Colour Correction - How to make an image darker?

[Chris Hocking]

OK... so I have a seemingly easy question for you today!

I've got some night footage shot on a Sony A1P in HDV mode. It's just a simple shot of a city skyline. The footage looks quite nice, however because it was very dark there is a bit of noise (either due to having such a wide open iris or maybe some gain was kicked in). Either way, I want to make the whole image "darker"...

Seems like an easy enough task! I'm trying to do all the colour correction directly in Final Cut Pro, as opposed to go out to Shake, Color, After Effects, etc.

First I tried using the brightness/contrast filter, but that didn't really achieve the desired results. Then I tried the 3-way colour correction, but again, after a lot of playing around I just couldn't get it to look "the same, but darker". Then I tried a whole lot of other filters and tools, but couldn't really achieve what I wanted.

I'm not new to colour correction, and I'm certainly not new to Final Cut Studio. But I'm having real trouble in this case finding the right tool for the job within Final Cut Pro.

I've found a work around (by taking it out of Final Cut and into Photoshop), but I'd be very interested to see how other approach such a simple task...

Thanks for your time!

Chris!

[James Brill]

If you have FCS2 then I would recommend sending your sequence to Color and using the curves tool, which is basically a histogram with a different spin, and bring down your mids and highlights. Basically create a point on the top right corner of the master curve and bring it down, move it around, and add points till you get the desired effect. There are tons of tools to darken and image use which ever one you feel comfortable with.

[Greg Boston]

Another technique for noise removal is to create a luminance mask then apply a slight blur to only those levels of luminance that fall below a certain threshold.

-gb-

[Tom Vandas]

Originally Posted by Chris Hocking

I tried the 3-way colour correction, but again, after a lot of playing around I just couldn't get it to look "the same, but darker".

Hey Chris, sounds like you want to reduce gain, but FCP doesn't really have a tool for that (you could get something like the new Magic Bullet Looks).

Color is nice, but if you want to stay in FCP, I think the easiest way to reduce luminance is to put the track up over black and bring down the opacity using the motion tab.

For noise removal, I like Greg's idea.