Color Grade get (read) Pixel Value

willlisub wrote on 12/29/2009, 6:12 AM

Can any one tell me what FX and technique I might use to get a RBG pixel value while in Vegas 9 Pro.

Currently I grab a frame from Vegas and paste it into photoshop and then put my mouse point over an area to get the info ( rgb values). Seem like there is probably an easier way.

Help!

Thanks in advance.

Comments

MarkWWW wrote on 12/29/2009, 8:41 AM

Yours is a rather longwinded way of doing it.

You could do entirely it from within Vegas by opening up a window for one of the VideoFX that has a colour picker (I would use Sony Sepia, but some of the others also have built-in colour pickers) and just use that (i.e. not actually applying the FX, just using its colour picker).

But what I actually do in practice is to have a third-party colour picker running when I am doing this kind of thing. I use this free one but there are dozens of others.

Mark

YesMaestro wrote on 12/29/2009, 8:54 AM

Another one you can use is Pixeur. Very easy and free too.

http://www.veign.com/application.php?appid=107

Paul

willlisub wrote on 12/29/2009, 11:13 AM

Thanks, I knew it was the long way of doing it, but it was one I knew.

One of the feature I use to balance in Photoshop, is lightness under saturation. I guess I should give HSL fx a try.

Thanks.

GlennChan wrote on 12/29/2009, 3:16 PM

Another utility is Takecolor. You don't have to drag the target over to sample a color... that's the immediately obvious difference between that and Pixeur.

http://download.cnet.com/TakeColor/3000-2192_4-10387506.html

John_Cline wrote on 12/29/2009, 3:59 PM

I suppose that I need to do the test myself, but I have to wonder about the validity of the measurements taken by these software color pickers. All of my monitors have been calibrated via a hardware sensor and use a Windows .ICM lookup table so the video card compensates for the monitor's inaccuracies. Are these color pickers reading the actual value of the image pixels in the file before the lookup compensation or are they reading the screen values after compensation by the .ICM?

musicvid10 wrote on 12/29/2009, 5:25 PM

At least in Photoshop, they are pre-ICM because the values do not change after changing profiles. IOW, gray is gray. I "suspect" the same is true in Vegas, although I have not run the test.

John_Cline wrote on 12/29/2009, 7:54 PM

I would fully expect the color pickers in Photoshop and Vegas to read the values pre-ICM, but I still wonder about the stand-alone color pickers like those that are being discussed earlier in this thread.

GlennChan wrote on 12/29/2009, 8:02 PM

Couldn't you test by using the color media generator in Vegas and seeing if the values match up?

TeetimeNC wrote on 12/30/2009, 6:27 AM

Do any of these samplers let you sample an average across a user-defined area (e.g., 3x3 pixel grid)?

Jerry

Jøran Toresen wrote on 12/30/2009, 8:17 AM

I use ColorMania. Very good.

http://www.blacksunsoftware.com/colormania.html

Jøran Toresen

willlisub wrote on 12/30/2009, 11:57 AM

I installed a program from Nattyware called Pixie.

I get the same readings from Pixie for RGB as I do from the Sepia FX color picker in the Vegas Preview monitor.

I do not get the same readings in photoshop.

Fun stuff.

Andy_L wrote on 12/31/2009, 7:42 AM

It's always seemed odd to me that Vegas doesn't provide this functionality on its own. And especially the ability to highlight (ala Photoshop) clipped shadows/whites would be a useful feature.