lightening backlit subjects

PeterDuke wrote on 9/19/2007, 6:51 AM

Premiere Pro and Elements have an effect call "shadow/highlight" for lightning shadows and/or darkening highlights. Photoshop has a similar effect for still images. Does Vegas have something similar? If not, is there a third party plugin I could use?

Note that the lightening of shadows or backlit subjects works by masking the darker regions and lightening only those regions while leaving the mid and highlit regions unaffected. The mask is usually feathered and some means of reducing a halo effect is also provided. It is by no means the same thing as reducing contrast on the complete frame.

Comments

farss wrote on 9/19/2007, 7:25 AM

The .veg [here] should get you started. Replace the secondary CC FX on track three with one of several FXs to adjust the level of the lowlights.
There is a very real limit however, more often that not the noise in the lowlights will get ya. If you have a seriously badly backlit shot you may have very little luck. Seen this happen several times with the 'bride enters the church with bright sunlight behind her' kind of problem.

You can also use the Color Curves in Vegas to pull the shadows up, again though watch out for the noise.

Bob.

/edit: In the .veg, replace the clip. This was about shifting the color of the lowlights however the same masking technique can be used to do anything to the image based on the level of the video.

megabit wrote on 9/19/2007, 2:06 PM

Thanks Bob for that - it works on some of my backlit footage. But will you excuse the naivity of my request, and elaborate a bit on the specific role of the two solid color media clips? I guess I wouldn't be the only one to benefit....

farss wrote on 9/19/2007, 3:35 PM

They're there so you can very easily see what's happening when you adjust the Mask FX on track two. Just use them to 'calibrate' the FX and then remove them or ignore them.
The Mask FX and Gaussian Blur FX allow you to adjust the level at which the FX applied below is applied and the feathering between the lower tracks respectively.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 9/19/2007, 7:06 PM

Got you - thanks again!

PeterDuke wrote on 9/19/2007, 7:27 PM

An interesting approach tackling it from basic principles. I was hoping for something more direct: drag and drop effect, tweak sliders (or set values) and you are done.

I agree that lightening shadows reveals grain (visual noise), but most times I don't have the luxury of being able to control the lighting to avoid the strong shadows.

Tweaking the colour curves is not very satisfactory in my view. It is more like adjusting contrast, because it lacks the averaging over a region feature. It works on each pixel alone, regardless of its neighbours.

Is there no plugin out there for Vegas that does this easily and effectively?

DJPadre wrote on 9/20/2007, 6:50 AM

try velvetmatter "fill light"

PeterDuke wrote on 9/21/2007, 4:41 AM

Thanks
Fill-Light works reasonably well but not as well as Shadow/Highlights in Premiere Elements in my view (more contrast within the lightened shadow). Also, its a bit pricey, costing about the same as Premiere Elements itself. Both effects lightened midlights too much on the two test samples I tried for my liking, however. Photowiz LightMachine is better in this regard, but only works on still images, unfortunately.

TeetimeNC wrote on 9/21/2007, 7:14 AM

Peter, could you export your clip as a sequence and do a batch correction in Photowiz LightMachine (or Photoshop), then bring the sequence back into the timeline?

Jerry

PeterDuke wrote on 9/22/2007, 1:29 AM

I possibly could, but I think it would be best for me to process the AVI clip in Premiere Elements and then load it into Vegas. I have thought about exporting a clip as a set of stills for other things too, such as stabilization, but balked at the work involved.

Siby wrote on 11/19/2007, 12:41 PM

Hi Bob, The link you provided to the sample file not working. Can you please check it. I have a current project that required similar effect.

jrazz wrote on 11/19/2007, 12:47 PM

That site is no longer available and unless someone has the original file (or originals of what they posted to the site) it no longer exists.

j razz

farss wrote on 11/19/2007, 2:55 PM

I probably still have it floating around, somewhere or heck I'll even recreate it. However we're now short of anywhere to post anything other than text!

I'd put up the money to run a web site (within reason) or contribute to the running costs but I have neither the time or the skills to do the work myself. We do need an unmoderated sandbox kind of place, urgently.

Bob.

Serena wrote on 11/19/2007, 4:35 PM

The Adobe shadow/highlight thing is only a mask of the shadowed areas (as farss has mentioned) and while the version in Photoshop (and presumably Premiere) is surprisingly effective I find that generally I can do better defining the mask and processing myself. The technique is identical in Vegas and will yield the same result, the only tedious bit is that you have to setup keyframes to make the mask track a moving subject. Levels should be the first choice for bringing up the under-exposed subject (or toning down the over-exposed). Defining the mask yourself gives you control over those specific areas of the image that need enhancement.

rs170a wrote on 11/19/2007, 7:06 PM

Oldie but still a goodie from Spot.
Are You Exposed?.

Mike