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Can I fix this exposure problem?

Well... being the smarty I am, I decided to play with settings I should not have.

I basically suck at exposures, especially when different scenes vary a lot.

Here are two stills from the mini-DV tape. In theory, the two clips follow each other. However, you can plainly see that the exposures are out of control. Possibly rabid.

Still #1 - 1 mb TIF

Still #2 - 1 mb TIF

Is there any saving or fixing this, using Premiere or AEFX? Or would even a professional colour-fixer-person just toss their hands up in the air and tell me to shuffle on?
 
E-gad! That is some serious over exposure! :-0

Overexposure is nearly impossible to fix because the data is non-extant. With under exposure you can bring information out of the dark areas but with blown out highlights all that info is gone :(.

You can, of course, improve the image but you won't gain anything back where the highlights have gone pure white.
 
OK.

You'll never get those two clips to meet in the middle, the first is just too overexposed.

However if you: -

1) Move to France
2) Buy a beret and a pipe
3) Blow out all the correctly exposed footage to match the overexposed footage
5) Claim that the radical over exposure is a metaphor for the heat and intensity of the protagonist's inner life
6) Be grateful that the now blown out footage means that no one can see where you had to re-dub lines to cover sound problems.
7) Repeat sequences often in slow-motion for no good reason, sometimes in reverse.
8) Cut every 237 frames to 17 frames of a woman sitting in a wicker chair, with a frog on her head, reading Satre's "Being and Nothingness," except for one frame where she wearing a fireman's outfit and holding the marsupial of your choice.

On your on going difficulty getting exposure right.

If you are working off a monitor, you might want to check that it was calibrated properly.
If you were working directly from the camera, chances are that you set your exposure whilst viewing the flip out screen, rather than the eye piece. This is almost never a good idea, as you get more accurate results viewing via the eyepiece. There are lots of reason for this, one is that the image on the flip screen changes depending on what angle you view the screen, another is light bleed glaring off the screen and finally the flip out screens just aren't that accurate.

The other thing I've seen people do, is set the exposure with their sunglasses still on :cool: (easy mistake to make)
 
Now THAT'S an inspired post Clive! I've been giggling for five minutes...

Zen - you're out of luck. That shot is just too far gone. As Shaw said, where there's no recorded information, there's nothing for a correction to make.

sucks....
 
chances are that you set your exposure whilst viewing the flip out screen, rather than the eye piece. This is almost never a good idea, as you get more accurate results viewing via the eyepiece. There are lots of reason for this, one is that the image on the flip screen changes depending on what angle you view the screen, another is light bleed glaring off the screen and finally the flip out screens just aren't that accurate.

Clive must have been hiding behind a bush watching me film this. That's exactly what I did. I thought the zebra-stripes would ge good enough to judge off.

I ended up tossing almost every over-exposed clip for the flick. Had to keep one which was vital to the story. :(

Lessons learned.
 
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