I'm working on a piece where the subject is on a stage and the stage lights have consistently blown out his prominent forehead. I've done some basic correction with levels, but it's still pretty ugly. I know there's no way to get any detail back, but is it possible using the secondary color corrector or any other tool to possibly add some sort of softening color to this area? There's no other white in the frame so I thought I might be able to affect just the white. I'm not quite sure if I'm getting the tools in the secondary color corrector, ie., complimentary and adjustment color tools. Any help? I've got the DVD tutorial by Glen Chan on this subject but the section on this is pretty quick, or maybe I'm just a little slow. Either way, any help? Peg :crybaby:
Secondary Color corrector help
- Thread starter hatteras
- Start date
I think, but I'm not sure. The flaw in your theory is that you think the clipped highlights are white. They aren't, there is no video data in that area. It would be like trying to color correct the air and unless you live in L.A. there simply isn't any color in the air.
Anyone who's ever shot something that got clipped knows your pain. All you can do is learn from it. Checking your zebras at 100 is something I do by habit every time I move the camera.
Anyone who's ever shot something that got clipped knows your pain. All you can do is learn from it. Checking your zebras at 100 is something I do by habit every time I move the camera.
glenn chan
Well-known member
Unfortunately there isn't much you can do with overexposure and with stage lighting, the high contrast is really hard for video cameras to capture. Some of the more well-featured cameras can better deal with this via the knee settings and the gamma settings.
Try this:
1- Use the default Sony Vegas DV codec if you aren't already. It'll buy you some extra detail in the highlights. They are illegal colors, so you need to bring them down.
2- To quickly see all the available highlight detail in the image, Add the levels filter and change the gamma to a low value (everything should look dark). If the highlights are truly clipped, you will not be able to recover any information you're not seeing.
3- Change gamma back to 0.
Use the input end slider and lower that setting until the highlights hit white level.
See http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=a7a8c403-64dc-420d-97d0-90d2f8de9fc1
for information about setting up your waveform monitor.
4- If the subject isn't moving much, you could isolate the levels filter to act within a bezier mask (this is demonstrated on the DVD). However, this would get very tedious!! Programs like After Effects, Combustion, etc. could perform motion tracking; however, it would still be tedious.
5- You could setup a stack of layers to just lower exposure in the bright areas (i.e. this effects work 2-dimensionally instead of a per-pixel basis).
http://www.glennchan.info/Proofs/forums/dvx/highlight-detail.veg
I don't believe this would be that worthwhile though.
6- Another approach is to make it look intentional... or artistic, whatever you want to call it. You can add glow and diffusion effects with the Glow filter, or Unsharp mask.
http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/usm/usm.html
I hope that helps!
Try this:
1- Use the default Sony Vegas DV codec if you aren't already. It'll buy you some extra detail in the highlights. They are illegal colors, so you need to bring them down.
2- To quickly see all the available highlight detail in the image, Add the levels filter and change the gamma to a low value (everything should look dark). If the highlights are truly clipped, you will not be able to recover any information you're not seeing.
3- Change gamma back to 0.
Use the input end slider and lower that setting until the highlights hit white level.
See http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=a7a8c403-64dc-420d-97d0-90d2f8de9fc1
for information about setting up your waveform monitor.
4- If the subject isn't moving much, you could isolate the levels filter to act within a bezier mask (this is demonstrated on the DVD). However, this would get very tedious!! Programs like After Effects, Combustion, etc. could perform motion tracking; however, it would still be tedious.
5- You could setup a stack of layers to just lower exposure in the bright areas (i.e. this effects work 2-dimensionally instead of a per-pixel basis).
http://www.glennchan.info/Proofs/forums/dvx/highlight-detail.veg
I don't believe this would be that worthwhile though.
6- Another approach is to make it look intentional... or artistic, whatever you want to call it. You can add glow and diffusion effects with the Glow filter, or Unsharp mask.
http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/usm/usm.html
I hope that helps!