What Is The Best Way To Fix Low Light Video???

beatnik wrote on 2/24/2003, 1:21 PM

OK, I messed up, I taped my son's first birthday in a dim lit location ...

How do I enhance the video, at the moment I CAN see everything in the video but
is there something I can do to lighten-up and sharpen the image? I tried the FX
brighten & contrast but it still looks grainy.

Thanks in advance.

Alex

Comments

FuTz wrote on 2/24/2003, 1:30 PM

maybe you should check out Billyboy's tutorials; everything concerning color correction (techniques that you could apply to your luminosity problem too)
www.wideopenwest.com

Jason_Abbott wrote on 2/24/2003, 3:06 PM

I think you'll be hard pressed to cleanly remove the noise. The median filter can help some, but will do just the opposite of sharpening. For lighting, if you have V4 you can try boosting the mids in the Color Corrector or with V3 make an S-curve in the Curves tool, as BillyBoy's tutorials explain.

Clips with lighting problems too bad to correct can sometimes be used effectively as effects sequences, with StepMotion, Strobe, or some such thing to hide the lighting problems.

BillyBoy wrote on 2/24/2003, 3:23 PM

Depends what you mean by dim and dark. If almost in shadows there isn't a lot you can do withhout introducing a lot noise. A neighbor did the same kind of thing using a older camera not made for low light conditions. I tired to improve it and I guess I did some, but quality work it was not. :-(

If you got version #4 turn on the scopes feature and look at the histogram. If it is mostly far to the left, likely, then cranking up the gain and gamma will help push it right at the expense of introducting a lot of noise in the darker parts. Try that first, then maybe color curves. Good luck.

Caruso wrote on 2/26/2003, 1:13 AM

You don't mention how old you are (not that it matters), but, even if you can't correct your footage, I would urge you to hang onto it.

When the first consumer vidcaams came out, I rented one and shot some footage that was poorly exposed, but priceless in its content.

At the time I shot this footage, it was barely viewable.

With the advent of tools we have today, it's now worth watching.

I'd bet that the day will come when you will be able to extract info on your scene and extrapolate what's missing to give you an informative, if not down right pleasing rendition of this timeless event.

Hang in there . . . and make sure you put more light on the subject next time, LOL.

Good luck.

. . . and enjoy, they "ain't" little long.

Caruso