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Captured Image Too Dark
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Okay, I don’t have the YC Waveform, but I have some updates:
I opened the captured screen and just played the footage and it looks brighter through that screen. Then I pressed record and captured the footage. Unfortunately, I can’t see the footage when I’m recording it. But after it was recorded and dragged into the timeline it looked noticeably darker. Particularily along the sides of the frame. In the capture preview image and girls head is visible, in the recorded image it is covered by darkness. So I am positive that there is a loss of light after it has been captured. However, I exported the footage to my desktop and it looked fine again. Alittle dark still, but I’ve relaized the footage is a little dark. So what could this be?
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Eric,
Unless we can take a look at the waveform, we’re shooting in the dark, to coin a phrase. Monitors lie. Desktop previews lie. ‘Scopes never lie. Well, hardly ever.
Also, it is very unlikely anything changed in the video during capture, as a Firewire capture is a direct transfer of digital data. Essentially a clone of the data on tape.
A good place to start would also be to import proper color bars from a reliable source, and see what those look like in Premiere. In fact, start with the Premiere bars for reference.-Jeff
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All right, well, check your graphics card settings.
If it’s an nvidia card, reset brightness / contrast / color settings from the nvidia control panel.
The more expensive cards have advanced settings that allow you to correct the overlay separately. One of those settings may only affect the preview window.
Vince
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Ok, I’m starting to realize it’s my settings. But heres the scopes and an image:
https://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd332/enaylor_photos/Untitled-1copy.jpg
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I’m starting to realize it’s the settings. But here’s the scopes and an image:
https://i529.photobucket.com/albums/dd332/enaylor_photos/Untitled-1copy.jpg
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Thankyou for being able to post the Waveform. Sorry dude, but the footage is dark. Your monitoring settings must have been really high on brightness, (LCD on camera, TV monitor, even Computer) that’s what I’d say has happened. the range on the waveforms are really squashed in the darks end of the spectrum, matching the image (too dark). When on a shoot a pro camera operator/DOP would be using colour bars to calibrate the monitoring of the way camera is recording. The brightness and contrast are set without colour (can be best done with a pro monitor allowing you to see only blue shaded bars to get best Bright Contrast values) then pump up the colour info.
Sorry to be bearer of bad news.
If you can’t reshoot – which would be the best. You can capture all your stuff, add the effect of levels to bring your whites and blacks into a tighter realm so the spectrum grows on the waveforms. It will add lots of grain and other uglies, could be usable, but I strongly recommend a reshoot for best results. Unless you don’t mind grain and poor colour & bad contrast.
– Jon 🙁How many editors does it take to change a light bulb?
http://www.jonbarrie.net -
Ahh, well a lesson learned. I didn’t go to film school so I’ll just treat this as a class. . .I can’t reshoot it any time soon, but I think I can salvage it. . .Thanks for the help
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I realise this is an old thread but did you ever figure out the answer. I get soo annoyed reading all over the internet about this problem and people replying ‘its a monitor display issue’, ‘Sorry the footage is dark’ Sorry to sound rude but no it’s probably not dark, its only dark because that footage has been captured and therefore as he said, it is dark.
I have tried everything, new monitors, new programs, new firewire, new graphics card, new codecs/no codecs, nothing seems to fix this problem. The footage is perfectly coloured/lit on cam, and on tv, but as soon as capture, bammm, dark edges, increased shadows. Every other movie plays perfectly, it only becomes darker after capture. Please DO NOT say it’s a monitor/display issue again. This is a completely different problem to that. THe captured footage has actually gained dark edges, darker shadows, a loss of luminance, a loss of colour, ONLY after capture.
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Again, apologies for ressurecting an old thread, but I have a similar problem with Premiere Pro. I have tried on several different computers of different brands, with different combinations of OS’s, GFX cards and monitors. The common factor is Premiere Pro CS3.
What happens is that what you see displayed via PP is considerably darker than when you view the same file via a different program or device.
I am currently working on a project which relies heavily on the use of deep shadows to create the feel we need. We edited in PP CS3 and it looked ok, but when we burnt to DVD it was a lot brighter than it appeared before and suddenly all the details that were meant to be hidden in shadows appeared. The same thing happened when viewed in VLC player.
I finally decided to run the same captured DV AVI in PP CS3 and VLC player side by side on my pc. The screen-grab speaks for itself…
On the left is the output from VLC and on the right is the output from PP CS3.
That’s not a monitor problem – it’s a problem with Premiere Pro.
Question is, how do I fix it, because at the moment I can’t correct my output without a lot of guesswork or trial and error.
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I just looked at your screen grab from my iPhone and the two images look negligibly the same. I’m not seeing anything that would indicate either image is showing more or less detail in blacks.
When doing colour correction there must be a properly calibrated monitor using colour bars to find the right amount of brightness contrast and colour. Then combined with the waveform to see when detail is being crushed.
Use this site as a starting point to calibrate your monitor. The principal is the same but this is for onlocation. Read up 😉
https://help.adobe.com/en_US/OnLocation/3.0/
– Jon Barrie
Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net
http://www.suiteskills.com
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