Color Correction self-taught

vitalforces wrote on 5/5/2003, 11:03 PM
I am learning a lot about how to 'read' and apply the color correction, curves and scopes in Vegas 4, and their closely interrelated nature, by reading the analogous literature on the near-identical features in Avid DV Express, including a recent article by an Avid consultant. Take a look at a brief discussion on the Avid site. For those interested, there's an excellent book reference at the end of the article, available from Amazon for about $35. Here's the link:

http://www.avid.com/resources/tips_techniques/xpressdv_cc_hullfish.html?marketID=

P.S. The book is "Video Color Correction for the Desktop" by Steve Hullfish and Jamie Fowler.

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 5/5/2003, 11:33 PM
I wrote several tutorials that apply specifically to Vegas. Check them out here:

http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7Ewvg/tutorial-menu.htm

For most projects the combination of color corrector, color corrector secondary and color curves is all you need. Frequently color corrector alone gives good results.

A few additonal suggestions I haven't put in a tutorial yet.

Start with the leftmost wheel which effects lowers tones. Use it to set your black point by clicking the eyedropper on a black object. If you don't have a totally black object pick something that is close as possible, once you click somewhere in the preview window Vegas will bump the wheel and provide a complement color which should bring you close to making blacks blacker. Repeat adjusting whites using the rightmost or high wheel clicking on something white.

Set some keyframes IF you get results you like. Best results are obtained trying several scenes. It usually takes several attempts to get one set of values that looks best for much or all of your video. Once you do 'copy' the best keyframe to your first keyframe, then delete all other keyframe to that point in your video remembering you may need to break the project into multiple events to account for different lighting, etc.. Once you get the white and black set, adjust the midlevel wheel. Remember the further to the edge of the wheel the more impact. Generally, you get the best results moving on a angle, not going staight up/down or across. The goal for the midtones is to either warm up or cool down the image, which is best judged with skin tones or everyday objects you're certain you know the color of. Combined with tweaking gamma/levels and using color curves in a couple minutes you can make dramatic improvements and change under/over exposed, tined shots easily.

Jason_Abbott wrote on 5/6/2003, 11:05 AM
Might you mean "Color Correction for Digital Video"? That's the only book by those authors at Amazon. I have this book and it is a great resource. There's a lot more to color correction than fixing luminance and white balance issues. A lot of effects and moods are also accomplished by the colorist, as several examples in the book demonstrate (which were easy to duplicate in V4 given the images on the included CD).

The bit on color theory and perception also gave me a better understanding of why I might want to desaturate some scenes or intentionally throw the white balance off so they have a certain hue, either subtle or obvious, in order to convey a sense of dread, sickness, happiness, peace, etc.
vitalforce2 wrote on 5/6/2003, 12:25 PM
(I'm also vitalforces at home)

Many thanks BillyBoy, for the information and support. I surmise you're a pro-level colorist.

As to Jason Abbott, you do have the correct title, I was mistakenly cut & pasting a search term instead of the book title.

One further question: Is there a setting in Vegas for color MATCHING? I have one clip whose color scheme radically differs from the clips before & after, and it's driving me crazy trying to adopt the color pallet from the other shots to this one. I know Vegas can give a split-screen effect to compare colors, but is there anything I'm missing which would save the time involved in plodding through color correction wheels, levels, etc.?
BillyBoy wrote on 5/6/2003, 12:46 PM
Nope, I'm just a nitpicker when it comes to setting levels and colors. <wink>

I haven't found anything for exact matching. One or two of the tutorials gives an example how you can get pretty close. Aside from using the eye dropper and 'copying' the settings you can use the eyedropper that's under the media generator tab, solid colors. Try this. Add a new track, drag any of the solid color blocks to the new track, then slide it out of the way so it doesn't interfere with you actual video. The only thing we want it for is to acces its eyedropper tool.

Position your cursor so it is in the frame of your first video in the preview window. Adjust the media generator window pane so you can see its controls fully. Now just use that eyedropper and click it on the color you're trying to match in the preview window and it will give you RGB values. Repeat for your second video and at least if have an idea how close you are and which primary colors to fiddle with. Maybe somebody knows an easier way.
BillyBoy wrote on 5/6/2003, 12:52 PM
Here's a link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1578202019/102-2408415-4104160?
vi=glance

Also interesting. While geared towards photography, many of the same basics apply.

http://cybaea.com/photo/color-correction.html
vitalforce2 wrote on 5/6/2003, 1:49 PM
Can't wait to get home tonight and apply these ideas. I also have to stop browsing your tutorials as I'm an hour past lunchtime and have to get my regular (paid) work done.

As with many on this forum, I appreciate your generous contributions of time and support in applying and developing this product. Vegas and my Panasonic DVX100 have made such a strong impact on a short film I wrote (my actress wife and I are producing/ directing/ editing it--we had an Off-Off B'way theater company in NYC in the 90s and are reinventing ourselves) that the CREW and cast, having viewed some partially-corrected footage at the wrap party, have urged us to keep shooting and finish the feature-length version, a WWII love story. I'm getting disturbingly serious about all this....


Erk wrote on 5/7/2003, 10:13 AM
Regarding color matching, Vegas 4 has some new features in the preview window that are helpful. Can't list the exact steps at the moment, but search in the manual for how to copy a frame from scene A to the clipboard, then split the screen between half of that frame and half from a frame from scene B you want to match. This works when previewing on TV as well.

G
vitalforce2 wrote on 5/7/2003, 4:06 PM
Good point, yes, although I have done that. It took me a while to get the hang of it, until I realized that when you set the preview window for "clipboard" and click on its clipboard button to capture the frame in the preview window, the cursor, WHEN IT'S OVER THE PREVIEW SCREEN, turns into a CROSSHAIR. Thus, when you move the timeline to show the frame in the preview window that you want to compare to the (temporarily invisible) one in the clipboard, you must use the crosshair to drag a rectangle partially covering the new image in the preview window. When you release the crosshair, that part of the clipboard image is pasted over the window and you can compare parts of both pix side by side.

That's the easy part! The harder, but creative, part is finding ways to then tweak A to look like B. My question started with the two shots side by side, after about two dozen attempts to adjust them, trying to make a very light, reddish shot with white clipping at a window, match a fairly dark shot away from the window, with dark brown paneling behind the subject (Different times of day, sun vs. no sun).

Having said all this, in the few days since I first posted, and thanks in large part to BillyBoy's advice, tutorials and link referrals, I suddenly see the dynamic relation between the Vegas color adjustment plugins and the scopes, particularly the histogram view when set to continuous update. (I'm like the chimp in the movie 2001 who suddenly realized a thigh bone could be a space station--or something like that...) Once you see the color/videoscope connection (I'll say this but few others will), you don't need to worry quite as much about the color accuracy of that old TV you've hooked up as an NTSC reference monitor.

In any event, all hail BillyBoy. After many screw-ups, and laughable results, and raised eyebrows among the cast members, crew and producer of my short film, they now look at the latest redone trailer via DVD+RW on the TV and say, "Huh--now THAT looks a LOT better, a lot more like film."
BillyBoy wrote on 5/7/2003, 4:42 PM
Kewl... glad it helped. One of the great things about Vegas is it is one of those kind of applications that the more you use it, the more you discover it can do.

You made a good point about watching the continuous histogram update. Sometimes for scenes that just don't look right making minor adjustments in real time to the controls in color curves and color corrector (others too, but mainly these two)while watching the changes in the histogram and waveform can get you quicker, better results than watching your external monitor. One of those things that comes with practice. The more you do it, the better you get at it.