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Can some kind person offer a clear description of 'matte'?

Yes, I know. Maybe an obvious question. But it's one of those things that I still half-understand. I've searched the help system and browsed online but I can't quite pin it down.

Thanks!

Dave Straker

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Computers: Win10: Chillblast i9 Custom + Philips 40in 4K & Benq 23in; Surface Pro 4 i5; iPad Pro 11"

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So far exploration includes:

  • Something to do with transparency, dull colour, edges, masking, background replacement.
  • Edit/Matte fills in transparent areas with a given colour.
  • Used in Refine Edge for 'please find the edge for me'.
  • Noun: (films, television) a mask used to blank out part of an image so that another image can be superimposed.
  • All sorts of things like track matte, garbage matte, difference matte, luma matte.

 

Dave Straker

Cameras: Sony A7R2, RX100V

Computers: Win10: Chillblast i9 Custom + Philips 40in 4K & Benq 23in; Surface Pro 4 i5; iPad Pro 11"

Favourite word: Aha. For me and for others.

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You've missed out a Matte Box. Are you after the etymology of the word? - As far as I can see/read it comes form the feminine French derivation meaning "Curds" - go figure?

A matte box allows me to ADDED a full frame effect to the front of a lens. For me it can be a pola, a ND Solid or Grad or a complex stack of filters.

Edited by Grazie
clarity
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6 minutes ago, Grazie said:

Are you after the etymology of the word? - As far as I can see/read it comes form the feminine French derivation meaning "Curds" - go figure?

 

I think that derivation only refers to matte as in ‘not shiny’. I’m not sure about the use of the word in connection with the replacement of a transparent background.

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2 minutes ago, Alfred said:

I’m not sure about the use of the word in connection with the replacement of a transparent background.

Maybe transparent foreground.

Dave Straker

Cameras: Sony A7R2, RX100V

Computers: Win10: Chillblast i9 Custom + Philips 40in 4K & Benq 23in; Surface Pro 4 i5; iPad Pro 11"

Favourite word: Aha. For me and for others.

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(of a color, paint, or surface) dull and flat, without a shine.
matte black
 
 
a matte color, paint, or finish.
the varnishes are available in gloss, satin, and matte
a sheet of cardboard placed on the back of a picture, either as a mount or to form a border around the picture.
The photographs were printed on 8 x 10 sheets, sepia-toned, and presented with ivory-toned mattes and walnut-stained mahogany frames.
an impure product of the smelting of sulfide ores, especially those of copper or nickel.
Botswana exports are dominated by diamonds, copper/nickel matte , beef and animal products; also exported are textiles and soda ash.
a mask used to obscure part of an image in a film and allow another image to be substituted, combining the two.
Virtually inventing methods of composite mattes in film made the invisible man truly come alive and real.

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Matte can be a verb as well as a noun.

Matting in photo editing seems to involve flattening, such as with pulling up and down the right/left curves nodes and reducing saturation, as in http://photographypla.net/simple-matte-effect-photoshop/.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matte_(filmmaking)

I'm particularly interested in how the good folks at Affinity define 'matte'.

Dave Straker

Cameras: Sony A7R2, RX100V

Computers: Win10: Chillblast i9 Custom + Philips 40in 4K & Benq 23in; Surface Pro 4 i5; iPad Pro 11"

Favourite word: Aha. For me and for others.

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> > I'm particularly interested in how the good folks at Affinity define 'matte'.
>
> Oh well, we'll need to wait from them to respond, then?

Conversation with everyone else is good too.

Dave Straker

Cameras: Sony A7R2, RX100V

Computers: Win10: Chillblast i9 Custom + Philips 40in 4K & Benq 23in; Surface Pro 4 i5; iPad Pro 11"

Favourite word: Aha. For me and for others.

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In Affinity "matte" refers to the background color (or lack of any color -- IOW, transparency) for exports to raster image formats, & in Affinity Photo may also refer to the treatment of edges in the Refine Selection window. So I guess it is closest to the 'sheet of cardboard' dictionary definition -- AFAIK, it does not refer to the dullness or shininess of anything.

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2 hours ago, dmstraker said:

So far exploration includes:

  • Something to do with transparency, dull colour, edges, masking, background replacement.
  • Edit/Matte fills in transparent areas with a given colour.
  • Used in Refine Edge for 'please find the edge for me'.
  • Noun: (films, television) a mask used to blank out part of an image so that another image can be superimposed.
  • All sorts of things like track matte, garbage matte, difference matte, luma matte.

 

As you already saw the term can have context related different meanings, even in photography and cinematic film usage (a matte color, a matte mask, a matte background, mattening aka framing etc.). - What I realy liked here ... :)

Quote
mạtt
 
Adjektiv
  1. 1.
    schwach, müde, erschöpft.
    "Ich fühle mich vor Hunger und Durst ganz matt."
    Synonyme: kraftlos, umg. erledigt, schlapp
  2. 2.
    ohne Glanz, nur schwach leuchtend.
    "Ich muss den Silberring polieren, denn er ist ganz matt."
    Synonyme: stumpf
  3. 3.
    nicht intensiv.
    "Er antwortete mit einem matten Lächeln."
 

