Underwater Color Correction--D800 Video

I just came back from a dive trip to Cozumel and tried my new D800's video capabilities.
I'm happy to report that, with color correction in FCP, the D800 does a great job without a red filter or lights.
I didn't have much chance to experiment with this--too many other new things to try--but here's a quick preview.
This is an uncorrected frame shooting without lights, auto white balance and programed exposure and shutter speed in about 40 feet of water (sunny day topside):
I did a quick and dirty color correction using the three way color correction tool in FCP. Not surprisingly, the corrections added red:
The final looks great to me:
I also tested use of the Magic Filter for a few dives. I did not get better resuls, and worse, I had to do a lot of color correction on my stills to make them usable.
This may be of limited interest to those who don't dive, but I was really happy to see that I could dive and do both stills and video without a filter and still restore with FCP the reds, oranges and yellows lost below 15 or so feet.

For shallow water, auto level seems to work pretty well.
I used auto levels in Photoshop Elements 11 for most of these shots.
https://www.facebook.com/friends/requests/?ref=tn&fcref=ffb#!/roy.yumori/photos_albums
The manta ray is at 50 ft and is from a freeze frame from a video. There is almost no red. So it is too blue. I used auto levels in Premiere Pro CC and it was better than the original, but not great.

Similar Messages

Underwater color correction

Hi,
I am an amateur underwater photographer and videographer. For stills I shoot Raw, use strobes and color correction in ACR is not a problem.
Due to the density of water, the maximum distance that strobes or video lights are effective is about 5 feet so most videos are shot with available light. The deeper I am the more the red channel diminishes and at 50-60 feet it is all but gone. I have been using PP CS6 for editing and found that the big 4 effrects (Fast color corrector, 3-way CC, RGB CC and RGB Curves) while fine for topside work are all but useless for the extreme color corrections needed at depth. What does work reasonably well is the Channel mixer effect, for restoring the red channel (centering the blob on the Vectorscope), and RGB curves for fine tuning of individual channel, shadows and highlights. I am capturing stills and video with a Sony NEX7. The video is 1080P @ 60fps with a data rate of 28 Mbps. While this workflow works pretty well on most clips, there are some that don't correct to my liking so I am looking for suggestions.
Her is a few clips shot of a Whale Shark in a few feet of water http://viejo.smugmug.com/Underwater/Baja/La-Paz-2013/i-s2scspthttp://
I was looking at Colorista II and see that there appears to be a nice HSL capability that would allow some nice control of 8 colors. Water also robs a bit of contrast and the a local contrast in Colorista II looks like it would address that.
My questions are:
Is there a better color correction workflow for my needs?
Is Colorista II capable of the red channel restoration that I get with Channel Mixer?
What other features does Colorista II have that aren't found in PP CS6?
Thanks,
Larry Garvey

For shallow water, auto level seems to work pretty well.
I used auto levels in Photoshop Elements 11 for most of these shots.
https://www.facebook.com/friends/requests/?ref=tn&fcref=ffb#!/roy.yumori/photos_albums
The manta ray is at 50 ft and is from a freeze frame from a video. There is almost no red. So it is too blue. I used auto levels in Premiere Pro CC and it was better than the original, but not great.

Unable to Export Color Corrected Video's to Original format for AVCHD (GH2) and ProRES Codecs.

I imported a 176 MBPS AVCHD clip from my GH2 into Lightroom 4, then i added color presets to the video and color corrected the video, however during export when i select the video format as original the color correction does not apply to the video, only the original video is saved, But when i select H.264 or DPX the video is saved with the effects applied. I also tried using a AVCHD clip converted to Apple ProRES but when i export the video the effects are not applied to the saved video. Also the option i get for saving H.264 files is only 22 MBPS.

Original, whether for photos or video, means "unedited". Bear in mind that this isn't intended for high-end video editing - just simple edits for digitial photographers. It won't replace your video editing software anytime soon, if ever.

