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Heavily Backlit Subject ..
..sitting in front of a window. Need to use the FCP available tools to brighten his face. The Bezier sliders have not been successful for me, at least not yet. Any suggestions? Running 4.5. Thank you. – Rob
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6 Replies
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You’ll have to create a garbage matte around your subject and color correct this in two parts. One part for the background, the second part for the subject.
Go ahead and color correct for the background first since that’s the brightest part of the scene.
Now duplicate that video track right above the original. Create a garbage matte around the subject and put a lot of feather on it.
Now color correct the subject by brightening them up and you will have to play with the size / shape of the matte along with the feather to make the transition from the subject to the background natural.
I would use the FCP 3 Way CC for this job and then throw the Broadcast Safe filter on after you’re done.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi
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Thank you.. it’s times like this when you learn how important it is to get it right BEFORE it’s committed to tape .. !
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If you have a lot of contrast, you could do a luminance key and then use this as a key instead of a garbage matte.
Peter
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i think peters suggestion is a good technique and if you have 4.2.2 chroma this can be the best technique as you can get a good key.
I also find that the luma key can be refined with a very limited chroma key as well to specify an exact area of the picture.
always use the waveform in scopes to try to work out which tonal range you are working across, it takes out the guess work.
It can be good to blur/soften the key if working on footage with a lower chroma sampling than 4.2.2
for a good description of secondary colour correction check https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/cc_legal_fcp4.html
it may be that working on a copy of the footage superimposed on top of itself with the chroma keyer tool and filters like chroma smoothing will give you extra control. https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/chroma_key_fcp_hd_monahan.html
also remember when working with footage with bad exposure that the darks will invariably have more chroma and luma noise than the rest of the picture and so brightening those areas can look very ugly and need noise removal.
it is also sometimes the case that moving tonal ranges in the upper and lowest limits of an images tonal range can introduce extra chrominance and so you may wish to look into the limit highlights/lows tool. although as you are moving tones away from the darks it shouldnt be so much of an issue.
I have the full dvd box set of the lord of the rings and on the fellowship of the rings last disk (making of) they have a great section on grading using a range of these techniques on a different grading system. go have a look if you can.
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or my site at
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There’s a freebie plug-in called Face Light (haiku.au.com ?) that might help.
Sincerely,
OliverOliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Correct URL for Face Light:
https://www.haiku.com.au/2005/08/final-cut-pro-plug-ins.html
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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