gdstaples, the secondary color corrector should be equivalent to corrections specified by hue.

levels is like levels in Photoshop, except sometimes more complicated. http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/articles/glennchan/levels_in_sony_vegas_part_one.htm

Color curves is a way of increasing contrast. *You can make a preset that maintains 16-235 studio RGB levels while tweaking contrast. Ask if you want it.

local contrast enhancement: I'm not sure what you mean by this. You can combine masking (or composite mode + keying/secondary CC) in Vegas with the color curves filter to increase contrast in isolated parts of the image. The explanation is convoluted, and the rendering kind of drops if you want to try this.

Selective sharpening: I'm not too sure what tools you're familiar with in the still world, because I don't play around with that much. Could you point me to the right Photoshop plug-ins?

I will eventually have a color correction DVD that covers most of the topics above. I'm not sure if it covers the same things you're used to in the still world. Video is limited by processing speed and has some seemingly-bizarre video engineering things about it (i.e. the 16-235 studio RGB color space).

I think you'll want Au Naturel also.

Lets you work in 96-bit color and linear RGB amongst other things, which gives a different rendition that makes this plug-in deserve its name.

Its Levels control is a revelation to work with... Demo version available, so you can try for yourself (with an AE demo version).

A few examples:

Local contrast enhancement simply increases contrast without effecting brightness, contrast or luminance. USM in the Photoshop world.

One tool that I find most useful in Photoshop is Icorrect Editlab. I can take an eye dropper and select foliage, grass, blue sky or skin tones and then make selective color changes to that portion of the image. If my sky is a bit bland, I can punch the saturation of the sky without effecting other portions of the image. I would like to do this in my video as well.

Another handy tool is a High Dynamic Range tool that is essentially a smart highlight and shadow tool that allows the application of contrast (levels change) at a specific points along the 0-255 range. This would be handy in the video world as well.

Duncan

Thanks CD, I will do the research per your suggestion.

Are most of the AE tools or are they also Vegas based?

Duncan

Vegas has USM too. You can even enter in negative amounts in the "amount" box. Unfortunately it doesn't do luminosity mode, so you get hue/saturation shifts if you go too extreme.

Equivalent of Icorrect Editlab = color corrector (secondary). Drag-select an area with the eyedropper, and play with the settings. Hold CRTL to move in smaller increments. Typically you just drag-select and area and drag out the smoothness sliders.

Not familiar with the High Dynamic Range tool... maybe color curves is similar, but I don't think so because then you'd be talking about curves in Photoshop (they're pretty much the same, except Vegas can't do curves in LAB color space).

2- Au naturel seems really, really slow. Maybe it's just me?

AviEdit is an application that uses Photoshop filters natively.
It works with many *.8bf plugins and has some great built-in effects you can't find elsewhere.
The interface does take some getting used to but the output AVI's are very clean.
While you're there, look at his Snowflake generator too. I'ts great for making holiday backgrounds for your web pages.

Appreciate it - I will check it out.

Duncan

>>>The most photographer-oriented filters are perhaps "Digital Film Tools 55mm", they are available in both Photoshop and After Effects compatible versions.<<<

I agree. new version is great. Use it in conjunction with Twixtor and FieldsKit for a film look and I am oh so happy. Renders faster than the Bullet and Cinelook as well.

I looked at Au Natural and it is Levels and Brightness control (their f-stop adjustment). There is nothing specific to color correcting or did I miss something?

Satish (www.debugmode.com) tried to squarely integrate the Photoshop plugins and filters to Vegas but, if my rememberance is good, there was a major problem with the core itself....

Just one small detail to be aware of, you might already know this so excuse me if I'm stating the obvious.
There's a very big difference between starting with the RAW data from a high end DSC or scanned 35mm film and the output of all but the most esoteric (i.e. very expensive) video cameras. There's plenty of places that go into this in painful detail, do some research and you'll soon become aware of the limitations of working with video.
Bob.