Can I correct dark images caused by fast shutter speeds?

belsokar wrote on 5/25/2003, 2:25 AM
Hi...I have some footage where I played with the shutter speed instead of the iris to control lighting...(I am a newbie which explains the stupidity!)...anyways, I got some footage that ended up being dark and grainy...I try using some standard methods for increasing brightness, contrast, gamma, etc...but basically the picture still looks horrible...am I pretty much screwed? or is there something else out there I can try to improve my picture...

thanks!

Comments

TorS wrote on 5/25/2003, 9:00 AM
What is or is not possible is one thing. What you will accept or even like is another. Thry fooling around with some of the FXs and see if it brings you somewhere you like to be.
Tor
kameronj wrote on 5/25/2003, 9:23 AM
Do you have an example of the horrible footage? I mean...like...what is horrible about it? Tors is right that there are things that can or can't be done - but what you would accept is something totally different.

It is a little difficult to put into words what an image looks like - so if you had an example posted somewhere, maybe we could take a look and see if there is anything else that can be done to make it look a little less horrible.
farss wrote on 5/25/2003, 9:45 AM
I've had a similar problem with a client where he was shooting with a stereo pair of cameras but had one with one too many ND filters. From what I could see you'll never get it back 100%. As you try tp wind up the brightness etc if you open the historgram scope you'll see holes start to appear. This makes sense, the camera was trying its best to wind up the gain but just didn't have the ability to do it. So now your trying to do the same thing with an image that has limited data in it and spread it over a larger range.

Sorry if thats not a very technical description, hope you get the idea.

You may be able to make it look 'acceptable', thats very subjective. One of the big problems with video is the very limited latitude to start with, at least with film you've usually got a little room to move.
mikkie wrote on 5/25/2003, 11:17 AM
As posted previously + in-other-words, a LOT depends on what was captured originally, if the data is there or not determines the quality possible.

Say you have a range of ~255 levels of light to dark... When things are too dark, or bright for that matter, you can get all luminence (lightness) levels from say 215 or so recorded as white, or 50 or 75 or so recorded as black. How much gets mapped to the extreme, get's cut off, depends on the situation when the video was recorded.

If the info was/is not there, you're not going to get it back, so definitions of acceptable turn pragmatic quickly.
Udi wrote on 5/25/2003, 11:35 AM
You can also try the color curves.
Also look at billyboy tutorial on color corrections, this can give you some new ideas.
belsokar wrote on 5/25/2003, 1:37 PM
I will try to post some images...the main problem is I used very high shutter speeds, causing a grainier look...so basically, I can use color curves, gamma corrections, etc to get the brightness and look up, but the image remains grainy...i know this is to be expected...

Here is a sample image of the original footage:

http://www.epicdreamsproductions.com/images/badfootage.JPG

thanks for all your help!
BillyBoy wrote on 5/25/2003, 4:09 PM
It looks too cold. I would warm it up by moving midway between the Y1 and R on the middle wheel on Color Corrector. Somewhere around 140 Angle and 340 Magnitude for a starting point. It tested a little off on the white point on my system. Could raise that up a small amount. Also the gain could be raised to around 1.120 or so along with the Gamma to around 1.300 then also boost your color curve in the highlight area.