best way to lighten an image in FCP 5

[Mark Shea]

Hi

I shot some indoor footage with a camera with faulty gain control.

I need to lighten the footage. I was using quicktime - brightness and contrast, ,but then experimented with gamma correction and found that it also lightens the image.

Can someone please tell me what the gamma correction is used for? Should I use it to lighten dark footage instead of the brightness and contrast filter?

[Mark Bournes]

Also try the "proc amp" and raise the video level that way.
Mark

[Glenn Chan]

Different ways to do things.

Brightness and contrast IMO is the worst filter.

Gamma correction is one way.

The 3-way color corrector is another way. Drag the midtone slider up. You may need to tweak the "saturation" slider.

Another way is to use the 3-way color corrector. Drag the highs/highlight slider up, and tweak the saturation slider until things look right. This may give you the most natural-looking results. You can use the waveform monitor or histogram or range check (crtl+z... the mac equivalent of that) to help you out. You want the highlights just to peg the maximum. On the histogram, things will just turn red.

[Cole McDonald]

Here's another one from the old photoshop days. Duplicate your footage to a second layer and set the composite mode to multiply...then adjust the transparency level of the tip layer to suit your tastes.