When making the round trip to Photoshop, use a PNG image sequence, not JPG.
PNG is lossless and supports alpha.

But as I mentioned, most highlight/shadow operations can be handled with levels and gamma, which perhaps is a bit more versatile in Vegas.

I am also a fan of the highlight/shadow adjustment in Photoshop Elements. I've tried a number of other adjustments and they never get me just what I need or if they do it takes literally 10 times longer. I'm still using Photoshop Elements Version 4 primarily for this feature.

musicvid, for some reason camera raw won't open png, so you have to use jepg to go that route, or I guess you could convert png to tiff.

Of course, the regular ps tools are available with png format when working within the ps app itself.

as i mentioned before, if not need to use camera raw, its easier to export in quicktime, open video in photoshop, process, and export in quicktime again.

no need to export in image sequence

malowz, you must be using ps extended. can you open mts files?

yes, extended. also, only he 32bits works if i recall.

it only open quicktime and some avi with simple codecs, like DV.

for others formats, you can export from vegas in QT with some good codec, like dnxhd or a lossless codec.

rising back from the dead...

today i needed to use shadow/highlight in a "very contrasty" video filmed on the sunny beach, with no fill on the shadows.

so, i retried the shadow/highlight filter in video.

First method: the new Photoshop CS6 extended can open .AVI files with VFW codecs, so i used a source file with Canopus HQ. processed, then exported back from Photoshop again with the Canopus HQ codec inside Quicktime. (need to create a template in Adobe Media Encoder first)

Second method: use Debugmode Frameserve in vegas, open "fake" AVI in photoshop, save with Canopus HQ as before.

Third method: old after effects shadow/highlight .aex plugin, inside boris red plugin in vegas. works fine, but only in 32bits vegas/boris red.

all of them works fine.

resurrecting from the dead...

today i tested HitFilm Plugins, and one of them is Shadow Highlight.

im happy to say this plugin is "the one". it works analyzing surround pixels much like photoshop S/H.

also, it has the same adjustments for fine-tune (Tonal Width, Radius, Black/white clip, Color Correction and Midtone Contrast)

if anyone wanted this function (i was unable to use AE plugins via Boris Red in vegas since vegas went x64) this is the one that will do the job.

there is a trial to test:
http://hitfilm.com/plugins

Well I tried the Hitfilm trial and was underwhelmed. First of all the watermark affects about 80% of the image, making it very difficult to do an accurate comparison. I then compared it with NewBlue VE2 and thought that it may be marginally better, but not worth paying $299 (special price from SCS to 31st July).

Adode Shadow/Highlight, as found in Premiere Pro, After Effects and Premiere Elements is still the one to beat. If only there was an easy way to use it with Vegas Pro.

Not to keep harping at this same issue, but if you are using a DSLR that shoots mov footage, or you are using MOV footage from a Panasonic GH3 or GH4, be very careful about putting the footage directly on the timeline if there are blown out highlights.

The problem is that Vegas stretches the 16-235 range out to 0-255, and any detail that was in the 0-15 or 235-255 range is simply clipped. You are far better off converting it to Cineform or something outside of Vegas so that you have something to pull back into the 16-235 range.

Since I shoot pretty much exlusively with the GH3 now, my solution is to use the highest quality AVCHD mode. The bitrate isn't as high but it still looks very nice and at least there is no clipping.

This is currently my biggest gripe with Sony Vegas. Yes, I know that not everyone agrees with this assessment, Yes, I am also 100% certain I am right.

Laurence, perhaps you could theorise why that might be. I would have thought that Vegas's treatment of levels would be a function of the codec, presumably H.264 in both cases, and not the containers.

Well Vegas isn't the only program that stretches the levels of some MOV formats. VLC does as well. Adobe products do not. A conversion to Cineform will stop the stretch. So will running the MOV files through ProDAD stand alone products like Mercalli.

I think it's some shared code that Vegas and some other programs are using. For a while I was convinced it was a VFW thing, but I've been told it couldn't be that.

It looks like it might be the presence or absence of a flag that makes the difference, or how such flags might be interpreted.