Color Fix: Black is Brown?

[Nicholas de Kock]

How would you color correct this image in Vegas? The brown jacket is suppose to be black.
Filmed with the Sony EX1 on a custom profile.

[Leslie Wand]

i might be wrong, but judging from the whites and skin tone i think you might be looking at the sort of synthetic material which refracts light differently than normal natural materials such as cotton, linen, wool....

[Chris Harding]

Hi Nicholas

Wow that sure is tricky!! The overall white balance looks correct as there is no colour cast in the bride's dress. You can key various colours in Vegas but the issue there would be that the timber beams in the Church are also close to the groom's jacket. Is this thruout the entire video??? You could create a matte over his jacket but that would take months to apply to frames as he moves.

It's hard to believe that the camera only "saw" the jacket as the wrong colour ..your skin tones look pretty much right and other "brownish" objects in the frame also seem correct.

Even if you correct the colour can you actually match the correct jacket colour....I'd like to know what caused just the jacket to be off!!! In longer shots is it still brown????

Chris

[Chris Medico]

That is a serious case of IR contamination. The EX1 and EX3 are both susceptible to that issue. Its most pronounced when shooting in sunlight or under hot lights with certain fabric types. Black car seat belts are just about guaranteed to demonstrate the problem. The EX1r included updated IR filtration to reduce the effect.

If you have the original EX1 you may want to grab an IR filter. Tiffen has produced a filter specific to the issue and you can read more about it here - ProVideo Coalition.com: Stunning Good Looks by Art Adams

There is a lot of info about the problem in the EX areas of the forum here as well.

Sorry I can't help so much on how to fix the problem in Vegas since I'm not a Vegas user but the above info about the filter should help you prevent it from happening next time.

How I would fix it in my system is to do a garbage matte around the suit with motion tracking then use secondary color correction to do a color exchange.

[Don Bloom]

Nicholas,
I have to agree with what's been said. All the other colors seem to look proper and I looked at the buttons on the jacket and they show as black so it would seem the material of the jacket is made of some sort of reflective material and quite frankly there is probably nothing you can do that wouldn't take perhaps months to do to "fix" the jacket all the while perhaps doing damage to other areas. Honestly I would leave it and IF the couple were to say anything simply explain the law of light vs. certain materials.
I've had black jackets turn blue under the right conditions. Nothing I can do about it. Same applies here.

[Nicholas de Kock]

Thanks for all the input guys! My brown is actually a red! Chris Medico I appreciate the link & advice I've heard about the IR issue on my EX1 but wasn't sure how it affected my video. This is not the first time this has happened and it always seem to be the grooms jackets that suffer the most. The environment was very dark so I had two 750W tungsten lights with Full Blue (CTB) gels on the couple - this color problem usually happens under hot lights now that you mention it. I've tried every kind of color correction short of masking and I can't get a fix, masking is going to take a bit too long so I will make peace with the red jacket for now. I will have to buy IR filters as soon as possible, I've had a big problem with reds on my EX1 especially with skin tones under sunlight.

As mentioned material must also be a factor, have a look at the pants which seem to be black.

[Jeff Harper]

I think the groomsmen's pants appear black because they are in the shadows. I think that overall the best thing might be to let it go and just go with it.

I see clothing appear differently under different lightinig conditions even in hollywood films and TV, on occasion.

Your problem would bug me also, but I truly think the customer would not even notice, because it is normal for things in lowlight situations to appear weird, and they know this at an unconscious level.

We pick up on this stuff because we're looking for it. I like you hate when black don't appear black but I'd skip it and just edit. As you've already surmised from the excellent comments, anything you do will only mess things up.

If you showed this image to your customer and said "Doesn't this look nice?", I bet they would agree it looked great. Then if you were to point out the color issue, they would be as bugged as we are about it.

Main thing don't mention it to them, and they'll be happy.

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Nicholas de Kock

As mentioned material must also be a factor, have a look at the pants which seem to be black.

I bet the groom is wearing wool pants and his mates are wearing synthetic. Clearly the pants on the left have the same problem as all the jackets but the pants on the groom do not.

Ah the troubles of modern life. It all looks the same but isn't the same. ;)

[Jeff Harper]

I disagree Chris. If we look at the grooms pants, we can see details such as wrinkles in his slacks, and the light distribution appears to be relatively even on him.

The area from the beginning of the bottom of the groomsmen's jackets and downward it appears we are seeing a less well lit area, there is a cutoff point where we are into shadows there and it's just plain dark, hence the darker appearance of their slacks. In addition, the left cuff of the groomsman on the left (for the subject it would be his right cuff) does show up brighter where light is hitting that spot above his shoe.

This is just one of those things that Nick is stuck with. His footage, based on this grab, looks perfectly fine to me.

[Chris Medico]

The source of my opinion is - The light causing the problem is out of frame on the camera top right side. You can see a nice shadow behind the groom from that light. His pants are well lit and are not in shadow. They are just a natural fabric and not a synthetic.

[Ron Evans]

Not sure how to do in Vegas as I haven't tried doing the same approach but this tutorial for Edius shows how to isolate the colour and change to what is needed. I have used this to correct for the same EX3 issues in the theatre shoots I do. I now have a preset that gets me close and saves some time. There are others in this series too, can't remember which one is the most appropriate at the moment.

EDIUS 6 Tutorial - Color Grading - Episode 1 of 5 on Vimeo

Ron Evans

[Jeff Harper]

Chris, you are exactly right, the Groom is getting hit with the light more evenly.

The groomsmen are not, and their lower halves are in the shadows, hence darker looking slacks. At least that is my humble opinion. Our little debate is unimportant really, but interesting nevertheless.

[Chris Medico]

A good debate is a wonderful thing.

This is one of the best forums on the entire net.

[Jeff Harper]

I think I see what you're saying about the fabric now. I think with some suits the jacket, even made with same fabric, will be more reflective, because it is heavier and a smoother surface and better reflective surface than the thinner slacks.

I have a couple of expensive wool suits (black) and the jackets are hard to match with the slacks, because one jacket has a shiny sheen, much moreso than the other, yet both sets of slacks look almost the same, and I can never figure out which slacks go with which jacket without going to the labels.

In other words, the slacks that go with the shiny sports coat have virtually no sheen to match the jacket.

[Ken Diewert]

Personally, I can't believe that those jackets are true black. That is some major red tint going on there.

We shot an actor recently against a green screen with what we thought was a dark grey jacket and we found some green tint in there. Not a big deal, but still... That grooms jacket on the other hand... a major pain to fix.

Edit: Chris is probably right about the fabric being the culprit. The brides hair is in the same light and looks pretty true... Not that I was there...