Light Problem (probably easy)

[Walter Soyka]

[James Bickert] “During filming a light wasn’t properly flagged so I’m trying to correct the exposure problem in the center. The exposure effect in After Effects seems to bring out to much film grain, I’ve tried creating a mask and several other failed attempts. Can anyone tell me how to correct this problem?”

You’re on the right track. An effect like Exposure, Levels, or Curves would help you match the look of the image. You’ll have to mask the effect off and feather the mask. If the noise is too bad, you can reduce it some with the Remove Grain [link] effect.

Personally, I’d try to fix this in color correction. Although I’d suggest using a dedicated color tool like Resolve or Color, you could try Color Finesse [link] (included with After Effects), or Colorista II [link] (my favorite third-party color correction effect for AE).

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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[Jim Arco]

From the image that was posted, I see exposure, contrast and some grain differences in the area where the lighting problem exists. it looks like most of the grain is in the blue channel.

You can probably get useable results by creating a mask that “matches” the flare, then correcting the brightness and noise. Assuming a fixed camera and assuming the lens-flare doesn’t change over the scene, my thinking would be to create a soft-edged mask, plus something like the exposure filter in AE. Then reduce the grain using the Remove Grain filter, at least on the blue channel.

When all else fails I sometimes go with “if you can’t correct it, feature it” thinking. You could ADD a little visible lens flare to this scene and maybe other scenes shot in this location. Or perhaps darken the whole scene, if it fits the storyline.

Jim