Best plugin to “relight” flat or bad existing light footage in documentary

[Brett Sherman]

You can do it with FCP X’s built in color correction tools. Make an oval mask around the subject. Then expand the contrast inside the oval, bring up the brights, and outside the oval make it darker. It makes your subject pop a bit.

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Brett Sherman
One Man Band (If it\’s video related I\’ll do it!)
I work for an institution that probably does not want to be associated with my babblings here.

[Jeff Kirkland]

You can definitely do it with Final Cut’s colour and masking tools but personally I’d do it in Davinci Resolve where you have far more options and have a better chance of making it look convincing – if you can. I’ve tried this a few times and maybe I’m too fussy but I’d rate my results as mediocre at best.

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Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer & Cinematographer
Hobart, Tasmania | Twitter: @jeffkirkland

[Chris Wright]

to paint with light in post-production:

1. apply the mid contrast with duplicate overlay, blending to let shadows through.
2. apply curves with mask for fill light.50% opacity
3. for key light, adjustment layer-saturation at 0 set to color dodge.(acts like a fresnel) 20% opacity
4. finally, bring back color modeling with levels-white output set to color. opacity 20%

if you do these steps in this exact order, you will have very natural looking lighting. most people don’t do these steps and simply raise gamma, making everything look unnatural.

[Mark Smith]

Your list for treating footage was quite specific and interesting. Since I shoot quite a bit, I rarely find myself in a position of having to rescue clips that were poorly lit or shot. THat said I am intrigued by what the results of your prescription for treating footage might look like. Have you got any before – after examples you could share? I’m really intrerested in seeing what kind of results you get.

[Chris Wright]

12224_light.png.zip

[Keith Mann]

Thank you all. Chris, very interesting, cannot wait to try your technique.