Controls for the Vegas effect

Adjust the following controls for the Vegas effect:

Stroke

Specifies what you want to use to create a stroke: Image Contours or Mask/Path.

Image Contours

Specifies the area where the lights will appear. Vegas sets thresholds for the image and then creates contours around the edges of the resulting shapes.

• Input Layer specifies where the strokes appear. High-contrast, grayscale layers, and alpha channels work well and are easy to work with.
• Invert Input inverts the input layer prior to creating the stroke.
• If Layer Sizes Differ determines how to adjust the layers if the size of the input layer differs from that of the layer to which Vegas is applied. Center centers the input layer in the composition at its original size. Stretch to Fit scales the input layer to match the layer to which Vegas is applied.
• Channel specifies the channel or property of the input layer used to define the contours.
• Threshold sets the threshold for the selected channel. The threshold is the percentage value at which everything below or above is mapped to either white or black. For example, if a grayscale file were an altitude map with white high and black low; the Threshold value moves the contour up or down the terrain. This is an important factor in determining the location of the edges that Vegas strokes.
• Pre-Blur smooths out the input layer before the threshold is sampled. Set this to 0 if you have a high-contrast image and want the stroke to follow the edges very closely.
• Tolerance defines how tightly the stroke conforms to the input layer. A very high setting results in sharp corners, while very low values can make the stroking sensitive to noise.
• Render specifies whether to apply Vegas to a selected contour or to all contours in the layer.
• Selected Contours specifies the contour to use when Selected Contour is selected in the Render menu. Contours are numbered from left top to bottom right; the contour with the highest point is number 1, the second highest point is number 2, and so on.
• Shorter Contours Have specifies whether shorter contours have fewer segments. By default, Vegas breaks each contour into the same number of segments. For example, if you apply Vegas to the letter R, the outside contour may look fine with 32 segments, but the inside contour may be almost solid. To resolve this, select Fewer Segments.

Mask/Path

Specifies the path to use for the stroke. Select the mask from the Path menu. You can use either closed or open masks.

Segments

See Segments controls for the Vegas effect.

Rendering

See Rendering controls for the Vegas effect.