Blend modes, composite modes, whatever you want to call them, they have been elusive in Avid Media Composer since day one. There are third party tools that have always been able to help out (they could be expensive). The often suggested round trip to After Effects has always been a workable though painful option but now we may have a more elegant solution.

BLEND MODES IN AVID MEDIA COMPOSER?!?!?! The hell you say!

Someone made a plugin. Free…in beta…but simple testing shows it to work like gangbusters.

AVX2xBlendhttps://t.co/4UWUrgKPsf pic.twitter.com/43p74Wngu6

— SHANE ROSS ⚔ (@comebackshane) August 28, 2019

The creator of MDV, that fantastic little media management tool for Avid (covered here in a Useful Tools for Editors), quietly popped a beta for his nearly 10 year in development Blend-X onto the web the other day. Avid editors were understandably giddy. Something that has been asked for repeatedly over the years, something that is both useful and time saving and something that every other competing NLE has had for years might finally be coming to Media Composer. It is reason to celebrate.

Reading about Blend X from the developer’s website we learn a bit about the tool:

• 32bit float point image processing (may be ACES compatible?)
• precisely adjusted blend modes to match references (it looks like in ps,pr,bcc,davinci)
• 100% slider
• Bypass button
• And megacrazy WOWpowered 200% “Magic Slider”!
• everything you need – in a single zip package !

There is a download link near the bottom of the page for both Mac and Windows.

Let’s take a moment to plug the developer’s other Avid-focused app MDV. It’s a lightweight media management app for Media Composer that can scan, catalog and move media from your Avid MediaFiles folder. It’s really become the go-to for this type of thing outside of the Media Composer application itself since Media Mover from Random Video died.

Thank you creator of Blend-X. The whole Media Composer world thanks you.

Honestly, I should have probably waited until the official announcement of Blend-X to post this article but as a longtime Avid editor I know just how excited this will make many other Avid editors and just how important this will be for those doing their effects work right there in Media Composer. It is still in beta so there are many Avid installs who won’t be able to download and try it out but if you can, and are in need, go for it. It works great on my system.

It’s yet another chapter in the things your NLE should have had built in but isn’t so a third party developer is filling that hole chronicles. Maybe I need to make this a regular feature!