Color Correction: Canvas color is off from exported video

Hey everyone,
Forgive me if this has been covered before, but I've been searching around and can't find the answer I'm looking for.
When I color correct a video, I get it to where I want in the canvas, and then go to export. When I export the video, it looks different from what I did in the canvas. The exported video ALWAYS looks like its never been color corrected. It's very aggravating because I have to over color correct it to make it look the way I want. Like raise the contrast a bit more, to get the exported video to look right, while the preview in the canvas looks bad.
Any suggestions to how to perhaps change the color settings on the canvas? or how to correct this problem?
Thanks a lot,
Jonathan

It's unfortunate that the word "calibration" has been co-opted to mean something along the subjective lines of a daily set-up using a blue gun gray scale or a blue screen with NTSC or PAL or HD bars, performing white/black and chroma level adjustments by eye.
Calibration of a monitor in the literal sense is performed by an engineer with engineering tools to perform precise, objective adjustments of the r,g,b bias and gains as well as any yoke alignment in the case of one of those old fashioned cathode ray tube type displays.

Monitor for color correction

Hello guys,
I am a newbie to Color and Color Correction. I have a dual monitor setup with my Mac Pro.
I have two 24 inches of DELL 2408WFP & DELL 2407WFP. These monitors have different color, and I think it is just stupid how Dell manufactures them.
Anyways, From what I have learned, I know I am not suppose to do perform color correction for videos on any regular LCD monitors. Can you experts suggest me good color correction monitor? Not too expensive. I am not doing any major flim/music video or anything such. This is just a hobby of mine, and I'd like to learn new things as time goes on. Most of my videos are travel videos & I try to make a cinematography out of it. I also shoot landscapes.
I hope you guys can direct me right.
Thanks,
Lowell

I think there is a lot of snobery on this forum regarding hardware requirements. If you are not entertaining clients who have just come from a Da Vinci suite, then you CAN live with out a Broadcast monitor that meets EBU specs. The important thing is to use a video monitor and not a computer monitor. You will need a decklink like card to get the video into composite or component format, that later will give a cleaner image but most television is viewed in composite any way. Colorgrading is a matter of comparing the before and after image and comparing the graded shot with the pictures around it. The scopes will keep you informed of the limits and will help you interprit the monitor. Rember if the shot looks better after grading on a cheaper monitor then it will look better on a Grade A monitor with SDI inputs. Don't let the "big" boys put you off, and use the software that you own to inprove your video and your skill-set.
Good luck from Boaz

Color correcting for youtube vs DVD

Does it make since that one would need to color correct a video differently for youtube vs. a DVD? Shooting 1080p footage and posting to youtube. I noticed I was having to up my mids and highlights quit a bit, (highlights even would go past the 100% at times) otherwise the posted footage would look dark and dingy. The file would look the same on my AppleTV. Had to put the same video to DVD and the footage looked more like what the scopes were telling me, the mids and highlights needed to be brought back down to what I would call normal, otherwise everything looked to hot. Am I missing something?

I tried authoring via creating DVD files in FCPX and then burning with Toast, as well as creating a MOV file and authoring with iDVD from an older machine. Results were the same. The HDTV I viewed the disk from are the same TV that I view my videos via AppleTV before posting to youtube. I did have a Broadcast Safe filter on the video. Good thought though.
It does make since that a DVD played from a DVD player has more restrictions then a file played via a computer or AppleTV or Youtube, but I just found it kind of an head scratcher and not sure that is the problem. I'll try playing the DVD on a different setup and see it the results are the same. Could be my DVD player.
The results were so differnet, that I just had to ask to see if there was something I was majorly missing.
I'll do some more testing. But thanks for your input.

Do all editing before any color correction?

