Basically, everything in MC looks from the top downward as in layers.  So, if you apply an effect to a clip that is "above" another and you can see part of the clip below then you will see it is also affected.  That is unless you Nest.

What you are trying to accomplish, editing an alpha channel is posted to the knowledgebase.  Do a search for starwars effect.  In short, make a sequence of your title or title roll etc and then perform a video mixdown.  You will now have a new masterclip in your bin (title and alpha) which you can promote to 3D and manipulate in the effects editor as needed.  Picture the opening title graphics to starwars, the title rolls into infinity. 

track FX again

My First Porject - PIP's multitracks

COMBINING EFFECTS - NESTING:

There are essentially 3 basic methods to combine multiple effects on a single clip, known as nesting.

1) Use the up and down arrow keys on the lower left of the timeline toolbar to "step in" and "step out" of an existing effect to add a new one UNDERNEATH the existing one. This will result in the new effect being constrained by the original. For example, stepping into a PIP effect and doing color correction will result in ONLY the PIP being color corrected without affecting the rest of the image.

2) ALT dragging a new effect ON TOP of an existing one. The original effect will now be constrained by the new one, which will affect the entire frame. ALT dragging is the only way to combine effects on a motion clip. You cannot step into a motion clip or timewarp effect and place an effect underneath. As above, you can step in and out of effects combined in this manner.

3) Creating a multi-layer composition and using the "collapse" function. This will "sandwich" the multiple layers into a single layer "sub master" effect, which is very useful for clean, global transitions from a multi-layered effect to a single master clip, and vice versa. And, as above, you can still step in and out to reveal and work with the original layers.

Up to 24 layers of nesting are possible within a single clip.     Larry Rubin

Tutorial

There's a sharpness effect in BCC; it's called Unsharp Mask. It uses edge masking derived from soft (unsharp) edges in an image.  The mask is used to apply an overshoot then undershoot on those edges, creating a new, fake sharpening effect.

In the days of analog TV we use to call the analog equivalent aperture correction.

1. Old photo on V1, new photo on V2.

2. 3d Warp effect on V2.

3. Adjust Foreground parameter to 50% for transparency.

4. Adjust X, Y and Z in Position parameter until eyes overlap.

5. Move V2 clip to V1, remove 3d Warp, apply transition.

Hope that helps!

You may look at the "Unsharpen Mask" (in >Commotion Effects >Blur and Sharpen). Unsharp masking, or USM, is a traditional film compositing technique used to sharpen edges in an image, see http://www.streamaction.com/help/filters/correction/correction_palette_unsharpen_mask.htm

Unsharpen Mask creates sharpness - contrary to ther Sharpen filter - without enhancing edges.

and you want to see a detail of the image you can zoom to the image by holding Ctrl while clicking (or by magnifier lenses + -) (2).

But what if you want to move to a part of the image that it isn't visible anymore?

(because of the scaling and the zoom)

You Hold Ctrl (as for zoom in/out) and Alt together (3).

Then the cursor changes from the magnifier lens to a hand with which you can drag the canvas at any direction you want to (3).

So,

Ctrl + click= Zoom In/Out (2).

Ctrl + Alt + click = Drag the canvas (3).

If you want to apply one effect you've created to a bunch of clips at the same time, then you'll first have to drag the effect from the top of the Effect Editor to a bin.  Next, select all the clips you want to apply the effect to, either by lassoing around them or CTRL+clicking them in Segment Mode to select clips that aren't contiguous.   Finally, double-click the effect you saved in the bin and it will be applied to all the clips you've selected in the timeline.

{edited to add} You can find more information about how this works if you go to Working with Effect Templates in the MC Help.

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if you want to apply that one effect to many clips you can do this:

Drag the effect icon to a bin

enter Red Arrow Segment Mode.

CTRL+Click on each of the clips you want to affect so they are highlighted.

DOUBLE click on the saved effect on the bin. (in some cases you might need to hold ALT while doing this)

you'll see that the clips you had selected now have that effect applied, and with fewer keystrokes than CTRL+V on each one of them.

1) SHIFT select all the montage clips in either segment editing mode or lasso them (1).

2) ALT double click a PIP effect (2).

This creates a sub-master clip containing the montage images with the PIP applied globally on top of them. As with any other nested effect, you can always step into the sub-master effect to make changes to the original image clips of the montage (3).

If you wanted to apply a global color correct the simplest way would be to do it on an empty video layer above the rest of the edit.  That way the issue of nesting doesn't arise anyway.

Earlier this week, I created a Lower3rd graphic that animated on - it was basically a vertical and horizontal line that draw onto the screen just before the person's name dissolves on. I created the lines in Photoshop and then used the Crop parameter with keyframes to animate them. The lines were drawn to intersect on the left side of the frame, but if the talking head to be ID'd is on the left, then we naturally would want the lines to intersect on the right, I managed this by flipping it 180 degrees using Avid's "Flop" effect. However, this caused the video below it to also Flop and so I just placed an Add Edit on the interview clip below the Title Matte at the start and end of the where the Title (with the Flop) falls and then applied the Flop effect to that portion of the interview clip. This caused the video to flip back to where it should be.
 

