The best White Balance effect for Vegas Pro 18 and 19

marcinzm wrote on 8/20/2021, 2:46 PM

Hello,

 

I have been using Ignite White Balance effect to set White Balance.

Unfortunately it is not good effect as I wished for.

When I have a bride on a dancefloor or in a church, I click White Balance pointer on a bride wedding dress, but I get different white balance values. It sometimes is good but often it is not good.

Is there any White Balance tool/effect which is more accurate than Ignite White Balance effect?

Can you give me some tips how to proper use White Balance pointer to get the best results in such above situations?

Regards

Marcin

If you are bored, drink water, you will want to pee. -> Albert Einstein - my idol!

I am 42. I have been creating videos since 2009 (the date when my first daughter was born in). My first video software was Pinnacle, next one was Sony Vegas 8 (I am not sure if remember it correctly). I am also a developer and wedding movie operator and editor. For example: I have created an Android app which let me control Vegas Pro rendering progress level on Android smartphone. I created it for fun, because I also love programming. I also created my own plugin for Audio To Text feature specified usage from Vegas Pro 19. I created proxy creation plugin which uses multiple GPU threads (maximum 3) to create proxy files for Vegas Pro. I also written many others plugin/softwares which enhance my video editing, also wedding editing.

Camera/video camera: Sony FX3, Sony A7 III, Sony FDR AX 100, Canon 5D Mark III, GoPro Hero Black 7,8,9,10

Lenses for Sony: Tamron 28-75mm F/2.8 Di III , Sony 24mm gm 1.4 FE, Sony 20 mm G FE 1.8

Lenses for Canon: Canon EF 24-70 mm F/2.8 L USM, Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L

Drone: DJI Mavic 3 & DJI Phantom 4 Pro v2.0

 

Editing: Vegas Pro 20 (365) with a lot of third party plugins, also my own plugins written in C#

 

PC:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-7900X CPU @ 3.30GHz   3.31 GHz

RAM: 128 GB

GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080 TI

storage: 4 SSD drives (including two M.2 flash drives) and two HDD drives

Windows system: 10 Home edition

Comments

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 8/20/2021, 2:52 PM

http://www.fbmn-software.com/en/white-balance.html

eikira wrote on 8/20/2021, 4:59 PM

well this one is very old but still works great for the price of absolutely free, AAV Colorlab:

https://code.google.com/archive/p/colorlab/downloads

wwaag wrote on 8/20/2021, 6:29 PM

+1 for both @Steve_Rhoden and @eikira's suggestions. The current price for the paid tool is about half what I paid for it some years ago. Both are highly recommended.

Last changed by wwaag on 8/20/2021, 6:30 PM, changed a total of 1 times.

AKA the HappyOtter at https://tools4vegas.com/. System 1: Intel i7-8700k with HD 630 graphics plus an Nvidia RTX4070 graphics card. System 2: Intel i7-3770k with HD 4000 graphics plus an AMD RX550 graphics card. System 3: Laptop. Dell Inspiron Plus 16. Intel i7-11800H, Intel Graphics. Current cameras include Panasonic FZ2500, GoPro Hero11 and Hero8 Black plus a myriad of smartPhone, pocket cameras, video cameras and film cameras going back to the original Nikon S.

RogerS wrote on 8/20/2021, 7:09 PM

You can use the Vegas Fx and drag to select an area instead of a point.

Musicvid wrote on 8/20/2021, 7:24 PM

When I have a bride on a dancefloor or in a church, I click White Balance pointer on a bride wedding dress, but I get different white balance values. It sometimes is good but often it is not good.

That is an error in technique, not the tool. The bride's dress, and especially the veil, reflect UV. And high-gloss satin can also reflect the ambient source, which could be anything on a dance floor.

There are gray / white cards cheap on Amazon, and be sure they reflect away from the source when pre-balancing.

Fluorescent and mixed lighting have their own issues, so they need to be addressed separately.

fifonik wrote on 8/20/2021, 7:49 PM

FBMN's plugin is good.

The only issue for me -- its registration is way too complicated and you will need to do this from time to time (I do not know why, may be when you change something in PC as I do or when VP is updated or new version installed).

Camcorder: Panasonic X1500 + Panasonic X920 + GoPro Hero 11 Black

Desktop: MB: MSI B450M MORTAR TITANIUM, CPU: AMD Ryzen 5700X, RAM: G'Skill 32 GB DDR4@3200, Graphics card: MSI RX6600 8GB, SSD: Samsung 970 Evo+ 1TB (NVMe, OS), HDD WD 4TB, HDD Toshiba 4TB, OS: Windows 10 Pro 22H2

NLE: Vegas Pro [Edit] 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22

Author of FFMetrics and FFBitrateViewer

Kinvermark wrote on 8/20/2021, 8:30 PM

Have you tried the white point color picker in the new Vegas 19 color grading panel? Seems to me it works quite well.

