OK . . let me ask you this then.

Why DO we Colour Correct? Or even Colour Grade? What do YOU think the purpose of these tasks is? What is it that is trying to be achieve?

Maybe if you can get the reason WHY then the HOW may follow?

At the moment it is waaaaay past my bedtime and I need to get some sleep -that and that I have a cracked tooth which isn't responding to ANY Colour Correction or Levels!

Grazie

I'm not sure if you will think this is any better, but I bumped up the gain, gamma and saturation a bit using levels and color corrector. For the color curves, I made more an "S" shape by double clicking at the center of the line...then adjusting a bit.

This is a simple color correction job, not one for the curves plugin.
Here is my 60-second attempt using the Sony Color Corrector plugin:
********

Color correcting is more an art than a science, but knowing your primary and secondary color relations and something about contrast and gamma helps; there are many good beginning tutorials on the internet, but getting proficient at it takes years of practice.

Nice work Navydoc! - Here the shadows are l o n g , which in turn WOULD suggest the "magic" hour before dusk when colours WOULD be richer. I like what you have done! - I could almost imagine going straight-off to the 19th hole with a very dry throat.

And that middle point you added to the S-curve, is what I do too. Nice . . .

Grazie . . ..

Much better.

Grazie...I'm flattered. Thanks for the kind words. Here are the color correction and levels settings I used on the raw image.

These images show the order in which I usually apply these effects since one adjustment affects the others. I don't know if this is S.O.P. but it seems to work well for me.

Doc

The original sort of reminds me of a 35 year old slide that has decayed. You have to pump up everything, gamma, brightness, contrast, saturation besides the color adjustments.
JJK

Some tips here:
http://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/color-correction/tutorial.htm

Be careful that in most cases, what you see in the Video Preview window is not accurate and not what you'll end up with.

WOW! Thanks for all the replies everyone! Yeah, and for some reason, the original did come out looking like crap, eh?
Maybe that was a product of not pulling a proper white balance, you think?

**Maybe that was a product of not pulling a proper white balance, you think? **

Well, not exactly. The length of the shadows and the overall cast suggests that the shot was made late in the day, when daylight exhibits a strong blue bias -- blue shadows and yellow highlights due to the color of the sun. Setting a white balance at this time of day will merely offset the bias, giving white whites, blue midtones, and bluer darks, exactly what your snapshot shows.

Most old still photofinishers (like myself) will say to correct only part way; i.e., correct for the flesh tones and part of the blacks, and leave the whites alone. If you will actually apply the Sony Color Correction settings I posted, you will see what I mean, and don't judge by my screenshot of a Vegas preview window.

Goodtimej? "Yeah, and for some reason, the original did come out looking like crap, eh?" - O . . K . . . what DIDN'T you like about it?

The other thing I might just "toss" in here, is that maybe a polarizer would have assisted? Assisted with any "borderline" super whites? Not sure, I would have had to try it out. . . .

I'd really like it if you came back and said just why you didn't like it? I am still learning too, y'know!

Grazie

And I am curious to know what time of day the shot was taken. My guess would be early in the day when daylight tends to have more yellow/golden tones whereas late afternoons tend to have an even warmer orange/reddish tone.

Doc

If you're not happy with the light mother nature provides then bring along your own sun.

Batteries NOT included.

Bob.

Now THAT is a light!

That would cost over $10 / hr to run in my part of the world.

Grazie.....hmmm....what I didn't like? I suppose I thought my original footage looked pretty washed out. I have a hard time telling how the colors are gonna look while I am filming. I usually get a quick white balance and then just set my aperature to the point of where I start to get a little bit of zebras and then just shoot. I try to make sure the sun is kind of at a 3/4 to the subject, but that is the extent of my process. Not really sure if that is a good way to go about things, but its all I know.

I suppose I thought my original footage looked pretty washed out.

OK, then this was to what you were seeing with your eyes? You had a reaction to WHAT you were seeing with your eyes and your thought was that what you HAD captured didn't;t quite fit the bill - yeah? Join the club! And this is where you/I/we start. But then what do we want the viewer to see? The same as we saw at the time of filming? Well, that's a good start . . but then there is "Now what emphasise do I want to impart to this part of the video? Lushness? Richness? All of these "things" are our very important reactions to the video. The other thing is, is it going to comply with any standards I need to fulfill. For me: One hand emotions and on the other hand are the requirements for a "standard". And guess what? A lot of people supplant one over the other! To me BOTH are important.

