over-exposing with colour corection in mind?

jamesh

jamesh

Well-known member
This may seem a bit of a silly question to some of you but i was wondering:

When i colour correct my footage in Magic Bullet etc, i always find that the presets & settings i use seem to darken the whole image down & i loose a lot of detail, especially in the background.

Is it advised to maybe slightly overexpose shots to compensate for increasing contrast/desaturating etc or do i just want to use more/higher intsensity key lights & more fills for the background?

Apologies if this sounds stupid but i'm a newcomer who just wants more filmic looking shots without loosing clarity.

I can post some examples if i'm confusing people with what i mean.

thanks.
 
Overexposing leads to lost detail when you work with digital video, and once you blow something out, you're never getting it back.
 
I think maybe you don't mean overexpose - maybe just lighting a scene a little brighter than you normally would or would normally want it. Then let Magic Bullet do its thing and darken it back to where you want it.

It seems logical to me.
 
I did this on my last short where I used the color reversal preset. I over-exposed by one stop, but beware of blow outs, because like a previous poster said, once it's gone, you don't get it back.

Just know what preset you're going to use in post, and try to shoot to best accomodate that.
 
TimothyJinx said:
I think maybe you don't mean overexpose - maybe just lighting a scene a little brighter than you normally would or would normally want it. Then let Magic Bullet do its thing and darken it back to where you want it.

It seems logical to me.
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I believe what David meant is that there's a point in which you light and overexpose too much so that you lose all detail on it. For example if you trained a worklamp about like a foot away from a subject in a bright room, then used an open iris, the footage is only going to register as white stuff and have no detail for you to salvage.

Use the Zebra control on your camera. That shows what loses detail from overexposure by putting black and white stripes over said areas. Then you can turn to a lower aperture (f stop? something like that) until the lines disappears, and you have the image in tact.

That said, if you just light it a bit brighter than normal, that should be gravy. Just use the zebra thing to see if you are losing detail.
 
I was actually replying to James. I understand what David meant. I was just suggesting that James open the iris a little more that he normally would have in order to compensate for the Magic Bullet effect. I think James said "overexpose" but really meant what I suggested - just open up a little more than normal.


spencer said:
I believe what David meant is that there's a point in which you light and overexpose too much so that you lose all detail on it. For example if you trained a worklamp about like a foot away from a subject in a bright room, then used an open iris, the footage is only going to register as white stuff and have no detail for you to salvage.

Use the Zebra control on your camera. That shows what loses detail from overexposure by putting black and white stripes over said areas. Then you can turn to a lower aperture (f stop? something like that) until the lines disappears, and you have the image in tact.

That said, if you just light it a bit brighter than normal, that should be gravy. Just use the zebra thing to see if you are losing detail.
Click to expand...
 
I think i'm with what Timothy said, although the last thing i want todo is loose detail. It makes sense to open the iris more to compensate for MB darkening the shot. I'm mainly talking about interior shots of darkish rooms (which are meant to be dark in the story).

thanks guys

also, does anyone else think that the MB presets seem to all be quite extreme? or is it just a case of selecting one and tweaking it down to suit your own footage & desired look?
 
Usually you underexpose for color correction. This way you have "headroom" to increase contrast.

Just use the sliders in MB and find a setting to change brightness and contrast. :thumbup:
 
I would say, shoot don't change your exposure for magic bullet, with DV it is important that your exposure is spot on, over and under exposing unless for a specific effect will only degrade your footage. If magic bullet isn't giving you the look you want, then do it the old fashioned way :)
 
I like to shoot as clean as possible, then tweak to get the look in post. I know some purists are dead against the 'fix it in post' mentality, but I'm pretty new to this stuff so I like to know that i always have a 'fallback' option
 
Dont shoot your video to make Magic bullet happpy...... thats nutz. its presets are so destructive. Learn to use luminance masks, to adjust high and low points in the image. Try using color curves, and color channels to adjust the colors.

Thissi the "hard way" but it provides better results.
 
Most of the presets are overdone in MB. Some that are useful are color reversal... I've also found that you use Bleach bypass, and then add saturation that can give it a really nice look. But really, for just a general film look I tweak the contrast in Premiere. My number is set between 20-30 depending on how the scene was lit. In fact, I usually adjust contrast information first, and then do additional CCing. And while the MB presets are kinda out there, the good thing is they are completely adjustable. It's a good tool if you know how to use it. But if you need a quick basic CC option, just hit the contrast at about 27... (in premiere) Yields a nice filmic image without overdoing it. But about exposure.... I agree with most, just shoot it properly exposed. Use your zebras. They love you, and want to be your friend! If your a newbie, hit your auto iris (if there are no windows in the background) let it set based on your lighting, then change it back to manual so it maintains that exposure. But that's only if you have very little time to work with it. Hope this helped some..
 
Expose "correctly then use "Levels" on your footage before applying Magic Bullets (or any CC for that matter).
 
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