I had this on a p[iece of very dark skinned performaers. DON'T TOUCH that brightness switch. Add the Sony Levels FX, and adjust the Gamma. Works for me .. praise should go to Billy Boys Colour Corection Tutorial.

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Grazie

There is only so much that can be done, if it's really dark then quite likely there is a lot of noise in the blacks, using levels or color curves you can try to leave the blackest blacks where they are and bring the rest of it up. Even apart from the noise you've also got chroma banding to deal with. That's one of the problems with working with 8 bit video, it's pretty damn good whne everything is just where it should be but there's not much latitude when things go wrong.

But here's a tip I've picked up. You don't have to get it perfect level wise. Or if you've got one bright bit (say sky) and the detail you want is lost in the low lights, rather than bringing the lows up try bringing the highs down. Now it will not look too flash on the scopes but the eye has a way of compensating. This way you don't hit the noise problem.

Bob.

I use mainly color curves for this, so i can controll precisely the range of tone being corrected.

Color curves works better than color corrector because you can choose exactly whether to lighten mid-tones, highlights, shadows, etc.

Always check the work on a TV monitor using the external preview: Do not use the computer monitor. Also, if you are new to doing this, make your adjustments until you see what you like, and then back off about 50% (i.e., go back about halfway and make it darker). This is very much like sonic noise reduction. You initially really like the absence of whatever you are trying to fix, and overlook all the awful artifacts you have created in the process. In the end, the artifacts are more annoying than what you have removed, and they look "unnatural" as well.

A little goes a long way.