only visible if the selected View is one of the frequency options.
- Level – The frequency level to be viewed.
- Contrast – Allows you to change the contrast of the displayed frequency. Sometimes the changes in frequency are too subtle to see. This control allows you to increase the contrast, to help you to see it.
Analyse Brightness
Used when noise amount varies depending on the brightness.
Updates the threshold values in the ‘Threshold – Brightness’ control group.
Re-Analyse
Discards the original analysis that was performed and re-analyzes with the currently selected analysis area.
Threshold
The controls under this group help the plugin to identify what is and isn’t noise, by manually adjusting the threshold values.
- Brightness – The controls under this group, allow you to change the threshold values dependent on the brightness of the image. If, for example, not enough noise is being removed from dark areas, just increase the threshold of the ‘0’ slider. If the problem is in the white areas, adjust the ‘100’ slider. The sliders act like a graph, adjusting one will cause the nearby sliders to also be adjusted.
- Channel – These controls allow you to change the noise threshold depending on the YUV channel.
- Frequency – This allows you to change the noise threshold depending on the frequency of the data. It is easier to edit these slider if viewing the correct frequency: simply change the view to one of the frequencies; then change the frequency options level to correspond with the frequency slider.
- Keep Edges – This slider sometimes helps to bring more of the edges back. But as the value is increased, more of the noise might be brought back as well.
Removal Amount
These controls allow you to adjust how much of the noise is removed.
- Y controls how much noise is removed from variations in brightness, of the image. By default it is set at 80%, as removing all of the noise from the brightness tends to not look as good.
- U/V controls how much noise is removed from variations in colour.
- Frequency controls how much noise is removed dependent on the frequency of the data.
Grain Removal ![]()
Basic grain removal. Also see Denoise for advanced noise removal.
Rolling Shutter ![]()
Some capture methods used by video cameras produce an effect called rolling shutter. This is particularly common with DSLR cameras. Rolling shutter can be identified by a wobbling, jelly-like instability in the frame during rapid movement.
The rolling shutter effect is designed to counteract rolling shutter, correcting the video and minimizing the effects of rolling shutter.
Shutter direction is used to define whether the camera uses a vertical or horizontal shutter. Consult your camera’s specifications for more information.
Correction
The correction property is used to specify the amount of time it takes for the camera’s shutter to travel across the frame.
In the case of cameras using a vertical shutter, this is defined as the time it takes in frames to capture from the top row of the image to the bottom row.
Positive values indicates the vertical shutter is travelling from top to bottom, while negative values are for bottom to top. You should consult the specifications of your camera to find the correction value to use.
Shutter sync
This property determines which part of the rolling shutter frame should be used to fix the image.
- -0.5 will use the frame at the beginning of the vertical shutter capture, as defined by the correction property.
- 0.0 will use the frame halfway through the vertical shutter capture. This is usually best as it will result in the minimum amount of distortion.
- 0.5 will use the frame at the end of the vertical shutter capture, as defined by the correction property.
Optical flow
Rolling shutter works by tracking the movement of every pixel in the frame using optical flow techniques.
The View menu can be used to observe the accuracy of the optical flow track.
Different videos may require adjustments to the optical flow properties. Adjusting the Window size and Sigma properties tend to yield the best results.
Wire Removal ![]()
Easily remove wires from your shot using this tool to paint them out
- Start Position: Sets the location of the start point. You can either move the Position point on the Viewer, or change the values manually.
- Use Layer: Allows you to use the position of another layer by selecting it. Useful if you have tracked the ends of the wire, and want to use the position of Point layers that contain the tracking data.
- End Position: Sets the location of the end point. You can either move the Position point on the Viewer, or change the values manually.
- Use Layer: Allows you to use the position of another layer by selecting it. Useful if you have tracked the ends of the wire, and want to use the position of Point layers that contain the tracking data.
- Width: The Wire Removal effect draws a line over the wire, between the start and end points, and repaints that line using background info from the video. This slider sets the width of the line. Adjust it so it covers the entire wire that needs removed.
- Gradient: Softens the edges of the repainted line to blend it into the background. Try to raise this setting only as much as the scene requires. Setting it too high may create a ripple as the wire moves.
- Reflection: Increasing this setting adds a reflection at the center of the line, which may help to blend the line into the scene better.