Thanks Mike, that was it. I could have sworn the initial post included an embedded image, that's why I couldn't find it.
Time to try some of those techniques on my footage.

Alan

Alan,

I'm using a camera that's already become a "classic", even though it's still being sold (well, in a slight newer version - mine is the original EX1). And I can tell you a situation like this - i.e. lots of noise in shadowed foreground - has been hounding me in spite of the camera specs' promised 54dB S/N ratio!

I've tried all solutions others have been suggesting (in both my PPs, and in Vegas Pro) - only to find that a noise reduction FX (namely, the NeatVideo plugin) is the way to go.

No matter whether you stretch/crush your blacks in camera, or use Levels/Curves/Color Correction/HSL in post - you might end up with a better or worse DR, but the noise will still be there.

UNLESS you run a lengthy and CPU-intensive encode with NeatVideo.

Of course, your problem is mainly about the foreground being too dark - but I hope my hint still applies :)

Piotr

Thanks Piotr but because I'm running Vegas 6 which is adequate for my hobby use, most current plugins, including NeatVideo, aren't compatible.

Alan

You might try Mike Crash's Dynamic Noise Reduction plugin. It free and should work with Vegas 6. Might help you if your video becomes noisey with adjusting the levels.

I was just looking at some tutorials on Blending Modes for Photoshop and thought about this image. I got some decent results but I don't know how this would impact a render of real video. Anyway, here's the steps I took:

Import the image to the project, drop it into the timeline, adjust your project settings however you'd like but set the Pixel Format to 32-bit floating point (video levels)

Now, right-click on the track header and select Duplicate Track. Do this several times, if you like, to make 4 or 5 duplicate tracks, Mute most of them so that just the bottom two are active. You can toss out what you don't use later on.

Now, you've got a stack of tracks. The bottom will be your master and all those above it are adjustment layers. Go to the track immediately above the master and set it's Compositing Mode to Screen.

Screen mode will lighten the image based on how light the adjustment layer is. Bright areas of the adjustment layer will brighten the underlying areas in the master. Dark areas in the adjustment layer wont brighten underlying layers much.

Save your project. (I crashed Vegas a bit after this)

This single screen layer won't brighten the master enough so unmute another layer and set it to Screen mode too. This might give you too much brightening effect but you can dial it down by adjusting the transparency of this adjustment layer.

If you'd like to add some contrast back to the mix set your top layer or Overlay mode and unmute it. adjust the layer's transparency to give you what you want. I dialed mine down to 4%.

I think this gets the image back into the ballpark. You might play with noise reduction. You definitely should play with turning 32-bit mode on and off to see the difference that makes-it's substantial. Also, just as a nicety, try grouping all the adjustment layers into track group.

The big question is how this renders. Fast? Slow? Not at all?

Rob Mack

Here's a screen shot of what I'm talking about:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/wXmg5O0t2xHEAgwwS0jI0NDFxBYCq85Op-X7wW46p3M?feat=directlink


Rob

This is close to what I proposed to Ulf, although more sophisticated. I'll have to check this and see if it's worth forgetting a simple overlay and levels. Thank you for sharing it.

LoTN,

You know, I looked back at the end of that thread before launching down my road and I missed your post. But now that you've pointed me to it I've tried it out and your combination of Overlay mode with levels applied to that same adjustment track works just as well. With the project set to 32-bit mode it seems to take one more adjustment track than it would in 8-bit mode.

So basically this is two ways to skin a cat. They both seem to do the job and I'm not sure how I'd make a comparison except maybe to try them both on an underexposed chip chart or something.

Rob