Paint Node

Paint is the number one node for any cleanup task in Fusion. Every brush stroke is a vector stroke you can move, resize, retime, track or delete afterward.

Classic VFX use cases: removing stunt wires, erasing a boom operator's reflection, cleaning dust off scanned film, replacing a logo, painting a mask by hand.

Because it is vector-based, changing a fix means re-editing the stroke, not repainting. And every stroke can be connected to a Tracker to follow a moving object.

• Effects Library: Tools > Paint > Paint
• Quick add: right-click in the Node Editor → Add Tool > Paint > Paint

• Input (orange) - reference 2D image. Sets the canvas size of the Paint node. Required.
• Effect Mask (blue) - optional. Limits the strokes to an area.

Dust busting:
MediaIn → Paint (Clone strokes on the dust spots) → MediaOut

Stabilized wire removal (pro workflow):
MediaIn → Planar Tracker → Steady mode
          ↓
       Paint (clone/paint on the stabilized image)
          ↓
       Planar Tracker Unsteady → Merge → MediaOut

Custom matte:
MediaIn → Paint (Color strokes on a Black canvas) → Matte output

Multistroke

Fast strokes that cannot be edited afterward. Ideal when you paint 100+ strokes per frame for volume (heavy dust busting, large-scale cleanup).

Clone Multistroke

Clone version of Multistroke. Quick cleanup by sampling a nearby area.

Stroke

Vector stroke, fully editable and animatable. The most used for precise work (wire removal, local cleanup).

Polyline Stroke

Bézier path stroke - place points to build a precise path. Click mode (individual points) or draw mode (continuous).

Circle / Rectangle

Geometric paint shapes. Animatable. For quick masks or simple cleanup shapes.

Copy Polyline / Circle / Rectangle

Clone versions of the geometric shapes: the shape pastes an area of the source image inside it.

Fill

Magic-wand style fill - click an area and all similar contiguous colors get filled. Selectable color space and channel.

Paint Group

Groups several strokes into a single object for tracking or global transformation. E.g. group all the strokes of a cleanup to track them together over a camera move.

Color

Standard paint with a solid color. The classic.

Clone

Copies a source area onto a target area with an offset. The number one mode for pro cleanup.Alt + click to set the source, then paint.

Erase

Reveals what is under the paint layer (handy to locally undo a previous fix without a global Undo).

Smear

Pushes the pixels in the direction of the brush. A "Photoshop finger" effect. Stylization or soft correction.

Wire

Built for wire/rig removal - automatically samples the neighboring pixels and spreads them to cover the wire. Cleaner than a Clone for thin wires.

Emboss

Relief effect through the strokes. Creative use.

Merge

Merges the strokes with the image using a blend mode.

Stamp

Image stamp - uses a connected image as the brush (image brush). For example, a "leaf" brush to paint foliage quickly.

Brush Shape

Soft Brush (soft edges, default for cleanup), Circular Brush (hard edges), Square Brush, Single Pixel (exactly 1 pixel), Image Brush (uses an image as the brush).

Size Variation / Opacity Variation

Constant: fixed size / opacity. Pressure: reacts to graphics tablet pressure. Velocity: reacts to the speed of the movement.

Softness

Softens the edges of the brush. 0 = hard edge, 1 = very blurry.

Spacing

Density of the brush stamps along the stroke. Low = continuous stroke, high = visible spaced dots.

Color Space / Channel Selection

For Fill operations: choice of the color space and of the channels used to detect contiguous areas.

1. Planar Tracker on a fixed area close to the wire.
2. Steady mode → the shot is locked, the wire stays at the same position frame after frame.
3. Paint node after the Planar Tracker. Paint the wire out in a single session (since the image is still, one stroke covers the whole shot).
4. Unsteady mode of the Planar Tracker → the shot gets its original motion back with the fix perfectly integrated.

This technique is the gold standard of wire removal in VFX. Much faster than painting frame by frame.

• Wire / rig removal - stunt wires, boom poles, greenscreen stands. Paint Wire mode on a stabilized shot = pro.
• Dust busting / scratch removal - scans of old film, sensor dust. Clone Multistroke on each spot.
• Logo / branding removal - erase a brand on clothing or an object in the shot. Clone from an adjacent area.
• Quick matte painting - paint directly on a shot to add elements (stylized clouds, local corrections).
• Custom mask - white Color strokes on a Black canvas = an animatable mask to isolate a precise area.
• Face cleanup / beauty - Clone to remove pimples, temporary scars.
• Pimple / spot removal - targeted cleanup of blemishes over time (with a tracker to follow the face).
• Write-on stroke animation - animate a stroke appearing (0 → 100% of its length) for graphic effects like a drawing that draws itself.

• Cmd/Ctrl + drag to adjust the brush size on the fly. Faster than touching the Size slider.
• Alt + click for the clone source - essential in Clone mode. Sets where the copy is sampled from.
• Option/Alt + click to pick a color - in Color mode, lets you pick an existing color from the image.
• Multistroke for volume, Stroke for editable work. Feel free to mix both as needed.
• Paint Group + tracker for a series of fixes that has to follow a movement (e.g. group all the dust spots of an area and track them together).
• Wire mode only for wires - do not use Wire for large fixes, it is less clean than a regular Clone.
• Roto Assist for clean paths - enable it in the preferences - the path snaps automatically to detected edges. Saves time.
• Save before heavy Paint work - Paint can get heavy with 100+ strokes. Git commits or regular backups recommended.
• For complex pro paint work (removing a vehicle in a moving shot), consider Silhouette Paint or Nuke Paint, which give more control over temporal tracking.