
For a few months now, Amped FIVE features the new Annotate filter, which makes annotating your video so easy and effective at the same time. This tip is dedicated to the difference between adding multiple annotation objects using a single instance of the filter or adding one annotation per filter. It’s not the same! Curious? Keep reading!
Annotating your processed frames can make a big difference. Your results can be made much more clear and compelling by adding the proper annotations. Sometimes there’s vital information that must be added (timestamps, to cite one).
Now, it’s often necessary to add more than one annotation object. For example, you may well need to redact someone’s face and magnify someone else’s face. Let’s use this video below as an example: we need to redact the man’s face and magnify the lady’s face.

The Annotate filter does not limit you to using just one annotation object. You can add as many as you like within the same instance of the filter, as shown below. (Notice we’ve set the redaction object to have a green border to make it more visible in this example.)

There are several advantages in adding multiple annotation objects within the same instance of the Annotate filter:
- You can control the layering of objects (right-click on an annotation and you’ll be able to move it to the background or foreground).
- You can get an overall idea of which frames are annotated just by looking at the bottom bar.
- By disabling the Annotate filter you can temporarily hide all annotations with just one click.
However, there is one important element that you should keep in mind. If you put multiple annotations in the same Annotate filter, each annotation object works on the Annotate filter’s input pixels, and not on the incremental result of previous annotations. To give a practical example: if you exaggerate with the magnifier and accidentally include the man’s face, then it will be visible in the magnification, although it was pixelated in the original position.

If you need to “overlay” several annotations, you may rather consider adding two Annotate filters. This way, you can first redact the man’s face in the first instance of the filter. Then add the magnification in a second instance. Doing so, the second Annotate filter will “see” as input the annotated pixels, and we’re safe even if we accidentally magnify over the man’s face.

Although we’ve used the Magnify and Hide annotations as examples, the principle is valid for all annotation objects. For example, using a third instance of Annotate we may add a Spotlight over the magnification of the lady’s face:

If you experiment a bit with Amped FIVE’s Annotate filter, you’ll be impressed by how powerful and versatile it is!