Need help with color correction (Night Shot issue)

[Steve Rhoden]

Harrell,

Where did you learned that vegas could not handle night shot
correction ?
You really had no need to leave vegas and go to final cut to
achieve what you wanted…all you’ve described is possible in
vegas easily.
There are endless manipulation & possibilities using especially
the “color balance” filters in conjunction with the “levels”
filter right there in vegas.
You just need to be patient as you tweak each step of the
filters bit by bit as you go along and visually note what does
what….in no time you will realize that their is no
limit to what can be done.

Steve Rhoden
Creative Director
TNX EFFECTS STUDIOS.
sample bits at
http://www.youtube.com/hentys

[Harrell Williams]

Regarding what you stated, yes, I’ve done some color correcting in the past, but with the Night Shot any effect I choice didn’t change the footage.

Can you send me one step by step example instructing me how to add color to black and white footage or how to change color to black and white? I have a Vegas manual but it’s very detailed and not a step by step procedural maunal.

Once I saw the footage was tinted green, and I was unable to alter that with color correct features, I googled the Night Shot issue and read somewhere that I’d be stuck with it. But if you know different, help me out on that.

Thank you for your response.

[Harrell Williams]

Okay…
Followed your advise and have learned a few things. I have a few question I hope you could help me with.

The Night Shot footage made the light colored objects light green. I have been playing with the Track FX in Vegas and see that I can change the color and view that change in preview.

Questions:
In preview, the pulldown options are: FX Bypass (which I can’t deselect unless I change it in preference), Clip Board, Select Left Half, Right Half, and Select All (which, when selected, nothing changes.

When I select on the “Right or Left Half” preview selection (which are the only 2 that previews my effect selections) only 1/2 of the preview screen show the color changing. What does that mean? Is it just showing me a sample of what the outcome will be once I save, then render the footage?

Also, seems every Track FX I choose, when preview displays my experiments on the 1/2 of the preview screen, it seems the FX is only masking the footage. Meaning, any thing I try doesn’t change the light objects (only) back to their original colors (the light objects – individually – won’t change to any color). Instead, my selected color is masked over the whole frame/footage. Will I have to do bit mapping in order to change the color of individual objects.

If that’s the case, I can go with a light tan look for the overall footage in order to replace the (green) tinted objects.

Please respond. Thanks.

[John Rofrano]

Hi Harrell,

You cannot put the color back into night-shot. (Not unless you’re Tim Turner ;-)) I wouldn’t feel too bad since by not using night-shot you may have had totally unusable footage. At least you can turn this into Black & White and have it be watchable. Just drop the Black & White FX on the track and set the Blend amount slider to 1.000. For a little bit of tint you might try the Sony Sepia FX with the Old Newspaper setting. The Sepia FX will allow you to convert it to any other shade you want instead of the green. A cool blue might be nice.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Harrell Williams]

Thanks for the info.

What are your thoughts on my other question:

“When I select on the “Right or Left Half” preview selection (which are the only 2 that previews my effect selections) only 1/2 of the preview screen show the color changing. What does that mean? Is it just showing me a sample of what the outcome will be once I save, then render the footage?”

[Harrell Williams]

By the way…
I see you are a fellow musician. I’m down in Austin, the land of Stevie Ray!!! Live Music Capital of… etc.

See you’ve been around, involved. Are you on MySpace? Check me out at: http://www.myspace.com/theagez. My son is the most active in the family these days. His band is at: http://www.myspace.com/dremnttheend.com.

Take care; keep rocking!!!

[John Rofrano]

The Split Screen View is so that you can easily see the before and after video from applying FX. It should only be turned on when you need to A/B the output of FX and should be turned off before you render.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Harrell Williams]

I am nearing my final questions…

I have edited the footage.
That which was shot with Night Shot, and was re-baked (by the professional using Final Cut Pro) is now in “black & white.”
But I used some other footage, like digital photos, exterior footage, all which I want to keep as it’s “regular color.”

When I am previewing the “whole” version of my edited works, in the preview section/screen, if I select “Red to Grayscale” it turns “all” of what is previewed into “black & white” footage (same with “Blue to Grayscale”). Not a problem (I’m just not sure what the outcome will be once rendered).

For the footage I want to stay as “regular color”, I put it on a separate track, separate from the footage that is “black & white”, and footage that has the Night Shot/green tint (I separated it all out on separate tracks so I could apply a “track FX, or event FX” where needed, so the effects would not cross each other in any way (meaning, mainly the track FX).

Questions:
When I preview the whole edited version, that which is supposed to be color footage is also black & white. I guess if I have the “preview” feature set to “Red to Grayscale”, it will show the “whole” edited version in “black & white”, not just what I choose to be “B&W”; is that correct? Meaning, when I render it, the color will be color and black & white, black & white (as I’ve selected it to be)?

I’m thinking I’m going to have to spend time rendering, then playing the footage on an Architect DVD a few times in order to see which effects took, if the color footage came out as selected; same for the black & white. There might not be an answer to my issue, but just in case… Thank you. I’ve learned a huge lesson here.

[Harrell Williams]

Thanks to everyone for helping on this. Your advise was coorect. I made it through to the end, and to rendering. But now I think I’m having a problem with the length of my footage. I posted a message asking for assistance.

Thanks again.