 

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Bonjour.

Ce site

http://monscrap.com/blog/2013/06/08/mater-une-photo-dans-le-scrap-ca-veut-dire-quoi/

donne la définition suivante:

Mater une photo dans le scrap ça veut dire mettre le papier autour .... comme une sorte de petit cadre ... ça fait ressortir la photo et surtout la met en valeur.

Il y a plusieurs orthographes: Mater, matter. mettre une matte = un cadre (??).

Concrètement,  dmstraker  n'a pas la réponse concrète qu'il souhaite.

Intéressant et amusant ce fil. 

Edited by Wikinger
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> Mater une photo dans le scrap ça veut dire mettre le papier autour .... comme une sorte de petit cadre ... ça fait ressortir la photo et surtout la met en valeur.

Google translates as: So Mater a picture in the scrap it means to put paper around .... as a kind of small frame ... it brings out the picture and especially it highlights it!

Hmm. Sounds like 'framing a picture makes it look better'?

Dave Straker

Cameras: Sony A7R2, RX100V

Computers: Win10: Chillblast i9 Custom + Philips 40in 4K & Benq 23in; Surface Pro 4 i5; iPad Pro 11"

Favourite word: Aha. For me and for others.

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  • 7 months later...

I'm more confused than even now!
So what's the difference between "matte" and "fill" ? --- apart from fill having Shift+F5 shortcut
In Refine; matte just seems to be a default for "average repair" for the want of a better wording 

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6 hours ago, ianrb said:

I'm more confused than even now!
So what's the difference between "matte" and "fill" ? --- apart from fill having Shift+F5 shortcut
In Refine; matte just seems to be a default for "average repair" for the want of a better wording 

In cinema, Matte is the made-up (fake) background that the actors act in front of to give the appearance of being in the jungle or on the moon, when in reality they are in a building in Hollywood. These days it is CGI, not someone with a paintbrush. A typical matte was the warehouse full of boxes at the end of the Indiana Jones movie.

In photography, if you cut out your subject and put them in front of a beach scene, you are using the beach as a matte.

So basically, matte is the background.

Fill is the colour you completely cover something with. So if you completely cover your wall (or 'matte') in a single colour like pink or green, you have 'filled' it. 

I'm not sure that the term 'Matte' is really appropriate for refining the edges of a selection (as used in Refine Edges) but then using the term 'Rasterise' is a bit dodgy too sometimes ;) I think just 'Refine' (not Matte) would be a bit better, because that is what it does.

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11 hours ago, toltec said:

In cinema, Matte is the made-up (fake) background that the actors act in front of to give the appearance of being in the jungle or on the moon, when in reality they are in a building in Hollywood.

WHAT??!!  Will that comment really spoilt movies for me. So none of the bad guys  fell off the mountain ?   :61_sob:   :) 

Thanks for that great reply toltec
Seems to be just one of the ''weird'' names used by Affinity --- another is Personas O.o.
I have the thought Affinity was originally started in a very non-english speaking country and things got a bit lost in translation 
Only names; once we get used to them it's not a big drama  

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1 hour ago, ianrb said:

So none of the bad guys  fell off the mountain ?

Yup and Han Solo wasn't really encased in carbonite. 

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1 hour ago, ianrb said:

I have the thought Affinity was originally started in a very non-english speaking country and things got a bit lost in translation 

The English language is perfectly capable of losing itself without outside help; indeed, it excels at that.

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16 minutes ago, R C-R said:

The English language is perfectly capable of losing itself without outside help; indeed, it excels at that.

Yep; I totally agree with that -- English is said to be the hardest language to learn and write, and being dyslexic doesn't help me to write it right . LOL! 

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I suspect that the original meaning of matte came from mat, a a sheet of card placed on the back of a picture, either as a mount or to form a border.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/matte

The meaning got extended (and the spelling got amended) when early film-makers used painted backdrops to replace genuine scenery in live action shots and developed all sorts of physical in-camera techniques which can now be replicated in software.

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As Toltec as mentioned I've always understood Matte to be like the Green or Blue screens Movie makers use to create illusion. Also, a lot of games used to use a pink matte for sprites.

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On 9/1/2018 at 8:50 PM, ianrb said:

Yep; I totally agree with that -- English is said to be the hardest language to learn and write

What??

Nevermind.

Matte, as I understand it, is a way of defining what is shown and what is not through another image, almost like a mask.

a1.png.16ae10dbe15f7609085563543d31c7f7.png 

Here you have Apple's logo.

 

a2.png.d721d33b3564ecd26b8461137739b7d5.png

and here you have Apple's logo as a matte to this mountain photo.

There's this other concept of matte as "matte painting", which is a background to be inserted and composited in movies/videos/photos to fake the scene.

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