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Eliminating Overexposed White Areas
Hello. I just shot a film where it opens with a dolly in a restaurant. You can see a window in the background, and although I lit my actors with lights, they simply weren’t strong enough that I could drop down the exposure to eliminate the blown out bits in the window. You can see the green trees, but around it is just white. I was attempting various color correcting methods, but nothing was quite working. I’d love to use color replace, but unfortunately there are also some silverware napkins and some white papers around, so it replaces those with another color as well. Basically, what I’m looking for is a way to isolate just those spots of white, and then eliminate them by replacing them with something else, like a blue sky or maybe just a less intense color. Thanks!
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2 Replies
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Without seeing the shot, its hard to say what would be the best way to fix it. Just taking a stab at it:
1. Try to track the shot using a stationary element located near the window or the widow itself.
2. Either mask out the window use the above tracking info to keep in masked, or use that tracking info in conjunction with the luma key feature and key out brights. Use the mask to isolate just the window or else you’ll key out brights throughout the image.
3. Find some background footage and place behind your footage. Make it move with your image using the tracking info.I wrote quickly, so hope all that made sense.
Have you tried the shadow/highlight effect first?
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There is no easy/magic way to fix this. It’s blown out.
The way that will cause the least amount of notice isn’t easy – you’d track the window using mocha and do some sort of replace. It’s hard to get it to ‘look’ realistic.’ Google Sky replacement mocha and you’ll get an idea of what’s possible (A version of Mocha comes with AE.)
In the future, the choice is to change the camera setup or gel the window (I know, i know, too late.)
Best,
Jeff G
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