ABSTRACT
Travel mattes, or traveling mattes, are a unique type of composite mode that uses the underlying layer in a composite stack to define an image’s transparency. The two travel mattes are Luminance and Alpha. In a travel matte, the layer to which it’s applied will take its shape and transparency from either the Luminance value or the Alpha value of the layer directly beneath it. The top layer’s transparency is created by the composite mode that is looking at the layer directly beneath it to determine what should be transparent. An alpha matte uses the transparency of the layer below, like text layers, to create transparency in the layer to which the composite mode is applied. A luma matte uses the luminance values of the layer below for the composite mode. Day for Night is the seldom-used technique of trying to shoot in daylight and make it look like a moonlit night.
