Turn a matte into finished work.

fog

Depth-shaped atmosphere. The far end of the shot mists first while the foreground stays clean — real aerial haze, keyed off distance.

wireimage → CZFogMerge.Background
depth matte → CZFogMask.Image

Fog colour on CZFogColor, amount on CZFogMerge.Blend, falloff on the mask's Low/High.

rack focus

A focus pull you didn't shoot. Sharp at a focal plane you choose, defocusing with distance — animate the plane to rack between subjects.

wireimage → CZRackFocus.Input
depth matte → CZFocalPlane.Image1

Animate CZFocalPlane.NumberIn1 (0 = far, 1 = near) to pull focus; max blur on CZRackFocus.XBlurSize.

depth grade

Three depth bands — near, mid, far — each with its own colour node, and no roto. Warm the foreground, cool the distance, separate a subject from its sky.

wireimage → CZGradeNear.Input
depth matte → CZNear / CZMidWide / CZMid / CZFar (all four)

Grade in the three neutral correctors CZGradeNear / Mid / Far; each only touches its band.

parallax 2.5D

A push-in with real depth for lockoffs and stills — the background drifts against the foreground instead of scaling flat.

wireimage → CZParallax.Input
depth matte → CZParallax.Foreground

Animate CZPush Size for the move, Center a few pixels sideways for the drift; strength on the Displace refraction.

haze light

Depth-weighted glow — the far side of the shot blooms like light through haze. The honest "relight-ish": a gradient, not true normals, and it says so.

wireimage → CZHazeGlow.Input
depth matte → CZHazeMask.Image

Strength on CZHazeGlow Gain / Glow Size; the mask's Low keeps it off the foreground.

veil blur ★ THE ONE TO GRAB

Privacy blur — or mosaic — inside a tracked matte, with a grow/feather so edges don't leak. The journalist tool: hide a face, a plate, a screen, and nothing else.

wireimage → CZVeilIn.Input
Stencil matte → CZVeilMask.Image

Mosaic instead of blur: set CZVeilMosaic.Blend to 1 (see below). Edge grow/feather on the mask.

This blurs where the matte says — check every frame before you publish. Stencil's confidence strip tells you where to look.

veil blur — mosaic

The same template, bypassed by default: flip one value and the blur becomes a hard mosaic. Built from Scale nodes so the blocks stay crisp.

enableset CZVeilMosaic.Blend → 1
block sizeCZMosaicDown.XSize (smaller = bigger blocks)

cutout

Composite a Stencil ProRes 4444 (RGB + alpha) over a new background — a colour, or other footage. Tune the alpha rather than trust it.

wirergba matte → CZAlphaTune.Background
new bg: recolour CZBackdrop, or footage → CZOver.Background

The MatteControl gives you matte blur / contract-expand / invert on the alpha.

matte tune

Grow / shrink / feather / despeckle any matte — Stencil, Depth, or Hush's confidence matte — and actually look at it. The QC bench the other templates assume you have.

wirematte → CZMatteIn.Input
image → CZTuneView.Background (for the tint view)

View CZTuneFeather for the matte alone, CZTuneView for it as a red tint over the shot. All controls start neutral.

confidence grain

Grain only where Hush actually cleaned. Hush ≥ 3.7 can write its clean-confidence matte into the output alpha; this lays grain back over exactly those areas, so the denoiser's flattest patches get texture and the rest is left alone.

wireHush output (confidence in alpha) → CZGrainIn.Input

One wire — the mask reads the alpha. Amount on CZGrainMerge.Blend, size on CZGrain.XScale.

The better path is Speak, which regrains in density, not on the output — this is the free-Fusion echo for when Speak isn't installed.