Best way to color-correct face?

Lili wrote on 4/2/2006, 6:07 PM

I shot some testimonials for a skin-care product in which the subjects are filmed from the chest up. All looked OK except for this an older woman who was wearing heavy makeup and, in the video her face looks almost ghoulish - kind of bluey-grey. (I don't think her face would sell the product!)

The background and her jacket are golden yellow/brownish tones. Is there any way i can get just her face to look more like a natural skin colour? I've tried all the color-correction tools and they seem to change everything (not very experienced with this aspect of V5), and not just the face.

Thanks for your help.

Comments

Serena wrote on 4/2/2006, 6:40 PM

This is a case for using the colour corrector + secondary colour corrector (the 2nd for the face only). There is one of Spot's tutorials that should be a good starter: http://vegas.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=27289

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 4/2/2006, 6:53 PM

oops - if you drop me a frame grab, i can see what I can do - I might suggest looking into the Aav6cc color correction plugin by mike crash - it doesn't seem to work on HDV footage (at least not the m2t files, but it does some types of color correction more effeciently than the vanilla coco (color correction) tools in Vegas.

Dave

GlennChan wrote on 4/2/2006, 8:50 PM

The color corrector (secondary) is a good way to tackle this. In my opinion, the 6way CC isn't going to do a better job.

Open up the filter. Take the eyedropper, drag-select an area on the woman's face. Uncheck limit by luminance (at least for now).

Click on show mask to see if you got the whole face isolated. If not, play with the limit by settings. Drag all the smoothness settings out a little (i.e. to 30). Lower the low, and raise the high.
You're trying to get just the face, without much of everything else.

Take the color wheel at the top and play around with that to change the color to what you want.

You don't really need to limit by luminance, although it might help a little if some background objects are getting affected.

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 4/2/2006, 10:15 PM

I don't know - the secondary CC is good for running the mask to see what you're selecting (not sure if the 6way has that option), but if he wants to correct not only her face with a single filter (granted this gets off topic and therefore kind of a mute point) the 6 way may do it more easily. more than 1 way to skin a cat - that's for sure.

However - I'll certainly say this, Glenn is gonna know more about coco than I am, and his suggestion is a very good one.

Dave

Lili wrote on 4/3/2006, 6:55 AM

Thanks for everyone's input - I'll play around with the "coco" plug-in - I have Spot's and Gary's training DVD's and will run through the applicable chapters if I'm still having difficulty.

FrigigNDEditing - with regards to sending you a frame-grab, I could do that but I don't have your email - is there another way?

thanks again to all.

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 4/3/2006, 11:02 AM

you can email it to me at dayvids {A*} gmail {D0T} com

Lili wrote on 4/3/2006, 12:00 PM

thanks - will do.

Your step-by-step comments were also most helpful.

FuTz wrote on 4/4/2006, 4:40 AM

Maybe have a glance at this:
http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7Ewvg/tutorial-11.htm

Hope that helps

Lili wrote on 4/5/2006, 7:06 AM

thanks Futz - I'm putting that into my Favourites - great tutorial!