Trouble Brightening the dark shark tank exhibit

D

dale001

Member
Apparently "Sony Color Curves" and "Sony Levels" are to be used first, instead of the basic "brightness" FX. I understand that, but there seems to be confusion (at least my own) on when or if I should use both Curves and Levels or one or the other to brighten a dark scene.

I am trying to brighten a scene I shot at SeaWorld of the indoor shark tank exhibit, which is obviously a dark environment. I am using only Color Curves and am having difficulty brightening the scenes enough to see the sharks. I guess I need to find the happy middleground, because if I brighten the shots too much, I'm getting a blooming (I guess it's called "blooming") or ghosting/washed out effect on different parts of the image (not the whole image). No doubt the lighting combined with the moving water is contributing to this effect.

Is there something in Color Curves I may be doing wrong that is also producing this or is it just a matter of brightening it too much? That diagonal line in Curves can be frustrating. It's still difficult, even with my calibrated Sony monitor.
 
The Curves filter is more powerful than levels, although you may find the Levels interface easier.

Tutorial on the levels filter:

http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=a7a8c403-64dc-420d-97d0-90d2f8de9fc1

Color curves:

If you make the color curves concave down (or move the curve towards the upper left), that will brighten things.

http://glennchan.info/Proofs/dvinfo/ccurves.png

Those curves are designed to work for 16-235 "studio RGB" color space. In Vegas 6, the default DV codec works in that color space.

The curves in the screenshot are based off the curves at
http://glennchan.info/Proofs/dvinfo/color-curves.veg
 
HorseFilms said:
Can you post a still?
Click to expand...


http://pages.prodigy.net/kdi/shark%20raw%20footage%20still.jpg


http://pages.prodigy.net/kdi/shark%20with%20problem%20areas.jpg


I have uploaded two stills: the raw footage still and the problem areas still.

The problem areas shot demonstrates that on some of the black parts of the shot, there are ghosting or blooming effects--maybe from too much contrast?
The shark itself doesn't show this effect as blatantly. The problem areas aren't seen as easily on a PC monitor.

During this same shot, the camera tilts up to where the lighting is more appropriate, so I have to be careful how much I brighten the sharks, but at the same time avoid this undesired effect around the sides of the shot.

Please let me know what I could use and what settings seem to be appropriate. I, as a beginner to Vegas, find Color Curves and the diagonal line difficult. Thanks
 
I don't think there is enough information in that picture to pull anything. That is truly a dark picture and if anyone can do it I'd like to see as well.
Sorry not much help, just an observation.
 
Yeh, the exhibit is inside and on a moving walkway --just to make it interesting. At least you can get a smooth tracking shot! Obviously, TPTB wouldn't allow me to use portable lights; hence, I will continue tweaking using Vegas's fine tools. I only need to tweak it just enough so you can make out that it's a shark because the camera tilts-up to where the lights are stronger to capture very viewable images of sharks.

It will be interesting to see if Horsefilms has better luck than me. Ughhh.
 
It's too dark for me to get a decent image without introducing artifacts. If it's a quick shot, you should be able to get away with it. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.
 
You can try this:

Use the levels filter, and really slide "input end" down. You may need to adjust "input start" a little bit.
Once it pans to the lit area, use keyframes to tune this effect out.

If colored artifacts appear, de-saturate the image using the color corrector. Then use the gradient map to add some sort of artistic tint to the image... i.e. try the overexposed preset.
You could make your own gradient map, where you use some marine color (mostly green, with a little blue) for the dark areas on the left, then some blue tones for the middle and the upper segment.
 
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