Colors on Sony Vegas Pro 10.0c don't match Magic Bullet Looks 1.4.2 (LookBuilder)

[Zhong Cheung]

So when I shoot my footage from Sony Vegas Pro 10.0c over to Magic Bullet Looks 1.4.2 (LooksBuilder), I notice the colors don't match at all. Of course, both softwares/plugin are using the same monitor as I only edit with one monitor.

Even before I apply any color correction/grading, the raw look of the footage is completely different in Vegas as it is in Magic Bullets Looks.

After correcting in Magic Bullets LooksBuilder, it sends that color correction back to Vegas. However, when viewed in Vegas, the colors are completely and very noticeably different (obviously since we started with two completely different looking raw footage) than in MB LooksBuilder.

Why is this, and anyone know how to fix it?

[Seth Bloombaum]

Can you describe the differences?

If you've taken the projects out to distribution formats, is it Vegas or MB that more closely matches how the projects look on DVD or internet, etc.?

[Zhong Cheung]

The Vegas version is more accurate to the end product out on the web. The MB version is just very washed out, diffused, soft, etc. It's like it's been desaturated of color or the brightness was turned up or something.

[Nicholas de Kock]

Originally Posted by Zhong Cheung

After correcting in Magic Bullets LooksBuilder, it sends that color correction back to Vegas.

What do you mean by this? How does LooksBuilder 1.4.2 send information back to Vegas if Magic Bullet 1.4 is not supported by Vegas?

[Zhong Cheung]

I thought it was supported up to 1.4.2, but not 1.4.3.

In any case, what happens is I go in Vegas, click the track FX icon, add the MB Looks plugin, click the "edit" button, which opens up LooksBuilder and lets me work in there (but with washed out colors that look different than the image in Vegas). After I apply whatever effects I want in LooksBuilder and close out of it, there are noticeable changes to the video clip in Vegas (though obviously different looking than it looked in LooksBuilder).

[Rob Wood]

sounds like a colorspace shift.

i didn't see anywhere where u listed what codec or format u were rendering to. this makes a big difference as players handle various media containers differently. ie; quicktime has a gamma shift problem with h.264 for instance.

the only way to confirm if footage is messed up on render is to import the file to an NLE and examine it under the scopes... of course, various NLE's handle different formats in various ways also... good times.

you may wanna check out Glenn Chan's articles on colorspace and Vegas:

Vegas 9/10
Color spaces and levels in Sony Vegas 9 and 10

Vegas 8
Glennchan.info


you may also wanna look for a couple of recent topics with 200+ postings on the Sony Vegas Forum for a discussion about codecs, colorspace and uploading to YouTube/Vimeo: painstaking detail and many examples.

[Zhong Cheung]

Hmm, I didn't render out to anything. I'm just working on the timeline still in Vegas, and the colors shown in the preview monitor in Vegas don't match the colors in the preview monitor of LooksBuilder (MB Looks).

But my raw footage is .m2t in HDV 1080i format from a Sony HVR-A1U camera. I am not using an intermediary codec to edit.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, everyone!

[Ian Stark]

Originally Posted by Zhong Cheung

I thought it was supported up to 1.4.2, but not 1.4.3.

It is indeed.

Couple of thoughts:

1. The frame that is passed to Looks is a completely uneffected frame. Check to make sure you haven't applied any other effects (media, event or track level) that might affect the appearance of the frame in your Vegas preview (not Looks preview). Those effects would not be carried into Looks and would be a reason for the two looking different (and of course the results of your tweaking in Looks would then be altered by the effects back in Vegas).

2. Is 'assume Linear Gamma' checked or unchecked just below the 'Edit...' button?

3. Are you viewing both the Looks frame and your Vegas Preview frame on the same monitor and are they identical and calibrated?

4. Are you previewing in Best Full mode?

Just a few things to mull over. Interested to know if any of these help.

EDIT: Just re-read original post and I see you only use one monitor, so forget number 3.

[Ian Stark]

One other thing you might want to check.

In Looks preferences, have you set Input/Output Processing to advanced? If so, go to the Input tab and try resetting the values to their defaults.

If you still see a difference you should be able to tweak the input settings so that the Looks preview matches the Vegas preview and then your corrections in Looks should be correctly made.

[Zhong Cheung]

Thanks, Ian!

1) No, no other effects applied on the track or specific event level.
2) What does assume linear gamma even mean? I've seen this feature, but no clue what it does.
3) Yes, they are viewed on the same monitor. It doesn't need to be identical because there is only one monitor (of course it's identical to itself lol).
4) No, not previewing on Best mode, but even when I change it so that I do...colors still different.

I will try these suggestions out and report back!

[Ian Stark]

This is lifted from the documentation:

>>>The Assume Linear Gamma switch (the small yellow button next to the label) is used to compensate for projects that are set to render 32-bit floating point. If you change the Project properties in Sony Vegas (File > Properties) and choose to set the Pixel Format to render 32-bit floating point, then the Compositing Gamma is by default set to 1.000 (Linear). The 1.000 (Linear) setting, when used with Looks could cause a brightness shift. The Assume Linear Gamma switch when ON matches the brightness and compositing pipeline of Vegas and preset looks will render correctly. Typically, you don't need to change this switch unless you change the Compositing Gamma setting.<<<

Even if this isn't where your problem lies I think you may have some success with the Input/Output processing I mentioned in my second post.

Hope it helps! Look forward to hearing your results.

[Zhong Cheung]

Wow, I don't even know what those terms are.

But the linear gamma did fixed the problem for me. Thanks!