Can anyone help me colour correct these?

[HBlack]

I'm working on a scene I shot, and I'm not sure what to do with the colour correction. Does anyone here have the time to do something with these? Have fun with it, I don't have a particular colour scheme in mind for the scene yet. Just something to make it look more interesting.

http://i7.tinypic.com/7xb4960.jpg

http://i7.tinypic.com/6jyc6ft.jpg

http://i6.tinypic.com/81frrtg.jpg

http://i8.tinypic.com/6oxlsux.jpg

I know the shots of the second guy are underexposed. This is because that's me in the shot, and I assumed my friend would be able to set an adequate exposure. I've made a note never to act in anything I make again. I'm really disappointed with the lighting in that shot; the cupboard's more prominent than I am. I need to work on the lighting consistency as well.

Any comments on the shots would be great as well.

[tcindie]

These would be far easier to do something with if you hadn't crushed the blacks all down to essentially nothing. But here's a quick tweak.. (Jpeg compression killed the quality a little bit)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2405/2056830674_6ad469bd81_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2111/2056830692_74120ee825_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2062/2056830664_936f6b0cc0_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2067/2056046011_e83a32daff_o.jpg

[HBlack]

Could you tell me what you did to achieve that? Something with the levels or curves?

Really, I have no idea how curves work, and if someone could explain it that'd be great. I've tried messing with them through trial and error, but I'm not sure how a curve relates to the image.

[HBlack]

http://i4.tinypic.com/6jwlny9.jpg

That's my attempt at it. Basically a bleach bypass with a bit of roto to darken the background.

[tcindie]

Could you tell me what you did to achieve that? Something with the levels or curves?

Really, I have no idea how curves work, and if someone could explain it that'd be great. I've tried messing with them through trial and error, but I'm not sure how a curve relates to the image.

It's a combination of adjusting levels for shadows/mids/highlites independently and tinting each, along with a mask to separate the faces from the rest of the image to make them pop a little bit, and another mask to darken the dresser in the underexposed shot.

[Matt Grunau]

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/6995/1195891779.jpg

[Spartacus]

Don´t take this the wrong way, but maybe reshooting the scene is an option...?
The screenshots look very noisy and the blacks have no detail...

[tcindie]

Really, I have no idea how curves work, and if someone could explain it that'd be great. I've tried messing with them through trial and error, but I'm not sure how a curve relates to the image.

This is the easiest way I can explain curves..
Curves work basically like an EQ for audio.. the right side is the brightest color (white) and the left side is the darkest color (black)...

The default setting is generally a 45 degree angle from black to white, with the black being at zero, and white at 255 or however high the scale goes. Basically, adding points and dragging sections up or down will adjust the brightness levels.

Tweaking an image solely with curves is good for exposure and contrast adjustments, but it can be a bit of a pain. Color correction should really be done with a three wheel setup for Gamma, Lift, and Gain.

Apple's Color works that way, and on the PC side, Colorista is phenomenal -- including the awesome masking tools that work like the "power windows" on Davinci hardware color timing systems (and others like it).. I hear the color correction tools that are built into Vegas are pretty snazzy too, though I've not played with them.

Here's a couple links that further explain using curves:
http://www.wideopenwest.com/~wvg/tutorial-1.htm (http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7Ewvg/tutorial-1.htm)
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/html/vid0010.html
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/689597/color_a_photo_using_curves_in_photoshop/


As for color correction... These are specific to colorista in After Effects, but they're pretty cool to watch anyway, regardless what you've got to work with.
http://redgiantsoftware2.com/Downloads/videos/colorista/After_Effects_Intro_web.mov
http://redgiantsoftware2.com/Downloads/videos/colorista/After_Effects_Advanced_web.mov

Additional Colorista stuff:
http://prolost.blogspot.com/2007/02/colorista-in-fcp.html

And, even if you don't look at any of the others, definitely check out this one:
http://prolost.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-colorista.html


Finally, this clearly demonstrates my consistent advice to people about lighting their shots evenly for the most options for coloring in post (it shows several before/after images from the film Transporter 2..) shot on film of course, but notice the look prior to coloring. If your digital footage is captured in a similar fashion (protecting the whites and blacks) you can cheat around the limited latitude that the digital medium(s) offers..

http://prolost.blogspot.com/2007/07/color-makes-movie.html

EDIT: I agree with Spartacus, it would be a good idea to reshoot these with proper lighting if possible.

[HBlack]

Don´t take this the wrong way, but maybe reshooting the scene is an option...?
The screenshots look very noisy and the blacks have no detail...

I'm using an elura 90. You probably haven't heard of it, because it's terrible. I'm not sure if I can do anything about the noise/lack of detail, the only thing I can really improve is my lighting and composition.

[Spartacus]

I'm using an elura 90. You probably haven't heard of it, because it's terrible. I'm not sure if I can do anything about the noise/lack of detail, the only thing I can really improve is my lighting and composition.
One reason more to re-shoot :thumbsup:

[tcindie]

I'm using an elura 90. You probably haven't heard of it, because it's terrible. I'm not sure if I can do anything about the noise/lack of detail, the only thing I can really improve is my lighting and composition.

What you're using isn't as important as what you do with it.. lighting your shots better not only prevents the noisy blacks (ideally you shouldn't let ANYTHING completely fall into black in your shots, nor should you let anything get completely blown out) it also gives you the most flexibility with coloring in post.

It's good practice to light your shots fairly flat, so the difference between highlights and shadows is only 5-7 stops or so. This cheats around the inherent lack of latitude the digital format offers. You can always darken shots in post. If they start out dark, they'll be full of noise and grain, and thus garbage.

As they say, garbage in, garbage out.. the more information you capture for a shot the better your end result will be. Even with a "crappy" Elura 90. ;)

[PaPa]

i say do a reshoot and include more light. right now neither of your characters are backlit so they just blend into the dark abyss behind them. not the most pretty lighting.

give them a little rim, give them an eye light so we know they are alive, and keep expose properly.

[HBlack]

After thinking about it I'm up for a reshoot, but everyone else involved is getting tired of it. Through this project I'm advancing alot, reshooting almost everything and making tons of mistakes, but because of it I feel I'll be much more prepared for my next project. But that leaves me with this, which I got a bad start on. I'm not sure what to do with it, really. Oh well. I'll figure it out.

[tcindie]

If it comes down to it.. you either scrap the project, or live with an uneven look at the end, and chaulk it up as a lesson learned.