Dark footage

[Walter Biscardi]

Take the footage into Color. You have much more control and much better quality than you can achieve in FCP either using the 3 Way CC or any plug-in for FCP.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Biscardi Creative Media

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[Shane Ross]

Well, the COLORISTA plugin gives you a lot of control over the image too. More than the 3 way that’s for sure, but less than COLOR. But Color is in no way simple nor easy to use….it is a high end color corrector, and I don’t think that someone can just open it and use it without investing time and money to learn it.

If you have time and money, get Walter’s Color Tutorial DVD…click on his head to find it. If not, give Colorista a whirl…found at https://www.redgiantsoftware.com, and a demo is available.

But with things dark, you won’t have the ability to push it much as the difference between light and dark is such a small distance…not a large latitude range. Their will be some washing out, or it will be pretty contrasty and grainy. But it can be better.

Shane

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[Grant Strac]

Like the guy below said color is by far the best program to fix dark footage. You will need to right click from the timeline and send to color and then boost your luma levels in the primary color room. Use the waveform scope to do corectly first bring your black level to legal limit then expand your waveform by boosting luma. Gamma will have to probably be manipulated as well. On a side note I have found that the “light rays” filter in final cut with the amount at either 2-5 also helps but that is a quick way around it. Hope that helped!

-grant strac
apple certified final cut trainer