TRANSITION EFFECTS BETWEEN PIPs THAT DO NOT AFFECT THE BACKGROUND:

How many times has this happened to you? You have a background layer of video on V1 and you have PIPs that you want to place on top and transition between them with something like a push effect. Well, low and behold, you set up the PIPs on V2, place a push effect between them and the background gets pushed right along with the PIPs! How do you prevent that?

The trick is to lay down the first PIP for the entire duration you want for ALL the PIPs. Then, step into the first PIP's effect and place "add edits" at the points where you want to transition to other PIPs, edit in the additional PIP clips, and apply the push effect at those points, then step out. Your PIPs will now transition with the push effect without changing the background.

I have found that I have to extend the Effect Editor by dragging the window so another button I was missing could be revealed (2).

Then if I was "loosing" the tracking tool (because in reality that was going to background) I just had to click on the Tracking Tool button (3), to bring it again at the foreground so I could make corrections.

It might seem silly but this is a detail that you have to have in mind.

Or...

1) Apply paint effect to layer.
2) Select SOLID mode, make colour black and draw rectangle over whole of screen.
3) Make solid rectangle semi-transparent so as to see a dimmed picture.
4) De-select rectangle.
5) Select ERASE mode and draw a circle or area around subject to highlight.
6) Adjust feathering to achieve desired look.
7) Re-select rectangle and adjust amount of dimming, if necessary.
8) Track highlight shape to follow action, if required.

or...

You could also use the BCC Witness Protection effect.  The default effect is a mosaic, but you can change it to contrast and it makes a nice highlight.  Tracking is built into the effect, too.

or you can add an "MOTION effect" Link 168  Fit to Fill - Revisited

Link74   Pseudo-Timelapse Effect

Media Composer 5 - Creating Freeze-Frames & Motion Clips
 
Tutorial 1 - Timewarp - An Introduction   
Tutorial 2 - Understanding the Anchor Frame
Tutorial 3 - Animating by the Position Graph
Tutorial 4 - Additional Capabilities 

BLEND/3d Warp (Corner Tracking / Stabilize Tracking)
IMAGE / STABILIZE  (aka Fluid Stabilizer ??)
IMAGE / REGIONAL STABILIZE  (Lew S says the easiest to use stabilizer in MC is the Region Stablize )
BCC TIME / OPTICAL STABILIZER

Use AutoStabilize to track and stabilize an image automatically when you apply it to a single segment in the Timeline. AutoStabilize does not function when you apply the Stabilize effect to multiple selected segments in the Timeline. If you want to AutoStabilize multiple segments, apply the Stabilize effect to each segment individually.

Correlation Tracking - This tracking engine is often the best first choice for tracking motion in an image. It usually produces accurate tracking data when the target area is distinctive, and usually generates tracking data faster than the FluidTracker when the area being searched is small.

FluidTracker - If you need to search a large part of your image, FluidTracker might produce good tracking data faster than the Correlation Tracker.

FluidStabilizer - This tracking engine is designed to track camera motion and is recommended for use with the Stabilize effect.  

Be sure to scale up the video before you track.   (Zoom it out.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyakd8ZUx0M

Or you could try the Region Stabilize effect, with the rectangle set at about 85-90 % crop (experiment). Remember to check the zoom box.

Tutorials

You will need to cut the audio in seperate. One you step in, you are dealing with video only at that point. I like to copy the effect out to a bin in this instance. 

But citing After Effects in this context points out the underlying issue here - the real elephant in the room.  Avid is not a compositing tool.  It was never intended to be one, but was simply designed to be a very good editor.  The more "flexibility" bolted on to it, the less useful as an editor it will become.

You can already see this concern being expressed in the thread, Control-key changes in MC5 in the Chat with Avid forum.

And to colorgrade a PIP, just step into it.

PS:  For those who don't know, the collapse button is in the button bar at the top of the timeline.  It looks like two sandwiched rectangles over the top of another one.  And to step into a nested effect use the down arrow that you see in the same bar.  Use the up arrow there to step out.

(You are right - this can be done this way. But it's complicated and it involves many steps of work. The fact that Avid has done this over years this way doesn't mean that this is the easiest and user friendly way. Sometimes you have to change because of the evolving world.)

Here's what I tried:

1. 3 video tracks

2. Top track with picture-n-picture, second from top also with picture-n-picture (the two sized to see both)

3. Now I can see all 3 video layers

4. Topmost two tracks - apply submaster effect on top two tracks (using the collapse button)

5. Step into the submaster and apply a Flop to the top track (using Alt + Flop)

What I hoped for was one of two outcomes:

a) The top picture-n-picture would Flop but not the second from top (BTW - I wasn't really expecting this based on my experience - I would have had to step into the picture-n-picture to isolate this)

b) The two tracks within the submaster would Flop but not the third (bottom) layer outside the submaster.

What I got was all 3 layers Flopping - this is wrong. The submaster effect should work like a pre-compose but it apparently does not. In fairness - I did not repeat this with other effects - maybe my choice of Flop was unfortunate (but I did also try color effect with the same results).

Something is not right about this but I can't put my finger on it at the moment - more testing required.