Best way to correct washed out colour??

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

Sometimes at weddings things are hapenning so fast that I have no option but to snap the camera into full auto and let it handle exposure. In our over-bright Australian sun, mid-day outdoor shots end up being a bit washed out and they are slightly over-exposed so the chroma level goes down too resulting in "wishy washy" colour.

I can, of course, correct this in the camera BEFORE shooting with one of HMC scene files BUT when everything is happening fast you sometimes just don't have time..and if you do you also have to remember to change back when shooting in shade otherwise skin tones go crazy with higher chroma levels!!

At the moment all I do is use the Brightness and Contrast plugin and drop brightness down to - 5 and contrast up to +10 and it looks fairly good!!!

Is there a better plugin to use???? or a better method to use in Vegas when I don't have time to adjust before shooting???

Chris

[Edward Troxel]

You should never use "Brightness and Contrast". How about posting a sample image?

[Mike Kujbida]

I use a combination of Curves and Levels to fix problems like this.

[Jeff Harper]

Chris, being where you are you should have a polarizing lens! If you know you are going outdoors, you can get a filter case that goes on your belt, keep the filter in there, and and just screw it on real quick. I have such a case, and it goes right on my belt, is small, and works great.

It doesn't answer your question above, but would help in many situations. You probably already know about this, but thought I'd throw it out for you anyway.

[Nicholas de Kock]

Chris I use "Color Curves" play around with it and you will soon get the hang of it. You can easily control brightness & contrast with curves also add a little extra "Saturation Adjust" to washed out colours.

[Chris Barcellos]

Levels seems to have the most affect on resolving these issue. I start at the top of the sliders in Levels, and work my way down, and finalizing with a little touch on gain if needed. You should have your scopes up and be watching them to keep everything in limits too.

[Chris Harding]

Thanks all

Very interesting!! It actually happens very rarely but sometimes we will have an outdoor civil ceremony on a concrete paved area in full sun and you have to be there to believe the brightness!!!!

Edward??? why not Brightness and Contrast ??? (not questioning you just wanted to know why you wouldn't use this plugin and when you should use it)

Thanks so much the general feeling seems to point towards levels and curves which also makes sense!!

Jeff the HMC82's are a pain in the butt to screw on a ND filter or polarizing filter..you have to unscrew the lens hood then add the filter and then the hood goes back on again...easy enough operation to do of course BUT it would take 30 seconds of time...trouble is that we get situations where half the area is REALLY bright and half is OK so I might only need to adjust a few shots!!

Chris

[Jeff Harper]

I know that we are not supposed to use the B&C, thing, but I use it an awful lot, on every video. I use it to punch up the contrast in virtually every video I edit, even if only a hair's worth of adjustment. But it works pretty well.

When the blacks are not matching from camera to camera I use the B&C to match them up.

So like Chris says, what is it about it that makes it not a good choice?

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

why not Brightness and Contrast ???

Because they clip.

[Chris Harding]

Oh well at least I'm not the only person who is doing things the wrong way.... Adam? do you still get clipping even if you apply a tiny amount of correction .. I seldom, if ever reduce brightness more than -5 and increase contrast by the same ..the preset in the plugin sets both at 10 which is always way too much!!!

What I was REALLY looking for was a Saturation Adjust plugin!! Nic??? where is that one..part of Curves??? I have another wedding to go to shortly so I'll look when I get back later!!

Following advice it's certainly worth looking at levels and curves instead of B&C. Maybe Jeff will try it as well???

I often have an outdoor ceremony with fierce backlighting so I have to expose for skin tones and the overall B&C is a lot lower than cutaway shots of the guests cos the light is behind me with the 2nd camera...I have used B&C to get these to match up a bit better but now I will certainly try levels and curves!!

Chris

[Jeff Harper]

I'm color blind, so levels would likely be dangerous for me to play with.

As another tool, I like New Blue Color fixer Pro Open FX version, and it has a saturation adjustment you might like Chris. The Pro version supposedly keeps everything within broadcast specs, but I don't know if that is true.

[Allan Black]

Originally Posted by Adam Stanislav

Because they clip.

Sorry mate I'm getting lost .. don't you mean because they 'can' clip, same with all CC controls?

Cheers.

[Ian Stark]

Essentially B & C affects EVERY pixel in the frame, so for example if you are trying to adjust the blacks you will also be adjusting everything else, which is (probably) undesirable. Levels is more selective which is the reason it's used rather than B & C.

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Allan Black

Sorry mate I'm getting lost .. don't you mean because they 'can' clip, same with all CC controls?

No, I don’t. Both of those are linear operations. Increasing either the contrast clips both the highlights and the shadows. Increasing the brightness clips the highlights. I really don’t understand why Sony even included them.

And no, not all CC controls do that.

The proper way to adjust brightness and contrast without clipping is using the color curves, Do not move the ends, do not add any new points on the curve, just adjust the two Bezier handles. If you move both handles down (concave curve), you decrease the brightness. If you move both up (convex curve), you increase the brightness. If you move the left handle down and the right one up, you increase the contrast. If you move the left handle down and the right one up, you decrease the contrast. You can play with them, changing their length, and so on. As long as you do not move the endpoints and keep the handles inside the bounding rectangle, you do not clip either end.

As for washed out colors, it is hard to say without actually seeing an example. They can be washed out because of low saturation or because of incorrect exposure or both. Saturation is easy to adjust in Vegas with the color corrector plug-in. Exposure can be adjusted with the color curves.

The two plug-ins can do virtually all CC. Combined additionally with the secondary color corrector, you can do any and all CC with the three of them. But really, most CC can be done with the color curves alone.

N.B. When I said not to add any new points I was talking about the proper way to adjust contrast and brightness. You can add new points if you want to distort the colors as I did in my Psychedelic preset. But that is not color correction.

[Edward Troxel]

To expand on Ian's comment a little, I kind of think of Brightness and Contrast as using a sledgehammer to drive in a finishing nail - something you just wouldn't do. It affects too much too broadly