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

[Don Kimball]

Theo thanks very much for your thoughtful illustration. I tried both duplicating or stacking the tracks and simply correcting one single one. To my naked eye I couldnt tell any difference. Perhaps I am not skilled enough to make that distinction.

If you are kind enough to do so you can see my now corrected clip (only one track used) of the Carnaby’s Cockatoo on youtube here. Its only a 10 sec clip but hopefully you can see the dramatic difference the color curve feature obtained. It seems a bit contrasty but then the clip itself was had dappled contrasty type of lighting. I would appreciate knowing what you think of my correction job. This is the first time I have done this. Cheers and many thanks! Don

You tube URL to use is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0B8l9r9SO0

[Theo Van laar]

Hi Don,

First of all, since you are the one who shot the footage and the editor, you are the only person who can decide how the end result should look. So if you are satisfied with your result, that’s perfect. And if you think that my result was e.g. to colourfull, that’s fine (you can adjusted the result by playing with the settings for the colorcurves FX).

And yes, you can do magical things in Vegas without using the MULTIPLY MODE. I tried to show for a Dutch videoforum that you can convert a awfull and terrible digitalised old 8-mm film into a very descend video with just a few mouseclicks. Although you might have problems in reading the text, the pictures will tell you the whole story: https://www.videomontagefaq.nl/index.php?action=artikel&cat=374226&id=331&artlang=nl

Now about your result with the color corrector FX: I tried to look at it in a very objective way: i.e by using the Videoscopes from Vegas (Ctrl + Alt + 2).
This is your original footage:

When you look at the histogram (one of the several output options of the videoscope), you can see that pixels with a lower value for RGB and luminance are almost absent (with fits with the idea that the footage is overexposed).

Now lets have a look at the histogram of your corrected footage:

It’s clear that there is an increase in pixels with a lower value (darker pixels). However, it is still not yet perfect.
Now look at the histogram of the MULTIPLY MODE treated footage:

On the left side it looks OK now, although I could have reduced the number of pixels on the right side (the bright pixels) a little bit with the COLORCURVES FX which I had added already.

Now to come back to your corrected footage: it is very simple to improve the left side of the histogram by re-dustributing the pixels using the LEVELS FX. Just drag the INPUT START slider a little bit to the right until you are satisfied. The result could look as follows:

Theo

[Don Kimball]

Theo this is very exciting! I have yet to make a DVD of the corrected footage and watch it. I know that a computer monitor is not the best test for viewing improved footage but it looks great so far. I can hardly wait to see these improvements! I will definitely give the levels a try as well! I am hoping I can salvage some of my very best footage of this species. I cannot make another trip to Australia so this is the best I have of close-ups of the Cockatoos.

Great work with the old footage from Africa. You certainly took care of the yellow old ugly 8mm look and enhanced it a great deal.

Theo if you would be so kind can you look at another youtube clip with a slightly different problem? The problem is that My videocamera probably needs repair but with these white cockatoos there is an ugly blue shadow all round their white feathers you can see this at the following youtube address. Can Vegas help in any way?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x32jYv2U6g

I have felt you have gone well above the call of duty here on the forum to offer some excellent help and I am definitely indebted to you. I didnt expect such kind assistance. If you need more indepth details you are welcome to contact me via email as well if you like. Thank you.

Best wishes

Don Kimball

ibwonet1@gmail.com

[Theo Van laar]

It’s complicated, since the green grass is full of blue, as you can see on the picture of the blue channel of your bird:

So reducing the blue is not an option. I’m trying to play with chroma blur. Here is the result. The shadow is less, but not yet completely gone. I’ll try more later…

Original cockatoo with blue shadow:

And the ‘repaired’ cockatoo:

Theo

[Don Kimball]

Hi Theo:

Definitely some progress there for sure. I would sure be excited to see it disapear altogether but of course I know the onus was on me and my equipment which I had no idea was faulty at the time.

Thanks again and I am real excited you are kind enough to try some things on this clip.

Cheers!

Don