Step by step help with overly bright contrasty clip of Cockatoos see youtube clip please

[Theo Van laar]

Original file:

Edited file:

project file: I duplicated the track twice, used the multiply mode for the two upper tracks and added a little bit gamma to the upper track.

Theo

[Theo Van laar]

Next step: adding some colorcurves to the upper track can improve the event a little bit more:

(the color corrector was added for increasing the gamma of the uppertrack a little bit)

Theo

[Don Kimball]

Hi Theo:

Thanks very kindly for your suggestions. I didnt understand why you made 3 copies of the clip and stacked them one on top of the other and only made adjustments to the top one. How does this work please?

I am not familiar with the copy tool as well.

Thanks!

Don

[Don Kimball]

using the color corrector I obtained what I feel is pretty good success darkening the clip but dont know how to get rid of large pale rectangle in center of footage. Thanks for your help folks!

[URL=https://img18.imageshack.us/i/carnabycolorcorrect.jpg/][IMG=https://img18.imageshack.us/img18/6992/carnabycolorcorrect.jpg][/IMG][/URL]

[Mike Kujbida]

My guess is that you have the Split Screen View icon enabled.
It’s the shaded circle at the top left of the Preview window.
Disable it and see if your rectangle disappears.

[Don Kimball]

Hi Mike:

Yes that was it! Thanks for helping a less than tech savvy wildlife filmer here. By the way the color adjuster tool looks really really cool so far! Thanks again for the rapid help. So much appreciated!

Don

[Mike Kujbida]

Don, I’m glad that was the solution.
BTW, the exact same thing happened to me a few years ago and it drove me nuts until I finally stumbled on the cure.
It’s not something I’ll soon forget 🙂

[Theo Van laar]

‘I am not familiar with the copy tool as well.’

Just right click on an empty space of a track or a trackheader and select DUPLICATE TRACK

Theo

[Theo Van laar]

‘Thanks very kindly for your suggestions. I didnt understand why you made 3 copies of the clip and stacked them one on top of the other and only made adjustments to the top one. How does this work please?’

I will not bother you with all the mathematics behind this trick. But the general idea behind the different MODES is that you can blend different layers in different ways. In the case of the MULTIPLY MODE, layers are blended depending on the color value for each pixel. So dark pixels will become darker while light pixels will not become lighter. And that was exactly what was needed for your footage.
And why I stacked three layers instead of e.g. two? Because the footage was very very over-exposed.

And then about the effects (gamma and color curves) added only to the upper track?. Because of the blending mode it will certainly affect the outcome of the combined blended layers.

But anyhow, depending on the footage you will have next time, the solution might be complete different again…

Theo

[Theo Van laar]

Don,

I made a graph to show you why the MULTIPLY MODE method works much better on over-exposed video then just the Vegas color corrector FX.
Every pixel has (in the 8-bit system) for every channel a value between 0 (black) and 255 (white).
What the MULTIPLY MODE does is simply multiply the value for every pixel with the value of the same pixel at the track below and divide the result by 255. (This will also work when you have two different tracks).
In the graph you can see for every pixel with a value between 0 and 255 (X-axis) what the new value will be after duplicating the track and adding the MULTIPLY MODE (Y-axis).
The yellow line shows the unchanged value without adding the multiply mode.
The blue line shows what happens after activating MULTIPLY. Black (value 0) and white (value 255) pixels remain unchanged. All the other pixels become darker (have a lower value). And unlike adding the COLOR CORRECTOR FX, the change in value depends on the starting value of each value. In this way the contrast will increase proportionally.

The purple line in the graph shows why I duplicated the track with your footage twice. Adding an extra round of MULTIPLY enhances the effect of increased darkness and contrast.
And ofcourse since the SONY COLOR CURVES also has the ability to treat each pixel proportionally to its value it is for that reason the most suitable FX to finish with.

Theo