Color Correction

film8ker

film8ker

I have some poorly shot footage from 2 cameras that are beyond my ability to color correct decently with the tools in Premiere 6.5. Does anyone have any suggestions on color correction software?
 
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I've only gotten correction done by Duart in NYC on a DaVinci, so I wouldn't know what to tell you for a home application, however, I have heard of a program called Color Finesse (don't know anything about it, but I heard it's good).

"the Color Finesse plugin by Synthetic Aperture is by far the best color correction tool available for post production, save a DaVinci color suite costing a few hundred grand..."

- Marco Solorio @ creativecow
 
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It was a two camera shoot, and while it looked okay while shooting, one camera appears to be 2 - 1/2 stops or so down from the other. Also the bright camera is a little overexposed so the reds and a couple of other highlights are over saturated, and on the underexposed camera they’re dull. I think I’ll just have to live with one camera angle for now, and reshoot. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing because our actor could use some practice. I’d still rather salvage what I have though. I thought I heard about something a while ago from canopus? Also a friend suggested Premiere Pro has better color correction tools than Premiere.

What is the difference in the AE Hue and Saturation than the Premiere Hue and Saturation?
 
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film8ker said:
I’d still rather salvage what I have though.
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Here's the question: is the footage from either camera properly exposed? If not, a re-shoot with better exposure will be your best option. Especially if there are other issues. It should be part of the DP's job (as well as the sound mixer, the editor, and more than a few others as well) to be a perfectionist.

As a general rule of thumb: marginal footage will produce a marginal film. Bad exposure & lighting (or bad anything, for that matter) can't really be 'fixed' in post. The most we can do is 'salvage' and patch things, pretty much guaranteeing that your film will be inconsistent in look, sound, pacing, etc.
 
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>>What is the difference in the AE Hue and Saturation than the Premiere Hue and Saturation?<<

Nothing as far as I know.

Premiere Pro has some excellent color correction tools. It doesn't have quite the power of the ColorFiness plugin but its pretty darn good. Definitely one of the better sets I have seen in an NLE.

You could probably use ColorFiness to make the footage roughly comparable but its probably a better idea to reshoot.
 
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Well, we figured out a way to use only the footage from the A camera (and a few select cutaway closups which I can salvage from B), and make it work for our needs. It’s not what I want, but it’s better than having crappy color match, and we don’t have enough time for a reshoot as we’re past deadline already. “Here's the question: is the footage from either camera properly exposed?” well, not quite. A is a little over, and B is way under. It wouldn’t be so bad, but there is a lot of red in the picture. It was shot on an XL1 which is a bit sensitive to red, so on the A camera the red is way saturated, and on the B it’s muted. I can get the skintones to match, but I just can’t get the reds to show bright on the B, and I can’t mute the ones on the A enough, and B looks really strange with the day-glow red from A.
 
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OK, so it sounds like we had a less than perfect shoot. Did you have a good quality video monitor on set? Preferably one that can be calibrated to color bars? Make sure it's on your set next time! It can be invaluable in checking exposure & color balance. Especially with a camera like the XL, which is very red.

Anytime you use more than 1 camera, it's important to try & match them as closely as possible before you start rolling tape. That extra couple of minutes on set will save you hours in post.

And... it's always important to expose properly.
 
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Yeah, actually we did, and we checked the cameras against it and it looked fine at the time. I think the viewfinder on my camera is too bright because I keep wanting to underexpose. I’m getting ready to send it to Canon now for maintenance, and hopefully this will solve this problem and a few other minor things I’ve noticed with it.
 
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Never make critical color or exposure decisions on an LCD (especially, a tiny flip-out). LCD technology still isn't up to that- maybe in a few more years. To make critical exposure & color decisions, you should have a production monitor on set that can be calibrated to color bars. And you need to calibrate it before you make those decisions.

Yup, more money, more time.
 
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Yeah, we had a 12" ish (it wasn't mine so I'm not sure of the exact size - heavy as f*** though) studio monitor on location. However this was several months ago, and I may be mistaken and we never actually looked at the B camera on the monitor, only the A.
 
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film8ker said:
and we never actually looked at the B camera on the monitor, only the A.
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And today's lesson is: Check all cameras on a production monitor!!

A lot of monitors allow multiple connections, with a simple push button on the front to toggle between sources. It's not as convenient as having a dedicated monitor for each camera, but it is one place where you can realistically save a few bucks on set.
 
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What I meant was: my DP is fairly sure we DID check both cameras and it looked fine on set, but he may be mistaken. Memory is fallible and it’s been such a long time since the shoot.

Regardless of this, I take it no one has any other suggestions for software? I’ve heard that the new Premiere Pro has very good color correction software, and I’m going to upgrade to this soon.
 
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