Color correction - shadow reduction

I recently shot footage for an instructional DVD. It was lit by someone who lights for stage lighting. The shadows on the face and the general skin tone ages the female subject. Since the subject is dancing, it is a vanity issue. What filters can I use to minimize very poor lighting, shadows, contrast, etc?

I had to saturate the color - how do I do this and at the same time minimize the contrast and shadows on the skin? Is there an order in applying these filters?

Sheryl

How about posting an example frame?

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Are you using FCP or Color to do the corrections? If you want to reduce the contrast you basically need to reduce the difference between the lows and the highlights. If you only want to do this on the skin tones then you'd want to isolate the skin tones first before you make any changes. If you are using the 3-way in FCP you'd use the Limit Effect feature to do this.


-A

Thanks a lot. Overwhelmed at the moment. Will try this and get back.

Sheryl

...so no example frame then?!

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.