Shadow/Highlight

whoaaanelly

whoaaanelly

Member
Hey all, Kind'a new to the video editing stuff, but I just purchased Vegas Movie Studio to do some work for a new project I'm working on. Historically have been working in computer gaming, but the new direction for our product now includes video. So I'm now wearing an editors hat. So far things are happening well. Here's a quick background of what we're doing. We are video'ing in HD on a Canon camera bicycle races. These races are in real time and therefore I don't have the luxury of choosing the best time of day -- and lighting at 7 AM (when the races often start) is really bad. This will ultimately be an interactive video race program where you ride an indoor bike trainer and control the video playback speed (it will also control your workload as you climb hills etc.). So this will be like you are at the race on race day. The issue I'm having the most trouble with is adjusting for shadows going across the road. As a long time Photoshop user I was pleased when they developed the Shadow/Highlight feature because that fixed on photo's what I need to now fix on video. Does anybody know of a video FX plugin or some settings they've used to deal with this? The standard setting in Vegas MS have created a grainy highlight and I was hoping to have something not quite so artificial looking. Any help would be appreciated.

Roger
 
Could you please upload a 1:1 sized ratio picture from your video that exhibits the problem so I can load it to my Vegas and play with it and if I have good results I can report back on how I fixed it. I am generally pretty good on image manipulation.
 
Thanks Eugenia for the offer to help. Now if I can just figure out how best to do what you asked for. I'm working with an M2T file now (just a short capture of this section I'm working on so I can render quickly) and am not sure what/where/how to get you want you want. Forgive me, I'm a newbie. I'm a VERY fast learner though. ; )
 
Here's a bit more that "I think" I'm doing right... but perhaps there is another way. This is a computer ONLY application, so the first thing I'm doing is applying a Studio RGB to Computer RGB FX to the entire track, which really helps a lot. Next I'm going through and looking for the sections needing to be improved more, but more specifically the darker roads. I then split those sections out with the intent to apply another filter to brighten those sections up so it's not like you're riding in a tunnel. When all is said and done I'm rendering in Xvid @ 720x540; deinterlaced; etc. So far, other than the shadow fixing, I've got it all figured out (or so I've convinced myself, anyway). I can't see any way to apply an FX change to a "section" of track without splitting it out, unless I'm missing something.

So that's where I'm at now.
 
Well... I did find a place to grab a snapshot, but it's pretty small... and it's a jpg file. Interestingly, Photoshop doesn't behave the same with that file as it does with other images I've corrected with the shadow/highlight feature. Really must not have all that much data in that one image. But here's what I got so far.

shadowcda.jpg
 
That picture is too small to work with, I need a full size one.

Here is how you grab a full screenshot on Vegas. Go to the frame you want, and on the preview window select "Best (Full)". Then, click the little icon that says "Copy snapshot to clipboard" when you mouse-over it towards the right edge of the preview window, and that will place a picture in your clipboard. Then, "paste" the picture in Windows Paint or Photoshop and then save it as PNG and upload it somewhere. Then, give me the URL or insert it here.
 
I figured as much. Thanks for the instruct... and in fact that showed me a lot just telling me to do that. Which prompts another question, but first the link:

http://www.computrainer.com/images/imcda.png

I may have to post this question in another thread, but what relation does the File/Properties setting have to do with the original raw capture (raw video) settings? In other words: should I set the File/Properties to what I want the video to "be" eventually or what it was originally filmed in? I know when I render it I'll be changing it, but I can't find anything to indicate what the difference is between File/Properties and the final render settings.
 
Ok, I will be working on your picture.

Now, regarding your second question, the Project Settings should be showing what the raw footage IS, not what the footage will be after you export it. The only thing you can change over the original properties if you want in order to have a "cleaner" preview window, is to choose "progressive" and "interpolate" from some of the settings there (even if the footage is not progressive), just so you get an idea how the final will look like. But overall, the project settings is all about the source raw footage.
 
Ok, here's what I have come up with:
http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/images/adjusted.png
The image you captured for me was interlaced btw, so if you choose "progressive" and "interpolate" in the project settings while editing in "Best (Auto)" mode, it will look better. The grain and artifacts are there in the picture btw, not easy to take them away without using special commercial plugins.

So, here are the plugins I used:
Linear blur: amount 0.002
Color corrector: saturation 1400, gamma 1300, gain 1100
Brightness and contrast: 0.10
Sharpen: 0.150
 
Thank you. You are too kind. I do notice that changing the File Properties did change the preview in the viewer window when I changed them. But the Properties didn't, like, "read" the video and say it is such and so big and interlaced, etc. etc... and because there's the setting that says "start all of my projects with this setting" (or something to that effect), I was immediately thinking this setting had more to do with my final render not what the raw footage is to begin with. I wish there was a decent manual on this program... Anyway, I'm glad there's some help out there. Thanks again.

FWIW, now that I did a capture and looked at the image in Photoshop... it is grainy even in the raw state, so I know enough to know I'm only going to see subtle improvement. I also figured out this morning how to change the settings of the filter and preview them in the window pre-render, which helped. I found a setting of .12 bright; .06 Cont; and .24 ContCntr to give me some improvement in this area of shadow, but maybe there are other things to tweak. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
 
A second way to do it would be to apply a Linear blur at 0.001, and then use Color Curves and move the top half of the lines towards the top.
 
OMG... you were faster than I thought you'd be. I will try that out in the entire section of shadow and see how it looks (if I can find all of those settings, that is). And I knew it was interlaced, but if that Properties setting is really best only to help in the preview, then I'll make sure I change those settings accordingly before I ever do another capture. It really doesn't sound to me as though these setting have any relationship to the final render. Correct?

Oh, and we're using an XH A1 camera too, by the way, filming interlaced because the video guy couldn't figure out (at the time) how to get the Canon progressive stuff to work right. Because this is a computer based video application, we're pretty sure that will yield better results. Was pretty disappointed in the quality of a lot of the video, but we can't go back the next day and reshoot. It'll have to be next year, same day, rain or shine. Race day is race day.

Thanks again!
 
Eugenia,

I'm not seeing saturation, gamma, and gain in my color corrector dialog... so maybe there's a difference in what you're using and what I'm using. And my Brightness and Contrast has Contrast Center as well. In any case I'm seeing where you were going with this and have affected a few changes that help. Just curious, do you know of any way to "transition" effects so it doesn't look so much like someone threw a switch on and off?

As I mentioned earlier, I can't see how to affect any changes to a section of track without splitting it off the track (tracks/events... all Greek to me yet). And when I do this and look at the FX chain, it doesn't "include" the FX I dropped on to the track at the far left. I can only assume it is being applied because I assumed it is a global FX when I apply it there. Yes/No?

Thanks,

Roger
 
> I'm not seeing saturation, gamma, and gain in my color corrector dialog...

They are on the Color Corrector plugin, not the Color Corrector Secondary.

>And my Brightness and Contrast has Contrast Center as well.

Yeah, but if I didn't mention it, it means that you don't modify it.

>I can't see how to affect any changes to a section of track without splitting it off the track

You use "video envelopes". Download the Vegas Pro 8 PDF manual to see how to use these.
 
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