Best way to get better B&W stills in video

birdcat wrote on 2/13/2006, 9:58 AM

Hi Kids -

Working on a project that has many B&W (and some color) still images - The preview looks fine but when I look at the final video file (MPEG-2 or AVI or burned to DVD) the photos are way too bright with not enough contrast. I tried using the Sony Brightness/Contrast filter on them and it helps but not nearly enough. I am also reducing interlace flicker on these images (lots of pan/zoom stuff). Is there anything y'all know about that would do a better job with these?

Thanks

Bruce

Comments

David Jimerson wrote on 2/13/2006, 10:47 AM

Here's a classic example of why you should preview on an external monitor. Your computer monitor isn't going to alert you to things like that.

You can use color curves to bring the top highlights down -- use the waveform monitor; anything over 100 is going to blow out, and you probably don't want to go above 90 most of the time..

rs170a wrote on 2/13/2006, 10:56 AM

As David said, curves are the way to go. Check out Glenn Chan's excellent articles Correcting Exposure in Sony Vegas and Correcting Levels in Sony Vegas on the VASST site.

Mike

birdcat wrote on 2/14/2006, 5:09 AM

Thanks kids -

The color curves helped somewhat - mostly on the thirty year old video portion - but I am having a dickens of a time with these old B&W images - I will continue to play with the brightness/contrast and color curves settings, but would really appreciate more suggestions.

The project is for a vignette of my fiancee's father, who passed several years ago and will be shown at my upcoming wedding to her.

Thanks.

Bruce

farss wrote on 2/14/2006, 5:27 AM

I think your problem is that a lot of those vintage images tend to be just black and white and not much in between. Tweaking the gamma using the color curves might help a bit. By that I mean add a node at the mid point and try pulling it up and down to get a curve, move the point up and down as well, keep an eye on the scope, I find the histogram display gives a simple to read view of what's going on.
Good luck, I know it isn't easy.
Bob.