poor lighting!

In a hurry lazy, I underexposed the subject (in shade) boats and bay in background. I understand I can't make it perfect but in the guru's opinions what are the best filters in FCP5 to help my situation? Brightness and contrast, 3 way color corrector, I'm just fishing for your opinions (advice) on best filters in this mess. The 3 way color correcter tones down the hot background but makes the skin tones less than desireable, the brightness and contrast filters improve the faces but leave the background to hot, any suggestions appreciated.

P.S. Can't reshoot as usual.

Rick

Colour correct the two areas seperately. Duplicate the clip on V2 and draw a mask around the foreground stuff, so that the background stuff on V2 dissapears and you can view the background from V1 in the space it leaves.

The apply the two different kinds of filters you need to make it work.

Jude has a good idea. I would add to use the 3-Way Color Corrector and Levels plug-in combination twaeked out.

- Joey



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

a while back Jude also posted a tip for lifting underexposed shots:

-duplicate the clip onto V2
-set the top one's composite mode to screen, or add.

the beauty of this approach is that you dont get any extra grain.
or nowhere near as much if you were just lifting the mids.

the doubling up part of that makes things a bit tricky, especially if you;re wanting to apply masks to sections,
so here is my approach to do the same thing using only one track of video:


download the free plugins from Too Much Too Soon (leave a donation: they're good plugins)
[www.mattias.nu]

the one we're interested in is the DIFFUSION filter

one way of getting a simple diffusion effect is to
-duplicate a clip onto V2,
-add some blur to the top one, then adjust it;s opacity.
-you also would play with the composite mode.

(notice the similarity in techniques.)

the TMTS diffusion does all that in one filter:
a slider for AMOUNT (of blur)
a slider for OPACITY
and a pull-down for MODE.

there is also a pull-down for what areas to affect: highlights or shadows, or all-over (called "uniform" in the filter)
(other diffusion filters might have more controls, but it;s the simplicity of this one that makes it perfect for this technique)

so by setting AMOUNT to zero
and OPACITY to full
you can use the TMTS diffusion filter to act as an instant Comp mode adjuster.

as i said, try Screen Mode, or Add mode for even more "exposure"
if it affects highlights adversely (like if the sky goes psychedelically bright)
opt to just affect the shadow areas.

you can keep adding more copies of the filter to keep lifting the clip,
but one instance of it, followed by some levels tweaking in the 3-way colour corrector is probably all you need.


MAKE IT A FAVORITE
open the filter into the viewer
set the settings as described,
drag it from the viewer into the Favourite bin in the effects tab.
re-set the version in the viewer (red x)
and change the name of the copy in the favourites bin
(i call mine TMTS Diff Lifter)

Apple 6 opens the favourites bin.

note: favorites are "remembered" in your preference file.
when you trash the prefs you lose the faves.
so keep copy of project-related favourites in your project, too
and maintain a separate "Favourites" project.

cheers,
nick

Check out a free plugin from Lyric called "ShadowHighlight" - [www.lyric.com].

Scott

Thank you all, I will try every suggestion, Scott I will try the plugin.


P.S. this was the last part of a project, figures!

Rick

Very helpful Nick!

thanks, scott, i didn't know about that plug in.
looks good.

cheers,
nick

> Check out a free plugin from Lyric called "ShadowHighlight"

Wonderful lead indeed. And it's free! Unbelievable.