Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 7/25/2002, 11:29 PM
None I know of aside from what people contribute here, in the cow patch, in the full manual, plus look around on SoFo site.

It really isn't hard to pick up. Just jump in. What you're really asking is how do I learn to paint as well as Michelangelo. Answer: Practice, practice, practice. The key filters for video are in no particular order: HSL, Levels, Color Balance, Color Curves. Note the glaring absence of Contrast/Brightness. That's just there because people expect it. No true videographer would ever fiddle with contrast or brightness when so much more accurate and powerful adjustments are possible with the other filters.
wcoxe1 wrote on 7/26/2002, 7:04 PM
Practice certainly has its place, a very important one, but a discussion of what was to be expected, or could be achieved, and WHY, would be of GREAT help.
BillyBoy wrote on 7/26/2002, 11:16 PM
Its a lengthy topic that depends much on the source file as far as any corrections you attempt to apply with the various FX filters and enhancements beyond that is another whole other ballgame. I hesitate to say do such and such in a particular order because each video needs tweaking differently and I may send you off in the opposite direction for what you need to do since your videos may need totally differents adjustments then mine do.

As far as what can be expected in the realm of correcting what one would consider too dark, too light, too much/too litte contract, adjustments of hue and primary stuff like that, a great deal of improvement can be had with the proper use of the various filters either alone or in combination. Because of difference between TV's and computer monitors in how they display color and to a lessor extent how bright the image is on one medium compared to the other if your target for your finished video is for it to be viewed off a TV either through some disc your burned or by printing to tape and playing back the rendered video through your camera you should make adjustments only while viewing your raw video through a connected external TV monitor. For starters you need to set up your external monitor properly:
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=101991

A good filter to play around with to gain experience is Color Curves. I've babbled quite a bit about it under my present and past nick WVG.

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=92745
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=93618

Also search for levels, filters to pull up other forum posts. There really is already quite a bit of information out there.

Sometimes people new to editing wonder why apply one filter over another that seems to do the same thing. A classic example is using the brightness/contrast filter instead of color curves or levels. The short answer is you gain much more control and can make finer adjustments. For instance using brightness and contrast effects the picture as a whole. So you gain an overall increase in brightness and contrast if you push the slider further right, but the result is all the pixels in the image get changed an equal amount. That's the sledge hammer approach. By using color curves instead (see the "S" curve threads in above URL's) you can apply filtering selectively to the three main regions of the image independently. So instead of all the pixels getting the same amount of filtering, shadows, mindtones and highlights can be effected by differently or not at all why still chaning what needs changing. Once you see the difference, you probably never use Contrast and Brightness as a filter again. Well almost never. :-)