Sorry, what do you mean by knee and shoulder? Of the subject?

Look at the histo I posted. The lower and upper roll-off points are marked. They should be within 16-235 range, but not necessarily all of the outlying values.

Mike, on the evidence of this latest frame grab and the previous one of the guy in the blue room, your camera is correctly placing blacks at nominally 16 and whites at nominally 235. You should not be routinely putting a a Levels FX on this footage to "fix" it for the web.

In the later shot, your blues are low, because your white balance isn't set up for that warm lighting. But that's not necessarily wrong, if you want a warm look.

What should this preview levels plugin be set on? The tool tip makes no sense to me that it gives. I have it on original now with this screen grab, no fx applied. My camera is Canon XA10 if that helps. From the histogram, and waveform, it sure looks like blacks are 0 and whites 255 unless I'm missing something?

Mike, that's damn near perfect!

The black roll-off is at is at ~16 and the white roll-off is at ~235.

That is what film guys call knee and shoulder respectively

Now render and upload as-it-is to Vimeo.

Post back with additional questions about tweaks.

@Nick Hope, 

+1

Mike, you "are" missing something.

Blacks with the ENDPOINT set at 16 and with the white ENDPOINT set at 235 will usually look too flat. Actually, almost always they will look too flat.

If you set the black "roll-off point" at 16 and the white "roll-off point" at 235, AS IN YOUR LATEST SCREEN GRAB, it will usually look better, because the outlying levels are usually considered less important for visual impression. But they do provide a useful cushion for your personal tastes!

I know of no other way to say this, honestly.

Mike, did you drag the bar on the Levels Plugin so it exposes the input/output min/max sliders?

You have full control over levels You are not confined to the presets.

Away from computer now, but I have no idea what you mean by "Mike, did you drag the bar on the Levels Plugin so it exposes the input/output min/max sliders?"

What levels plugin ? The preview levels I circled in red??I just see options for original, TV and PC.

mike, dragging this bar with the red arrow up and down will expose the levels and gamma sliders in the levels plugin. Sorry if this is slightly different for you, I'm on VP8

But, as Nick and I have both said, you don' need this for this video event. The reason it does not need this is because it was shot correctly.

Problem solved, so I'm done here.

Mike, I have arrowed the points on your histogram that ideally should align to 16 or 235. If you forget about white balance and just look at the overall RGB graph, it's pretty much spot on. Everything labelled "N" is mostly just noise and you should not attempt to retain it. This shows why the histogram can be a little dangerous; that noise can look like real data that you want to retain. However that noise barely shows up on the waveform or RGB parade, so in many ways those are better tools, and of course they also let you see where on the X axis your levels are. I must admit, I still use the histogram sometimes when I really should be looking at the waveform and/or RGB parade. I think it's just habit. But also helped by the dots on the waveform not being very visible compared to other NLEs.

Also, you should set the SeMW plugin to "Computer" if you want a preview of how the final look on the web will be (in most scenarios).

@Nick Hope,

Perfect.

@MikeLV,

Do exactly as Nick Hope says. We are in perfect agreement, so it matters little which one of us makes more sense to you. Best.

Nick,

You have a lot of in-depth knowledge about color correcting. Is there any book or online resources or tutorials you would recommend or suggest?

Thanks.

nvidia control panel the right place to be looking? Here's some color settings, dont' see anything out of the ordinary here?

For Vimeo: here You go, Mike! 😎

The explanation was in this comment.

To illustrate, put a generated media "linear white to black" color gradient on the timeline. Apply a Levels FX to it and increase the gamma with the slider. Open the Waveform scope and see what happens. The waveform is "bulgy at the bottom" (technical term 😁); the shadows are getting brightened more than the highlights.

Now put an Invert FX before and after the Levels FX, both enabled, then reduce gamma with the slider. The waveform is now "bulgy at the top"; the highlights are getting brightened more than the shadows.

(I think) @malowz is saying that this is more like how camera exposure behaves, and so is often a superior way to adjust gamma (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Note that this on it's own does not "fix" black and white points.

"Color Corrector filter is very good for general WB fixes. but i prefer the "invert/correct/invert" trick, as vegas lacks a proper exposure and logarithmic color-corrector filter."

Is this still true of Vegas now?

Nothing has changed since he wrote that, at least in terms of the native Vegas effects. The gamma control in the Levels, Color Corrector and Color Corrector (secondary) FX all behave the same. Color correction in Vegas needs some love soon and this would be a good addition.

Hey, Nick, why is it that Sony's Gamma is different than, say, Sapphire's?

Sony's:

Sapphire's

My attempt:

1) sRGB to cRGB:

(you won't be needing this for your video, it's just for this image)

2) WB:

(WBd off the paper, yellow arrow)

3) Level push:

4) Shoulder: higlights limiter

Nick,

You have a lot of in-depth knowledge about color correcting. Is there any book or online resources or tutorials you would recommend or suggest?

Thanks.

Actually I don't. What I know is just from experience, testing, and past discussions with Musicvid and others on this forum. Here's a man who actually understands the science behind this stuff.

Christmas before last I requested Color Correction Handbook: Professional Techniques for Video and Cinema, 2nd Edition. According to the reviews it's very good. It's still sat in my Kindle library. I really should open it!

Hey, Nick, why is it that Sony's Gamma is different than, say, Sapphire's?

@Adis-a I don't know and unfortunately I don't have Sapphire to try it. What values does your gradient have? What does the waveform/RGB Parade show if you apply that gamma in Sapphire to the default "Linear White to Black" gradient?

Hey, Nick, why is it that Sony's Gamma is different than, say, Sapphire's?

@Adis-a I don't know and unfortunately I don't have Sapphire to try it. What values does your gradient have? What does the waveform/RGB Parade show if you apply that gamma in Sapphire to the default "Linear White to Black" gradient?

It was the "Ramp" preset from "Test Pattern" pack:

Hm...Sapphire's blacks are somewhat lifted, Sony's are not. Here:

Hm...Sapphire's blacks are somewhat lifted, Sony's are not. Here:

But the final dot on the Sapphire graph appears to be sitting on 0. Right?

VP10 and VP15 both give the same shape as your Sony graph, so it's been this way for a long time. I'd like to think that Vegas has it right, but who knows?

Looks like Sapphire has oldschool Setup value applied.

Hm...Sapphire's blacks are somewhat lifted, Sony's are not. Here:

But the final dot on the Sapphire graph appears to be sitting on 0. Right?

Yup, on the second look, it does..haha.

VP10 and VP15 both give the same shape as your Sony graph, so it's been this way for a long time. I'd like to think that Vegas has it right, but who knows?

No clue. 😇
 

Oh I see what it is. Sony's gradient steps are smaller, that's all.