I have been trying to make night shots look more blue, but when it comes to the actors skin, it keeps coming out more purple, or just a tad blue, but mostly skin color still. Can I get the Terminator 2 blue look with after effects, where the character's skin is pretty much completely blue? I tried pushing the curves and hue for this but it comes out either not enough blue, or way too blue, where it looks like there is something seriously wrong with it. Any suggestions? Thanks.
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Question about creating moonlight.
- Thread starter harmonica44
- Start date
Disclaimer: Ideally you want to keep skin tone as close to realistic as possible unless you're James Cameron...James Cameron LOVES the blue skin. *cough* Avatar *cough*
But you should be able to get the effect you're looking for by making a blue solid (you can use whatever color of blue you're looking for, but a somewhat dark, pure blue should accomplish the effect best), putting it on top of your footage, and switching the blending mode to something along the lines of Overlay, Color, or Soft Light. After deciding which one gets you closest to the effect you're looking for, step back to where you want it by adjusting the opacity.
Voila! Instant CTB.
But you should be able to get the effect you're looking for by making a blue solid (you can use whatever color of blue you're looking for, but a somewhat dark, pure blue should accomplish the effect best), putting it on top of your footage, and switching the blending mode to something along the lines of Overlay, Color, or Soft Light. After deciding which one gets you closest to the effect you're looking for, step back to where you want it by adjusting the opacity.
Voila! Instant CTB.
You can use a chroma matte to adjust the flesh tones and everything else separately. That way you have better control over your presentation of healthy looking skin. Dark also tends to be more naturally desaturated, so you could get away with pulling a little saturation out of the images from night time (has to do with rods and cones in the eye and our expectation of color at night).
Thanks. I know I've been told about the chroma matte before but every time I try to use it I can't figure it out. At least not in after effects. I find myself having to do color correction in Premiere Pro, for this reason. If I color correct one shot, say by adding highlight blue tone by 17.5 percent by example, another shot in the scene will look different, if you add that much, and have to add a different percentage to match. So if I do this in after effects it highlights the whole movie and I cannot do shots seperately. Is there a way in Premiere Pro for the program to hypothesize what to color the other shots, so they will match the one shot you colored and are happy with, or do I have to play around shot by shot, till I find numbers that match in each one of them, even though the numbers will be different?
I don't want to do it AE if possible because, AE does not let you do it, shot for shot. It will only let you change the color of the movie as a whole. If I can do it Premiere Pro, that would be sweet, cause it lets me work on the shots individually.
Just keyframe the colour correction and you should be able to get it on a shot by shot basis..
Okay thanks. I tried using color balance, but that doesn't really create moonlight. It just adds a little blue to everything, which makes everything come out a bit purple-ish. I tried hue in this test:
http://youtu.be/53wnJueOTes
As you can see, the outdoor shot looks pretty good, but inside the car, only the people's faces turned blue and they all look like smurfs. How is it that the program changed their skin, but did not change their clothes, or most of the interior of the car?
http://youtu.be/53wnJueOTes
As you can see, the outdoor shot looks pretty good, but inside the car, only the people's faces turned blue and they all look like smurfs. How is it that the program changed their skin, but did not change their clothes, or most of the interior of the car?
This is where "secondaries" would come in handy.
The problem looks to be that you've overwritten the hues of the shot entirely with blue, while still keeping the lightness and saturation. The darker an area of a shot, the less likely that th inherent "blueness" of it will show. Your mids and highs, however, are VERY blue, since the lightness and saturation will be higher there.
A few potential solutions come to mind here:
1) Apply the effect to an adjustment layer instead of the layer itself and scale back the opacity on it until you have more of a HINT of blue instead of a heavy gut-punch of blue.
2) Apply to an adjustment layer, and create an inverted luma matte on that layer. Scale up the tolerance/raise the alpha of the layer to where there's no PURE black (make sure that no area is ENTIRELY excluded) and fiddle with the settings until you get something more pleasing.
3) Switch the blending more of your effect. Right now you said it's on the hue. Like I mentioned before, that means that you've nuked your color data in the red and green for the most part (not the best plan). An overlay might be a bit more suited for this effect than a hue. Either way, return to suggestion 1 after this.
