Frederic, have you created this as a direct result of the opened-up SDK for plugins, now available in VP10?

Grazie

The white balance part is pretty cool. The brightness fader seems to blow out the highs though. Any chance of modifying it a little so that it moved the brightness midpoint instead of just adding to the brightness?

Hi Grazie,

The plug-in is based on the OpenFX standard, if this is what you mean. OpenFX is a standard for video effects that has been adopted by Vegas as of Version 10 Pro, in addition (and replacement in the future?) to DirectX.

Did I answer your question?
Frédéric

Hi Laurence,

thanks for your post. The brightness fader is here because in some cases, changing the colors through white balance correction may "burn" some of the colors. So dimming brightness let's you keep the highs once color balance is performed.

I understand you would like it to be more conservative about the highs, and more intensive for the mids and lows. Do I get you right?

I take note of your remark for a next release.
Thanks for your feedback, and please feel free to give me more information about what you are expecting.

Best regards,
Frédéric

Frédéric what I was wondering if this plug has taken advantage of any new functions in the new VP10? Have you?

Grazie

The only new function I am using is the OpenFX standard integration.

But for instance there is no new built-in white-balance feature in VP10 as far as I know. White balance correction is made of my own in this plug-in.

Hi Frederic,

Are you going to go deeper in plug-in's production ? Should we expect new ones ? Could you unveail a little bit your plans ?

Best regards,

Hi Frederic,

Does your plugin differ from the built-in Sony white balance filter? I've used it a few times and it really is quite good. Just wondering.

Mike

Take a look at his demo. Based on that and the one time I've used the Vegas one I'd say an emphatic YES!

My one minor concern is the licensing scheme. 29 Euro is a good price but it appears to be node locked. That kind of licensing scheme is quite common with the high end plugs which also have the alternative of a floating licence at a higher price.
I suspect the average Vegas user to whom this product will appeal may be a little put off by having to buy a separate license for each machine.

Bob.

Just out of curiosity, why is Sony's White Balance plugin so lousy? You'd think this would be a really simple plugin to make without much difference from one version to the next.

??

Hi Andy. I don't think it's lousy but it could be more powerful. That said, you can do some pretty good correcting with the WB filter and touch it up with the Sony Color corrector. My opinion only of course.

Mike

I suspect the average Vegas user to whom this product will appeal may be a little put off by having to buy a separate license for each machine.

You are right Bob - especially the good usefull plugins I would like to have one at home and one on the laptop, and it would be great to be able to register for 2 machines at least.

/Ulf

> [I]Take a look at his demo. Based on that and the one time I've used the Vegas one I'd say an emphatic YES![/I]

Bob, please indicate the differences? I have ColourLab another freebie CC that I'm impressed with, so hearing your comparative impressions would be good to hear.

I'm always willing to improve my understanding on these matters.

Grazie

I don't think it's lousy but it could be more powerful...

Decided to put this to a more objective test. Selected & exported a really tough color frame. Imported it back in, used Sony White Balance on a neutral region.

Then used photoshop's raw corrector on the same still, clicking the exact same neutral region.

Result: photoshop's balance was much better. The entire image looked clearer. The sony correction looked slightly foggy in comparison.

Will have to try this new plugin to see how it fares. But my opinion holds: the Sony WB plugin is pretty marginal.

Andy_L, I have to ask, were your viewing comparatives the same? Was Vegas set to best? Had you rendered out the clip/still? You see, I'd need to be convinced we're comparing like for like. Is there a more scientific quantative approach we could take?

Could you bring the PS result back into VP alongside your VP CC, I don't know what/how successful this would be, and see if we could register a Scope analysis?

It was your "foggy" comment that was making me think that maybe we don't have a controlled comparison going on? I think that's fair of me.

Grazie

"Bob, please indicate the differences?"

Pretty much as Andy says below and as you can see in the comparison on Richards site. The six vector CC tool in Vegas works pretty darn well, with skill you get pretty much the same outcome as Richards plugin. The auto whitebalance plugin seems to add a lot of noise in the shadows, that might explain Andy's "foggy" comment, especially if he had encoded the output. On top of that the autowhitebalance plugin left me feeling yes, the white was white but everything else just felt a bit off.

All of that said, please rely on your own judgement. I rarely use any form of colour correction so I'm no wizard at this.

Bob.

>[I] I rarely use any form of colour correction so I'm no wizard at this.[/I]

Yes, always best to set WB from the off - sound advice.

However, when needing to scoot about from venue/room/pasture etc etc, things can get awfully messy and having some sane, straightforward, remedial approach is much appreciated. At this point I would also suggest that the Noobie could benefit from setting up a set of CC Presets for he FULL SONY CC to get them through.

Grazie

You can go mad trying to fix white balance when the location acually had more than one light source colour. It may not always be obvious at the time or after the event.

"The auto whitebalance plugin seems to add a lot of noise in the shadows"

Another good reason for getting white balance right (or very close) at the start, apart from the difficulty in setting the right correction. With low temperature incandescent light the blue can be so weak that it is down in the noise. Bringing it up brings up the blue noise.

Oh been there done that.
One nice mess is the difference between skylight and sunlight, just love that one and in this country it can be quite a big difference of 1,000s of deg K.

Bob.

Hi all,

Thanks for all your comments, which I find quite valuable.

To RRA: I have initially developed this plug-in for my own needs, finding no satisfying white balance tool on the market, compared to what is available in the photography world. Then figuring out that other people around me were interested, I decided to package it and make it available to the Vegas community. I have other needs that I intend to package as well, and also some users already asked me complementary tools. So, my current wish is to go further in plug-in developments.

To Sab and others: Yes, my plugin differs from the built-in Sony white balance. Take a look at the comparative pictures on my web site (http://fredericbaumann.free.fr/FBMSoftware) and you should see the difference.

If you read French, you may also have a look at http://vegas.babasse.net/?p=611. This is a benchmark which has just been released and which compares Sony White Balance, AAV Color Lab and FBM Software's White Balance.

Regarding pricing, the one which currently applies is a launch offering with a special fare, and it currently works as one license per host, just like the Vegas licensing model itself.

I hope I answered all questions, please let me know if you have any further question.

Best regards,
Frédéric

Regarding pricing, the one which currently applies is a launch offering with a special fare, and it currently works as one license per host, just like the Vegas licensing model itself.

Frédéric, unlike your license, the Vegas model has always allowed you to install it on as many computers as you want with the caveat that you can only be running one machine at a time.

Mike