Well, agreed, but in my experience I found it difficult getting the values right manually. I have been using a few colour balance pre-sets in Premiere 6 for years but they're never quite right. When working on stills, Photoshop's auto-levels result was almost always better than my manual attempts.

I must admit this is a particular interest for underwater videographers like me as it's so difficult to get the colour balance right while shooting. It's almost always too blue-green or too red.

The other important thing about the Premiere Pro commands is that they seem to be changing the levels frame-by-frame. Obviously a Vegas pre-set cannot achieve that. That would be great for some of my clips where my colour balance is changing as I'm changing depth.

Can anyone comment on how one goes about manually making such a correction within Vegas?

Also, is it possible to import a single frame into Photoshop, use automatic color correction there, and, in some fashion, export the correction factors back into Vegas to correct an entire clip or series of clips?

Russ Snyder

Lots and lots of them here:

Color Cast Tutorials

>>...import a single frame into Photoshop...
>>...export the correction factors back into Vegas to correct an entire
>>clip or series of clips?

While it would be pretty cumbersome, yes, you could do it.

1.) You would have to EXport the clip from Vegas as an image sequence.
2.) Set up the appropriate macro in Photoshop to apply the correction to the hunderds (thousands) of stills.
3.) IMport the image sequence back into Vegas as an Image Sequence.

It would work, but, it wouldn't be very quick.

Couldn't get your link to work I'm afraid John. Takes me to "Wide Open West internet and cable".

I would love to find a way for Photoshop to tell me what it's actually done to a still when it's applied auto-levels or auto-color so I can use similar values for a whole clip in Vegas. Can't seem to find it though. Any Photoshop users got an idea on that?

You could duplicate the histogram from Photoshop in Vegas.

Bubble, this link should work http://www.wideopenwest.com/~wvg/tutorial-menu.htm

Cheers,

Scott

To bubblevision:

I am just curious about what kind of camera you use?

I am editing some surfing footage for some friends of mine. They shot the footage themselves, etc... so you know how that goes....

So, just in case I get an opportunity to shoot some surfing footage for $$$, I would imagine you need to be in the water to do this? Do you have any recommendations on cameras (waterproof?)? How do I learn more about this?

When out with friends, I do shoot wakeboarding and waterskiing footage "freehand" from the back of the boat and from a SeaDoo (following the skiier on one side - at a safe distance & someone else is driving the SeaDoo). So I am able to hold the camera pretty steady from all of this practice ...

If I could film the surfer from a SeaDoo, then I think I could come up with some decent shots ...

Thanks,
Colleen

DVDeviations:
Two links that might interest you...

http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/
(maybe get inspiration to customize one for your needs ; ) )

and

http://www.amphibico.com/default2.asp?C=2
(Excellent company for this type of gizmos)

Hth!

Colleen, I use a Sony VX2000 in a Gates housing. I prefer Gates to Amphibico, mainly because the mechanical controls are more reliable than Amphibico's electronics.

For surf video, where there is little pressure, you can get away with a "heavy duty plastic bag" such as one from here: http://www.ewa-marine.de There is another company that makes those with the word scuba or surf in the name but I can't find it.

Thanks Scott. I went through Billyboy's tutorials and they were very helpful, and enabled me to see the possibilities without "auto" correcting commands.

Now then, a question about the "complementary color pickers" in the color corrector window. Is the idea with the picker to find and pick as NEUTRAL a color as possible for each of the 3 tones, or should I deliberately be looking for an area that obviously contains a hue I want to reduce?

Not sure if this would work but....When you go diving, take a protected piece of white card (and black on the other side) and before you shoot, record a full frame of white and then black for a few seconds...You can then use those few seconds to set your whites and blacks in the primary colour corrector. repeat as depth/light changes...(unless of course your camera allows for manual white balance in which case you don't need to "record" the white on tape...)

I use that technique frequently on land when I use a cam with no (easy) manual white balance and it saves you on a lot of headaches when colour correcting...

Just and idea.

Paul.

Actually Paul I do have the ability to white balance. I have white duct tape on the top of my fins and I manually white balance on that all the time, almost to the degree that it's a nervous habit. Nevertheless white balance underwater is so depth-sensitive that a lot of my footage comes out a little too or a too green.

Been trying to get a pair of white fins for years but nobody makes them :-( Leaving a bit of black and white on the tape is not a bad idea, although I generally try and edit as I shoot as much as possible.

Back to my eyedropper question..... Imagine I have a scene that I know is all too red, but there is nothing in the scene that was or is neutral, nor particularly dark or light. What do I pick on then? Or do I just do it manually?

I also use Canopus DV Storm which does have a great auto white balance feature (for highs, mids and lows) that is very quick and accurate. I would also like to see this in the Vegas for quick fix situations. I find that the Vegas comp color picker is not nearly as accurate as the Canopus tools and needs much more tweaking.

Marc