Some aids that may help... or not:

In the Color Corrector filter, there is a complementary color eye dropper. The eye dropper with the negative sign.

Click on it and your mouse will turn into an eyedropper. Drag-select an area that is supposed to be white. If a major change happens, then white balance was off originally.

Repeat the process for mids and that should fix white balance (as best as Vegas can do it anyways).

2- The vectorscope can kind of help you out.

To read the vectorscope:

Un-saturated colors (grey, white, black) will show up in the very middle. i.e. play around with the Color corrector + saturation control (the saturation control should actually be called chroma). Things will move towards the center and away from it.

Distance from the center indicates the chroma level of a color. Further away = more saturated.

Angle around the center is related to hue. Look at the 6 targets on the vectorscope. It's r for red, g for green, etc. Those are where those colors are supposed to land.

Also note that exposure affects chroma levels (the vectorscope shows chroma, and not saturation!). To see this in vegas, add the levels filter and adjust the output end slider. Chroma is proportional to luma (luma approximates brightness). To maintain constant saturation, high luma values need high chroma values.


You will find that certain colors should lie in certain angles of the vectorscope. One thing you should definitely do is to try to keep the flesh tones consistent.

The secondary color corrector can help you out. Isolate the flesh tone with it, and adjust the color wheel to get flesh tones consistent for the shots that are off.

To isolate flesh tone: eyedropper and drag-select flesh tone in the picture.
Uncheck limit by luminance or saturation. Usually it's good to limit by hue only. Drag out the width and smoothness setting a little to make sure you're grabbing all the flesh tone.

Make sure exposure is consistent beforehand, otherwise the vectorscope doesn't help you that much.

My guess is that if you're colorblind to a certain extent, it will be difficult to do a precise job in color balance without the aid of a friend who can help by looking at sample footage and saying, "A little too red" or whatever.

You can adjust a color camera by pointing it at a white card and telling it that this is white should look like. You can do the same in post by using the color wheels and looking for what should be white in the video image, then using the (-) eyedropper to tell Vegas to make that white. My own impression is that this only goes so far; hence, the need for another set of eyes.

thank you all for yor advice. I'll have a hard stare at them all.

As for being colourblind - it's not that bad. I know when to cross the streets and when to wait.
Apart from that I can still rejoice in a picture with a beatiful grass red lawn. B-)

OT
I'd like to share a story I heard yesterday and I think it so funny it can bear to be told on.
An American was visiting England and noticed that at a light crossing there was a beep noise. He asked why this was and was told that it was so that the blind would know when the lights were red.
"Wow!", said the American, "Back home we would never dream of letting the blind drive".

Ayath

:::I'd like to share a story I heard yesterday and I think it so funny it can bear to be told on.
An American was visiting England and noticed that at a light crossing there was a beep noise. He asked why this was and was told that it was so that the blind would know when the lights were red.
"Wow!", said the American, "Back home we would never dream of letting the blind drive".:::

On the other hand, we willingly allow the blind to run our government.

There is an article in today's Los Angeles Times about a community college staffer who became legally blind.

He couldn't do his old job any more, so what did he choose?

He became a professional photographer of course.

His clients all were as baffled when he showed up, but they gladly paid for his good work.

How?

He set up a business to shoot aerial photos from an 18-foot mini-blimp on a manually and skillfully operated 300 ft. tether. The tether also contains a signal cable to control the tilt-and-swivel motors on his 35mm SLR camera support, and passes video from its viewfinder to the ground, where his wife "steers" the camera and describes what is seen so he can guide exactly what pictures need to be taken for different needs.

He makes a good living shooting construction projects "from the air" for less money than airplanes or helicopters, used by both developers and contractors to avoid or support law suits later. They all love saying, "I'm sending over my blind photographer."

Where there's a wife, there's a way.

:O)