So, now knowing maybe your - "Throw me a correction bone?" is that YOU have thrown yourself one? Maybe? Knowing the "feel" you can ask directly just HOW to go about it. For example: "I feel this looks TOO washed-out. How do I go about making this not so washed-out?"

See? - In your openning statement, commenting on your work you said: " . . to make my picture look right, correct and very good" - welllll you see? What is "good" what is "right"? And just what IS "correct"?

Those amongst us will point out just where levels are a bit squiffy. And that's kinda straightforward. But the option to switch around the "washed-out" look has been a long time coming from you! LOL!!!

Much time on these Forums is spent on the HOW rather than the WHY. I guess that is an obvious result as this is a "how-to" forum.

I guess we all are trying to capture as much dynamic in the shot that when back at base we can tweak. After all we are only tampering with nature - our eyes are far FAR better at viewing and allowing our emotions to respond. Our relativity clumsy lumps of plastic and and even lumpier IT are always trying to keep apace with those amazing human abilities which we are daily and readily comparing our meagre attempts with a camcorder.

But, this is all good.

Grazie

I respectfully offer what I hope is a noncritical and more objective look at much of what has been said in this thread.

At the beginning / end of the day, sunlight exhibits a stronger blue / yellow bias than at the middle of the day. That means the shadows are blue and the lights are yellower relative to midday balance. The human eyes mostly accept this bias without trying to judge what is "white," gray, or black.

On the other hand, the OP's camera white-balanced when it was turned on and washed everything other than "white" into shades of blue with a bit of cyan. This is certainly not what anyone's human eyes saw at the scene, thus the impression of the image being washed out is in reference to a visual memory of the scene. Most color correction theory is aimed at conservatively approximating the visual memory of the average observer, and not trying to overcorrect it to some inapplicable standard, nor to accept what a particular misreferenced piece of equipment produces as being "more" accurate. Trying to create an "effect" by purposeful exaggeration or misbalancing of colors is a subject entirely different from color correction.

Another example:
Possibly everyone here has made the mistake of white balancing on a white card under a bright flourescent light at a reception, then spent hours in post trying to correct the bride and groom's purple faces. These are both examples where white balancing only shifts the bias rather than correcting it, often causing more problems than it solves.

Now, if we went all the way with linear color correction and made the golfer's faces sickly yellow, and the happy couple's faces sickly green, everyone would say those images look terrible, too.

So, who's to say that a camera's incorrectly referenced white balance is right, and the observer's memory, although subjective, is wrong? The solution then, is to approximate the color balance for typical "memory" colors (i.e., flesh tones) and tip the curves a bit so the bias is not so obvious, because the brain tends to ignore it more in real life, and less in photographs.

The first argument that comes to mind is that not everyone perceives the same scene identically, that memory is subjective and inaccurate, and there is not a definitive reference point (the closest you can come is to shoot a full-scale grayscale or Macbeth chart for every scene).

These arguments all being true, the goal in color correcting, if I may borrow an analogy from golf, is not to try to put the ball in the hole from 100 yards out, but to get it in a 10 ft. circle that everyone agrees is a "good shot"; or, evocative of the original scene, which blue golfers certainly are not.

Much time on these Forums is spent on the HOW rather than the WHY.

A most astute observation by a very clever fellow.

Awesome help. Thanks again.

OK I don’t get it

I don’t have a problem with the white and the highlight on the club shaft or the guys shoes poping but I have a serious problem with the shadows
Way too dark and the pants solid black as the shadows the shadow in the trees are the same as in the forground, this is not an improvement on the original

In creating depth the darker something is the more it moves forward so the shadows although reseeding are poping forward this is not good
so directly in front of you their will be solid black and solid white as you move back the contrast will lessen to infinity
the lightest part of the pic is what the eye will go to so the highlight on the shaft might distract from the player I can understand that
so what are the guidelines to work in

Sorry but this thread is confussing

I am not saying that I am right only how I see things and I am here to learn so if I don’t get it please give me some good direction

I have started another thread “ correct what” related to post production and am quite interested in some views especially musicvid a lot of the stuff you said about filming makes sense and I know that Grazie feels that what looks right is right but are there any RULES, GUIDELINES, That one can follow

Thanks
Rory