I have just gotten final cut pro x.
I have some experience (very limited a couple of years back, with a Sony Home Movie Studio Platinum).
I am shooting my own music video.
Really enjoying using FCPX atm. Niggles aside (the lack of a manual save feature)
Just curious about workflow/resources.
Should I do all my editing, prior to color correction from a resources standpoint.
Does it make it slower, rendering say a zoom in the transform function with color correction applied, than without?
Eg, I have a clip, I put a keyframe and start and end of the clip. Then I scale the clip to 105% on the end of clip keyframe
to simulate a zoom in.
Should I be doing all that kind of editing, then applying any color correction or video type effects?
cheers
Wiz

Should I do all my editing, prior to color correction from a resources standpoint.
That's the SOP for working with professional video. You organize your media, you edit your media, you mix your audio, you add your transitions and titles, add effects and motion, color correct your video.

Photoshop Color correction and Special color Effects

Can anybody pls tell me , how they create color corrections in movies like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. and all the other special color themes they create different images...
I use photoshop a lot but m a amateur to color correction thing .

There are many applications, that can do CC (Color Correction, often referred to as Color Grading, or sometimes just Grading). Premiere Pro has many CC Effects, and these should be done on calibrated NTSC, or PAL, monitors, and not on the computer's monitors. One reason for this is that Premiere is not a Color Managed environment.
Adobe After Effects also has many (actually quite a few more) CC Effects, and is often used for this purpose, even if one is not using it for its normal operation - compositing.
Along with those, there are many 3rd party CC plug-ins, like Red Giant's Colorista.
Once one gets past indie films, Hollywood would use workstations designed specifically for CC, with software not commonly available to the vast majority of the public. Again, the work will be done on constantly calibrated monitors, and by skilled technicians, who do nothing else, all day long. A good starting point would be the Black Magic Da Vinci system, but this really only gets one's foot in the door.
To get a handle on CC for Video, I recommend The Arit and Technique of Digital Color Correction, Hullfish.
Color Correction in Video is a subject, where popluar books will fill a large library.
Good luck,
Hunt

Exportation problems color correction

When the file is exported after color correction, the video moves frame by frame, doubling the running time of the video.

At first I thought a reboot cured the problem, but apparently not.

Photoshop Color Correction

I'm trying to edit 2 pictures, but because of the colors I'm having trouble correcting the color.
My first problem is a picture of a room I'm using for a real estate listing. The rooms walls are a light taupe color, the floors are an off white. When I take the picture, the floors and walls look almost the same shade, so when I try to darken or lighten the walls, I have difficulties.
Second, I have a door that has a black pattern on it. For the picture I'm trying to make the entire door look white and hide the huge black pattern. The trouble is, anytime I try to change the color of black, it won't change at all, not even lighten.
Can anyone help me or point me in the right direction. I've messed most of the color ocrrecting features of photshop and I still can't fix the problem. I've even watched 4 hour videos on color correcting :(

There are many applications, that can do CC (Color Correction, often referred to as Color Grading, or sometimes just Grading). Premiere Pro has many CC Effects, and these should be done on calibrated NTSC, or PAL, monitors, and not on the computer's monitors. One reason for this is that Premiere is not a Color Managed environment.
Adobe After Effects also has many (actually quite a few more) CC Effects, and is often used for this purpose, even if one is not using it for its normal operation - compositing.
Along with those, there are many 3rd party CC plug-ins, like Red Giant's Colorista.
Once one gets past indie films, Hollywood would use workstations designed specifically for CC, with software not commonly available to the vast majority of the public. Again, the work will be done on constantly calibrated monitors, and by skilled technicians, who do nothing else, all day long. A good starting point would be the Black Magic Da Vinci system, but this really only gets one's foot in the door.
To get a handle on CC for Video, I recommend The Arit and Technique of Digital Color Correction, Hullfish.
Color Correction in Video is a subject, where popluar books will fill a large library.
Good luck,
Hunt

Need help: How to color correct professionally (with examples)

Post to video forum (before and after): Hi, I really need some help I want to color correct this video. I would love if someone had tips, either on:
-How you would correct the original
-What it looks like I'm doing wrong in my attempts (last 2 pictures)
Thanks!

