Correcting white/colour balance problems

[ddmurphy]

I took some Hi8 video indoors with candlelight as the light source. Unfortunately my camcorder did not have a white balance manual adjustment. You can understand the result! I can correct the contrast and brightness in Adobe Premiere and or After Effects. Can anyone suggest the best method for adjusting the colour balance. I can probably do it all by trial and error but some tips would be appreciated

David Murphy

[This message has been edited by ddmurphy (edited 24 September 2001).]

[Gladders]

Yes, I'd like some tips if there are any. I've only ever used trial and error, not sure if there's any other way. What I found was that it was best to add the "missing" colours, not reduce the cast, if that makes sense. Anyone else got any suggestions?

Paul

[Des]

Colour balancing has been the bane of my life. I use MS Studio Pro 6 and generally go for the tool that gives you Red, Green and Blue sliders. I try and only ever use the Blue slider - More blue takes out the yellow cast and more yellow takes out the blue cast. These are generally the problem areas for bad or a lack of white balance control.

I then tweak the gamma slightly.

However in desperation I have just ordered Xentriks Vixen Pro. This anchors the shadow and highlight whilst taking out any cast apparent on the highlight. There are a host of other tools like extending the middle tonal range, or the highlight or shadow etc.

It saves hours of silly tweaking and gives you a professional match against a standard - the best colour grader I have seen at a lowish price.

A plus is that it is a plugin for Photoshop too.

Des

[tom hardwick]

Yes, Vixen is the answer if you're feeling a bit off colour.
tom.

[Mad_mardy]

and if you are immensly rich or stupid

[Des]

I guess if you are a bit off colour it would be easy to take offense at being told

''and if you are immensly rich or stupid''

is there anything else you want to throw at a stranger who was trying to help ddmurphy with a polite answer?

Des

[Mad_mardy]

yep there is,

a box with "xentriks vixen pro" written on it
with a message underneath saying
"you have just been ripped off big time"

sorry no offence to you and you are quite correct in that vixen is a good program
but for a £90 pound program shoved in a box and resold for 300+
in my mind is....i don't think there is a word that describes it.
No wonder there is so much pirated software out there when companies do that.
Premiere or mediastudi's colour corrector although not perfect will suffice if you know what you are doing.

[alan holland]

Some of us don't know what we we are doing because we are learning. You seem to have something to say as guidance on the original question posting that, rather than a put-down would be appreciated.

[Mad_mardy]

There was a big review where all this was explained in the Mag only a few months ago
It wasn't a put down i merely stated that to buy this program you have money to burn
whether through an excess of it or because
one thinks that £300+ is a good price to pay for a colour correction program,which incidently is more expensive than what you can get Premiere or mediastudio for and of course was also on sale previously for less.than third its current price

Also if anyone is using a Canopus card
canopus do a small program called video doctor which has very good colour correction tool within it.

[This message has been edited by Mad_mardy (edited 26 September 2001).]

[Des]

I agree that £300+ is an insane price to pay for something that was previously £90+. I searched around and was able to get it for £200 - still a lot but I am trying to grade a film of a film that is around 47 minutes in length and productivity is an important issue in this instance.

I do have DV Tools and I have played around a lot with MS Studio Pro but cannot seem to get an objective match across over 100 clips. There are over 500 clips in total. I was careful on white balance on shooting but I still need to colour grade these 100.

Believe me I chose Vixen not for the want of searching for an alternative. The hike in the price is most objectionable - it would have been more acceptable if I had never heard the original price.

Des

[ddmurphy]

Thanks for the advice. I have downloaded the 15 day 'free' trial as I think the price for a 'one off' need is a bit too much! The first results are very good. Much better than playing with the filters in Premiere! I will have to try and finish my project with in the 15 days...sorry Xentrik..I would love to get the plugin but at that price..no thank you.

David Murphy

[Mad_mardy]

ddmurphy if they haven't changed the demo
from the old original which i had
i think that when it expires any effects
left in the timeline will continue to be ok and will render them it just won't allow you to add new ones or alter the ones you have.
you may not have to rush your project through.