Musicvid wrote on 8/20/2021, 9:10 PM

The best white balance tools are only as good as their users. And they only solve one end of the color balance constellation.

RogerS wrote on 8/20/2021, 9:40 PM

I'm inclined to agree this is a technique issue more than a tools one.

Feel free to post a screenshot and we can provide ideas for how to color correct it. Whether something white actually looks white depends on its relation to the light hitting it. Choosing where you sample white balance from becomes important, and depending on the image, "white balance" may not be the best tool for the job.

ALO wrote on 8/20/2021, 10:59 PM

I've never thought Vegas' native white balance was any good -- it's excessively complicated and gives poor results. Follow the FBMN WP link and look at his comparisons. Vegas' white balance stinks--at least in the version he was testing. Maybe V19 is better? (but probably not)

RogerS wrote on 8/20/2021, 11:38 PM

Vegas native white balance is simple- drag a box in the preview window over something neutral. Tweak with tint and temp if you need. I use it with decent quality neutral targets and it works.

There's a similar one that comes with NewBlue, ColorFast 2:

Grazie wrote on 8/21/2021, 6:26 AM

I cut my teeth on VP Color Corrector. Found it responsive and easy. No issues.

FBM White Balance tool was the next I tried, used during my apprenticeship with Weddings Boss, a One-Click Cure - Grazie Proof. Oh yes, registration is a nightmare.

Dabbled with AAVColorlab.

But now . . . Colorfast2, with its CC and then the extensive, extensive Masking opportunities is "nailed-in" to my Favourites FX Tab.

Dexcon wrote on 8/21/2021, 6:45 AM

Colorfast2, with its CC and then the extensive, extensive Masking opportunities is "nailed-in" to my Favourites FX Tab.

I couldn't agree more. By far and away the most common VFX that I use is CF2. Before CF and CF2, I used VP's CC (Secondary), but to achieve what CF2 does in the one plugin, 2 or 3 instances of CC (Sec) needed to be used, each for a different masking setting - and sometimes VP CC was needed over and above that. But CF2 makes all of that readily available in the one plugin. Brilliant!

I do use VP Levels at track level to add just a smidge of red for Sony FDR-AX100E footage, and often VP CC at track level as well just to raise saturation and perhaps adjust the gamma a bit, but overwhelmingly its CF2 on the timeline.

Cameras: Sony FDR-AX100E; GoPro Hero 11 Black Creator Edition

Installed: Vegas Pro 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 & 22, HitFilm Pro 2021.3, DaVinci Resolve Studio 19.0.3, BCC 2025, Mocha Pro 2025.0, NBFX TotalFX 7, Neat NR, DVD Architect 6.0, MAGIX Travel Maps, Sound Forge Pro 16, SpectraLayers Pro 11, iZotope RX11 Advanced and many other iZ plugins, Vegasaur 4.0

Windows 11

Dell Alienware Aurora 11:

10th Gen Intel i9 10900KF - 10 cores (20 threads) - 3.7 to 5.3 GHz

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB GDDR6 - liquid cooled

64GB RAM - Dual Channel HyperX FURY DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz

C drive: 2TB Samsung 990 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD

D: drive: 4TB Samsung 870 SATA SSD (used for media for editing current projects)

E: drive: 2TB Samsung 870 SATA SSD

F: drive: 6TB WD 7200 rpm Black HDD 3.5"

Dell Ultrasharp 32" 4K Color Calibrated Monitor

 

LAPTOP:

Dell Inspiron 5310 EVO 13.3"

i5-11320H CPU

C Drive: 1TB Corsair Gen4 NVMe M.2 2230 SSD (upgraded from the original 500 GB SSD)

Monitor is 2560 x 1600 @ 60 Hz

marcinzm wrote on 8/21/2021, 9:10 AM

Thank you all for all comments.

I thought that I should know more about White Balance.

Can you paste me the article link to the White Balance explanation in depth to let me know more about White Balance before next recordings. I mean what White Balance is in real, what has impact on White Balance, tips, recommendations etc. I would like to read more about this to avoid problems in the future.

Thank you all again for your thoughts, tips and recommendations and plugin links.

If you are bored, drink water, you will want to pee. -> Albert Einstein - my idol!

I am 42. I have been creating videos since 2009 (the date when my first daughter was born in). My first video software was Pinnacle, next one was Sony Vegas 8 (I am not sure if remember it correctly). I am also a developer and wedding movie operator and editor. For example: I have created an Android app which let me control Vegas Pro rendering progress level on Android smartphone. I created it for fun, because I also love programming. I also created my own plugin for Audio To Text feature specified usage from Vegas Pro 19. I created proxy creation plugin which uses multiple GPU threads (maximum 3) to create proxy files for Vegas Pro. I also written many others plugin/softwares which enhance my video editing, also wedding editing.

