tough color correction

D

dstevens

Well-known member
I recently videotaped a fashion shoot in a nightclub. The models walk down a runway, and as they walk they are in bright light, then dark light, then in blue tinted, etc.

The biggest issue is when the models are at the end of runway, they have a huge bright spotlight on them. The picture then is so bright the colors are all washed away and a lot of detail is missing.

I've played with the brightness, saturation, RGB... I've got it a lot better, but not as good as I'd really like. It may be I can only work with what I've got, but I thought I'd ask if anyone had any thoughts, etc. I can try and put some footage on my website if anyone is interested.
 
If you've got blown highlites as it seems, there's little you can do to fix it, unlike an underexposed problem.

Try to use those parts as a transition into the next shot and make the blowout look intentional.
 
Pookie's right about the blown out highlights. Changing lighting conditions is one case where auto exposure would come in handy.

Some other suggestions would be to not use the blown out footage, or blow out your other footage to match, or use it in some creative way.
 
i would first try playing with the levels.

in the graphic panel you can change the response curve to brightness. if there's still some brightness change in the washed out areas, moving the sliders you can get to see it better.

another option is to play with the curves directly. that gives you more control but you have to be very delicate. also it allows you to change more selectively the response of the brightness over its range. if there's some details, you should be able to pull it out in some way.

If it's outrageously overexposed (all pixels are nearly white), the only way is to call back the model and make her perform again:) (even privately)

anyway, i'm sure that if you post a frame, several people will have fun trying to adjust it:)

Andrea
 
Thanks. I guess this question for another forum, but what kind of dvx settings would have been better? Again the problem seemed to be if I got good footage when the models walking down the runway, then it's too bright when they are at the end of the runway. If I tone it down when they are standing in the spotlight at the end, it's too dark as they walk away.
 
in theory if you set the cine gamma you will have an enhanced contrast range, so you should be able to cover larger lighting differences than in standard mode.

the other way is to adjust the exposure manually while shooting. i wouldnt trust the automatic (also it's too harsh). but this is not acceptable in most of the production contexts. In some more 'real life' contexts can be acceptable, but IMHO has to be done *very* slowly.

another option, if you know you will be able to intercut with some other shot (like the audience looking at the runway), you can keep it manual and change it when the intercut will happen.

Andrea
 
All above advice is very good but could I add:

You may get a little bit more out of your images if you keyframe your corrections. Deal with the "problem" areas separately by using key frames.

I would use the PremPro 'Colour Corrector' for this task. It has all the tools you could need ( and as mentioned above) and they are all key frameable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top