secondary color corrector in Vegas: pick on the red, smooth out the key and push it where you want ;)

If that red is really close to something else like skin tone, then it gets more tricky.

I'll like to have a crack at this one! Yeah, please please post a sample.

G

Red WAS a universal problem. Things have changed quite a bit since 4:1:0 vhs.

You didn't say if your source is SD or HD, digital or analog?
Source is properly white-balanced or not?
Lighting conditions, controlled or not?
Your monitor -- calibrated or not?

Yes, by all means upload an original source sample somewhere (NOT Youtube!).

pink and reds, bluish greens are very "close" to one and another.

depending on white balance, type of light, and camera settings/profiles, they can be sometimes "off".

as mentioned, secondary color corrector is the best tool for the job.

i have events where the "metalic pink-ish" dress was more red than pink. manually fixed (i had raw photos with proper light and white balance reference to compare)

You have to isolate the pink dress/color. First isolate the pink = color corrector > select color> select mask> use that mask as a mask independently from your original clip.

The reason for this isolation is you don’t want to affect all the RGB channels in the clip right. The pink dress can go red but the lady will go orange in other words.
Once the color is isolated make a rough mask around the lady then alter the color in the masked clip.
Your correction may simply be reducing the Blue in the RGB channel then use the color wheel for this.

If you want to add whipped cream and funky chocolate right up my alley then use Channel blend fx. I use this as it separates the channels for you with each RGB parameter separate each channel mix seperate and you can use it as a mask tool…yes mask tool the best you will ever get.

Sample.

I tried the Vegas Pro color corrector (secondary), but I couldn't isolate just the dress, and the whole dress. So I'm thinking I need to draw a mask around it. But then how would it follow the dress as she moves? I guess I need help learning how to draw motion masks. Any good tutorial videos you suggest?

I have an original image, and one where I tried to use the secondary color corrector. But I don't see a way to upload images in the forum. Hopefully, you can see them in my Picasa Web:

https://picasaweb.google.com/118083072116766965064/6283404055562755121

I loaded images at

https://picasaweb.google.com/118083072116766965064/6283404055562755121

It's HD1080 from Canon G40 prosummer camcorder. The color balance is perfect.

Your picasa link says: "Sorry, that page was not found."

No! you use the color as the mask = the color is the mask which simply masks the altered color so you don’t need to do heavy animated masking and motion tracking etc .

Sorry. I finally found the "share" button, so now it should be public.

Rory: Yes, I understand. But if secondary color correction can't be made to select the whole dress, it can't be used. And then my alternative is motion masking, which is probably not worth the effort, I'm thinking.

You can see how much I was able to select of the dress in the posted images, which are now public.

the image has a very off white balance, and the red channel have a lot of clipping.

I was able to get this result in Sony Vegas Pro 13 with White Balance and adjusting the blue channel in Color Curves.

Project here.

John,

I appreciate your effort, but her face now has a "cold" look to it. The enhancement needs to operate only on the dress.

I think there's no hope for this video, but I did learn about the secondary color correction. If the pink had been closer to the same shade, and different enough from any other part of the scene, then it would have worked. So I will keep it in mind for the future.

Regards,
Richard

Malowz,

If you refer to the corrected image, that is because the secondary color correction could not include the entire dress, so the correction was applied to only part of it. The other picture is the original.

This is one you won't get perfect; fluourescent lighting creates spikes and dropouts in the color spectrum, and the synthetic dye in the dress itself is fluourescing (quite a bit).

As with the red cars, adjusting the highlight balance helps. But overcompensating will make the hair and skin yellowish. Here is my conservative take; again I do not use secondary CC for color balancing. Curves can get you a little closer, but takes more twiddling.

I find it works pretty fine with Color Corrector Secondary. All you have to do is fine-tuning the mask carefully (the limitation of luma, saturation and hue in the fx adjustments).

-> Example

Though in this case musicvid's approach seems more natural to me, so my example only should point to better adjustments of Color Corrector Secondary.
.

Marco, upload the project you used to create that example, and I'll try it in combination with my highlight correction. Not afraid to try something new if the registration is that good.

-> Here is the project file (Vegas Pro 13).

Can you provide a Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 13 project file instead? I haven't upgraded my Pro yet.
Or just show me your Secondary CC settings in a screenshot.

Its not as easy fixed as first thought, any correction is dependent on what is pleasing to the editor.
FWIW, my Sony cams always show deep reds compared to the Canon cams which by default make them orange ish.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/frhl5dcc4iyp7ga/red%20dress.jpg?dl=0

-> Movie Studio 13 version

Applied as track fx.

.