how would you color correct THIS?

B

becausewemust

Member
I recorded a show last night for a friend, i know stage lighting can be good, but I just don't know how to get around to fixing it. This is what I got out of it, all my attempts at correcting it so far are pretty bad. What would you do?
Screen shot 2011-07-27 at 11.41.36 AM.jpg
 
Seems to me that you got a lot of red channel there and not much else.

I guess the first question needs to be, given the lighting on stage rigs (which can often have lots of colour in them), what colour were you hoping to get? Is it ALL red?
 
becausewemust said:
I recorded a show last night for a friend, i know stage lighting can be good, but I just don't know how to get around to fixing it. This is what I got out of it, all my attempts at correcting it so far are pretty bad. What would you do?
View attachment 37450
Click to expand...
And what does your parade scope look like? That should give you an idea of what kind of room for improvement you might or might not have.
 
Two options.

1. Leave it red or mostly red
2. Balance it and live with the HORRENDOUS noise you are going to get.

This isn't a "color balance" problem". This is an "absence of color" issue. You can't create what wasn't there to begin with.
 
For future ref - looks like you may have had your color temp set to daylight vs. tungsten... which seems to make the "vampire concert" look even worse...

Though many clubs are switching to LED lighting now, take a look at the fixtures (LEDs are pretty tell-tale with their rings of tiny lights) and try to settle on a good color balance before you start shooting for real.
 
What I've found in shooting in similar situations, is if all the lighting is incandescent, I forgo manually white balancing and use the 3.2k preset (not auto). That tends to be pretty accurate, as trying to get an accurate manual white balance is nearly impossible in that type of situation (and I don't want to even know what an auto white balance would look like).

I know it doesn't really help you after the fact, but for future reference.
 
Mike Harvey said:
What I've found in shooting in similar situations, is if all the lighting is incandescent, I forgo manually white balancing and use the 3.2k preset (not auto). That tends to be pretty accurate, as trying to get an accurate manual white balance is nearly impossible in that type of situation (and I don't want to even know what an auto white balance would look like).
Click to expand...

I agree on using the preset. With no green or blue to speak of in the original light on the scene, the auto white balance would try to lower the red and boost the blue so both matched the (nearly nonexistent) green channel. The result would be basically the same as trying to fix it in post -- probably a horrendously noisy, underexposed image.

Since there's basically only one color channel out of three present here, you're pretty much stuck with a monochrome image. It doesn't have to be red, of course -- you could play with that and swing the chroma phase all around in post to make it any other (single) color you want, or suppress the color altogether and go for B&W. It's likely to be pretty noisy no matter what you do, but something like Neat Video may help with that.

I don't see any solution to this for future shoots except to add some blue and green to the original lighting somehow. If there's no energy present already in those wavelengths, it certainly isn't going to show up in the video. But if you added enough cyan to color balance the image properly, you'd probably destroy the original artistic intent of the lighting for the live venue. Kind of a catch-22 situation.

How did the original scene look visually to your eyes? It must have been pretty much pure red even then, right?

- Greg
 
I will def try the preset next time I'm in that situation. Luckily this was for a friends band, so it doesn't matter too much. I know some other colors were present, but I think they were facing me. I think the only stage lights that were on were red and black-light.
 
becausewemust said:
I will def try the preset next time I'm in that situation. Luckily this was for a friends band, so it doesn't matter too much. I know some other colors were present, but I think they were facing me. I think the only stage lights that were on were red and black-light.
Click to expand...

Desaturate and go Black & White :)
 
I would suggest using curves and making it a bit whiter.

Or, you could make it black and white... that would also cover your ass.
 
B&w it. Adjust contrast/brightness so it looks cool. Add a 8mm film strip noise look. And if you wanna add more add a light bit of colorization to bring back a touch of hue.

Even more crazy, look to add back in a color strip thing. I don't remember what is called exactly but it takes different luminances and applies colors to them separately. Might come out with something cool and retro looking.
 

If the stage was washed with red then you should probably just accept it! You have a documentary of a concert, and thats what everyone saw right? The above clip of the Rolling Stones playing Love In Vain from the film Gimme Shelter, is a beautiful example of red saturation being accepted as BEAUTIFUL! Too bad the clip isn't HD, as it looks beautiful on DVD or HD!
 
Lots of stages are now using partial spectrum color LED lighting that is impossible to white balance because the other colors are missing from the light source. You either live with the color you have, or as others have suggested, you go B&W and then add your own look to this to make it work.
 
So, I ended up making it black and white with some noise, I also added some original slow motion red footage in different parts throughout it and it gives it an awesome feel. Here is a screenshot. I can link the video when uploaded if ya'll want. During the last song, I had some mic problems, and the last song cut out, so I did something pretty clever and I love how it turned out.

Screen shot 2011-07-28 at 12.38.01 PM.jpg
 
Wow, consider the frame rate for this film, and the lighting it must have taken for the images to come out at all. Cool.
 
Nice. Creative and pleasing look despite crappy footage. That's the way the pro's do it, they just never loft the curtain ;)
 
becausewemust said:
So, I ended up making it black and white with some noise, I also added some original slow motion red footage in different parts throughout it and it gives it an awesome feel. Here is a screenshot. I can link the video when uploaded if ya'll want. During the last song, I had some mic problems, and the last song cut out, so I did something pretty clever and I love how it turned out.

View attachment 37504
Click to expand...

Not bad. I like it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top