4) Change the effect entirely. Instead use curves, or something similar.
Another thing to keep in mind is what your main source of light would be here. They're on city streets surrounded by streetlights, the heavy blue look seems a bit out of place. Consider seeing how it looks with a deeper orange color instead, like the streetlights are your source.
The problem looks to be that you've overwritten the hues of the shot entirely with blue, while still keeping the lightness and saturation. The darker an area of a shot, the less likely that th inherent "blueness" of it will show. Your mids and highs, however, are VERY blue, since the lightness and saturation will be higher there.
A few potential solutions come to mind here:
1) Apply the effect to an adjustment layer instead of the layer itself and scale back the opacity on it until you have more of a HINT of blue instead of a heavy gut-punch of blue.
2) Apply to an adjustment layer, and create an inverted luma matte on that layer. Scale up the tolerance/raise the alpha of the layer to where there's no PURE black (make sure that no area is ENTIRELY excluded) and fiddle with the settings until you get something more pleasing.
3) Switch the blending more of your effect. Right now you said it's on the hue. Like I mentioned before, that means that you've nuked your color data in the red and green for the most part (not the best plan). An overlay might be a bit more suited for this effect than a hue. Either way, return to suggestion 1 after this.
4) Change the effect entirely. Instead use curves, or something similar.
Another thing to keep in mind is what your main source of light would be here. They're on city streets surrounded by streetlights, the heavy blue look seems a bit out of place. Consider seeing how it looks with a deeper orange color instead, like the streetlights are your source.
Well since I'm not allowed to use lights on the streets without permission I thought I would just use the streetlights, then color them blue in post. Will that not just cut it for a pro look? If not then I can just stick to the streetlight look.
That will just not cut it for a pro look... pros use lots of lights to produce the effect you have in your head... you'll have to cheat. Make sure the light isn't casting straight down on your actors as this is a give away of the proximity of the light source (the moon is relatively far away and will make straighter shadows than a closer source as you're dealing with the center of the cone of photonic influence that is actually being received by the earth).
The light will be blue, but the nighttime effect on our eyes is to not show us the saturation, so dial the saturation down a bit and the colors become hinted at rather than just BLUE!.
You need to shift your mindset from "I'm going to get pro results with no budget." to "I'm going to get decent results using pro techniques with cheap solutions." I'm just getting into the point where I"m starting to expect pro results from the things I shoot, and we have access to pro lighting and good actors and we're much more selective about our scripts and experience and ...
The light will be blue, but the nighttime effect on our eyes is to not show us the saturation, so dial the saturation down a bit and the colors become hinted at rather than just BLUE!.
You need to shift your mindset from "I'm going to get pro results with no budget." to "I'm going to get decent results using pro techniques with cheap solutions." I'm just getting into the point where I"m starting to expect pro results from the things I shoot, and we have access to pro lighting and good actors and we're much more selective about our scripts and experience and ...
Okay thanks. What about movies where the lights are incorrect on purporse though? In some movies, flourescent light is green, and in some sunlight is blue, intentionally. So would making street lights blue, really be breaking the rules? I'm just trying to understand the distinction.
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The distinction tends to boil down to style and intention. If there's a specific reason that you're looking for the streetlights to be blue, like if it in some way furthers your narrative, then do it. If you have a very meticulously planned out aesthetic, and blue streetlights fit into that, do it. If you're trying to turn streetlights blue because it might look more like moonlight, perhaps consider a different approach.
There are no rules.
If you want to make your street lights blue because your character is in a world where everything is blue, or is in a mental state where things go weird and starts being blue or whatever, do whatever the hell you want.
That said, making street lights blue is not going to look light moonlight, it's just going to look like blue street lights.
Okay. How would I do that? Color Balance turns them more purple. Hue turns them blue, but there is something about hue that doesn't look right. Outdoors that is.
Color balance turns them purple if you remove green. Hue turns them blue if you remove orange. You have to find the color you want it to become, then use the color wheel to determine the secondary of that color and remove that (or just add the color you want it to become until you get there). Understand your color wheel and your grading life will be much happier.