salvaging footage with overexposed sky

D

Doc Peter

Member
Hello -- I'm working on a short promotional piece for an organization that brings teenagers together from countries of conflict for a summer camp experience (conflict resolution training) to bring about peace in the regions over time. The irony is, I'm at war with some over-exposed footage and I don't want to work it out, I just want to kill it. :cheesy:

The interview subjects are in dappled shade and the sky behind them is blown out to video white. Clearly, it was an exposure situation I wasn't prepared for. Here's a screen shot of what I've done already with the 3-way color correcter -- the mids are down a bit, the whites are up and saturation are up a bit to get the guys to look okay -- but what to do about the sky? Any advice or approaches are appreciated.

Picture1.png


Shot with a DVX100b at 24p
editing FCP 6.06

I've since bought Barry's book to make sure to get better exposures in the future, but I would appreciate some approaches to improve the footage I have in FCP.

Thank you.
 
If you can, and its on a tripod, or steady, mask/key out the white on the top part of the frame, and throw in some blue.... make sure you don't get the guys shirt
 
In Color, you could try a secondary using an HSL key on the blown out sky and initially just lower the highlight luma. The key likely will pick up some of the white tshirt which is also blown out, but it might still work since the luma of the tshirt needs to come down as well anyway. In fact, I might try to create a key that includes the sky and as much of the white tshirt as you can get without getting other areas, and lower the highlight (and perhaps a little gamma) luma on that key. Kind of a desperate try, but it may be justified by the extreme exposure problems. You could also try the same thing with the 3-way color corrector in FCP, but that is not as effective a tool as Color, in my opinion.

Kevin
 
I don't think that there is very much that you can do in post to improve this scene. It is what you've got. Obviously you don't want to shoot a subject in dappled light against a blown out sky again. Rather, be aware of extreme lighting conditions. 20/20 hind sight tells us that if the camera position had been higher you could have had a dark green tree or two as the background. Your subject exposure doesn't look all that bad. It's the ratio of subject to background that seems to be the problem.
However, if the subject content is germane I doubt a seriously interested viewer would criticize this shot (unless it is stuck in the middle of beautifully artistic and dramatic scenes). There are tons of shows on the air with important subject matter that contain scenes that are blown out, hand held, b&w, etc. and no one criticizes. Content is most important.
Of course we are all interested in good photography and want good looking scenes. We learn from our mistakes . . . study and move on.
Good luck,
Ken
 
Just lower the highlights so it doesn't stand out too much. Mask it in a basic way or use the limit options in the color correction 3-way filter to keep the correction to the sky. Don't try to be perfect, it's blown out and you probably lost the detail needed to do a complete sky replacement.

Alternatively, in your first CC 3-way correct for the exposure and the blown highlights (bringing them down). Then duplicate the clip and apply a different CC 3-way filter on it to bring up the people, again using a mask or limit effect. If the people don't move to much you can use the basic masking shapes (oval) with a large feather and nobody will notice as long as you keep the correction subtle.

You can also do all of this in Color if you are familiar with it. In particular, if there's a lot of motion you can try tracking the corrections.

Keep it simple, most people are used to seeing a blown sky. Like kennydymax mentioned, content is the most important.
 
I really appreciate the responses everybody, thank you. I actually spent the afternoon trying all the different approaches (I couldn't matte out the sky effectively enough without it drawing attention to itself -- I'm sure in better hands it would have worked fine.) The most valuable comment for me was from KennedyMax: "It's the ratio of subject to background that seems to be the problem." I decided to get more aggressive with the subject coloring as a way to minimize the overblown background. I bumped up the saturation, darkened the blacks and fiddled a bit with the colors. They are now a tiny bit cartoony -- but at least the image is not so overblown or washed out. And, of course, what they're saying is the most important thing. Here's a screenshot of what I came up with.

Picture2-1.png

I know, not a huge difference -- but I think it's improved and I wouldn't have done it without this board. Thanks everybody.
 
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