Camera/video camera: Sony FX3, Sony A7 III, Sony FDR AX 100, Canon 5D Mark III, GoPro Hero Black 7,8,9,10

Lenses for Sony: Tamron 28-75mm F/2.8 Di III , Sony 24mm gm 1.4 FE, Sony 20 mm G FE 1.8

Lenses for Canon: Canon EF 24-70 mm F/2.8 L USM, Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L

Drone: DJI Mavic 3 & DJI Phantom 4 Pro v2.0

 

Editing: Vegas Pro 20 (365) with a lot of third party plugins, also my own plugins written in C#

 

PC:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-7900X CPU @ 3.30GHz   3.31 GHz

RAM: 128 GB

GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080 TI

storage: 4 SSD drives (including two M.2 flash drives) and two HDD drives

Windows system: 10 Home edition

Dexcon wrote on 8/21/2021, 9:23 AM

If you Google 'White Balance' there are heaps and heaps of websites about the subject such as this one: https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm

One approach when filming is to use a color chart/checker - kind of like a clapper board approach - at the beginning of every recording you make with your video recording (do I do this ... No) - but it does set a reference point to the ambient lighting at the time of recording.

Cameras: Sony FDR-AX100E; GoPro Hero 11 Black Creator Edition

Installed: Vegas Pro 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 & 22, HitFilm Pro 2021.3, DaVinci Resolve Studio 19.0.3, BCC 2025, Mocha Pro 2025.0, NBFX TotalFX 7, Neat NR, DVD Architect 6.0, MAGIX Travel Maps, Sound Forge Pro 16, SpectraLayers Pro 11, iZotope RX11 Advanced and many other iZ plugins, Vegasaur 4.0

Windows 11

Dell Alienware Aurora 11:

10th Gen Intel i9 10900KF - 10 cores (20 threads) - 3.7 to 5.3 GHz

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER 8GB GDDR6 - liquid cooled

64GB RAM - Dual Channel HyperX FURY DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz

C drive: 2TB Samsung 990 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD

D: drive: 4TB Samsung 870 SATA SSD (used for media for editing current projects)

E: drive: 2TB Samsung 870 SATA SSD

F: drive: 6TB WD 7200 rpm Black HDD 3.5"

Dell Ultrasharp 32" 4K Color Calibrated Monitor

 

LAPTOP:

Dell Inspiron 5310 EVO 13.3"

i5-11320H CPU

C Drive: 1TB Corsair Gen4 NVMe M.2 2230 SSD (upgraded from the original 500 GB SSD)

Monitor is 2560 x 1600 @ 60 Hz

RogerS wrote on 8/21/2021, 9:38 AM

The best approach is to set it properly in camera using a reference. If you're outdoors and the sun is out, the daylight setting (~5500K) will get you in the ballpark. If indoors, esp. with multiple sources of light you should correct for the dominant light source or some compromise between them if there are competing sources.

What's a good white balance card? Well, some are junk. You need one that's spectrally neutral under different light sources. Here's the only objective test I've seen of late: https://www.leeminglutpro.com/whitebalance.html

I use X-Rite myself.

Then what you do in Vegas will end up being a minor tweak you can use one of several tools to accomplish.

Musicvid wrote on 8/21/2021, 9:54 AM

I spent years learning to transfer my film training to Photoshop, and I am most comfortable using three-point corrections, so when I get video with tricky lighting balance, I do my work in PS by imporing an image sequence from Vegas. With digital source, anchor the blacks first, then set the white point, then gently adjust the midtones.

Getting the white balance right during the shoot is critical; any so-called white balance in post is by nature destructive.

Musicvid wrote on 8/21/2021, 11:09 AM

Here is an example of three-point correction in Photoshop. A Photoshop Action will apply this to your video image sequence in short order.

And I'm sure the OP can see the UV excitement in the bride's veil. That's why we don't WB there....

ALO wrote on 8/21/2021, 3:50 PM

One thing I will note about Vegas' white balance fx is that it tends to walk itself further and further out of balance if you don't reset after each click. Meaning, add the fx, select the eyedropper, and click a point (or select a region) on the image. If you then click/select again without resetting the fx, the color gets progressively worse in some sort of additive error kind of way.

In contrast you can click as many times as you want in Photoshop and each time the app reasonably infers you want to work on the image source data, not on the previous (unwanted) correction.

If I select regions (and reset in between) using VP 19's white balance fx, I can get what I consider to be comparable results to Photoshop's eyedropper, albeit not as quickly.