I'd crunch it up a little more with a curves adjustment. These children don't look healthy and stronger contrast will help. Also push the reds toward a slightly more orange tone. They look too purple. There's also still an overall purple tinge which needs to be eliminated. See the included 3 minute quick shot of mine. Not perfect and requires more tweaking (too much yellow now, see the lips), but I think it better represents the feeling one would want to convey.
Mylenium

Real time editing hardware spics ........color correction

hi for all
am ayham from Saudi Arabia ...am working as video editing with Avid and i would like to convert to final cut pro for color correction and video editing for drama
i need it to work real time like other editing software
any one can help me about the hardware and Video card(aja kona3...or any other)
and the storage should i need raid storage like promis VTrack ????????????
plz help me

Hi Ayham,
You need a Mac pro,
Aja Cona LHE (with break out box),
The Apple's fiber optical card (2 or 4 Gbit),
one NAS like this http://starline.de/en/index.html ,
Final Cut Studio 2,
and this http://www.automaticduck.com/products/options-avid-user.php
for converting projects from Avid to FCP.
Hope this heps

Color Finesse vs Colorista 2 Premiere vs After Effects for color correction

Hi,
I want to get in to color correcting of my Canon XF305 footage that is converted to the Blackmagic 10 bits lossless codec.
I have two Eizo calibrated monitors etc , but my only doubt is the choice of the program (to do it in Premiere-pro or After Effects) and with Color Finesse or with Colorista 2.
So if there are people with color correction experience please share it here.
Thanks! David

When shooternz said 'gain' I presume he means "what was the benefit". If your original footage can be opened in PP, converting it isn't usually necessary unless you find the scrub performance is really hampered by the camera's codec - and that's more of an issue for line editing rather than color correction as you won't be playing it back and forth very much. PP will edit in 32-bit color space no matter what the footage is, so you don't need to force the ingested material into a higher bit depth.
We get the 'real time' question asked a lot. PP is a non-linear editor so realtime playback and scrubbing are essential, but the exact content of each frame isn't all that important. AE works on individual frames so it's not designed to play back in real time - it has to compose all your effects onto every single frame before it can show you the results, and in every frame it processes every pixel. The realtime monitors in PP don't do that - they show something that looks visually the same but only some of the frames are actually processed, then the rest are interpolated.
AE has some extremely powerful CC tools, but realistically it's intended for use on small clips - if you look at grading workflows in studios their typical AE timelines might only be 20 seconds max, and often only a couple of seconds. It can work with longer clips but it gets painful. The big advantage in AE is the ability to layer up lots of effects with masks, so for example you can color-correct a video clip so it exactly matches another clip or a still image, fine-tuning one coffee cup in the background of a scene or relighting in post by masking up zones of color and exposure adjustment.
PP on the other hand is great for long timelines and cutting together clips into a program - that's what it's designed for - but it works on clips so correcting at a frame-by-frame level is correspondingly horrible. I'd say the 3-way CC in PP is perfectly fine for prosumer and indie work; if you know what you're doing it's possible to replicate any of the motion picture styles people are used to seeing, it's simply that it doesn't have a library of presets and you don't get the same level of spatial controls (there's no masked adjustment layer concept in PP like there is in AE). As shooternz says some of the third-party plugins for PP give you those power tools.
New in CS6, Speedgrade provides a standalone program with more powerful features, though the workflow at the moment isn't all that seamless (SG wants frame images, as do most pro grading applications, so there's a gnarly export-import thing to go through that makes round-tripping a one way street).
A professional colorist will use a standalone grading program for several reasons, but they're not all down to pure 'quality';
pro colorists tend to use special hardware desks with physical versions of the three color wheels, and they only work with certain software.
if you're matching the 'look' of an entire motion picture, being able to store, share and batch process with preset styles and look-up tables (LUTs) is important - MB Looks and the Colorista plugin bundled with AE both have libraries of presets, the native fast and 3-way CC tools in PP don't.
On a big project the grading is done by someone other than the editor, so they don't generally need (or want) access to the master timeline - they'll get an exported mezzanine format from edit (an image sequence or uncompressed video track) so don't care about all the other stuff PP or AE can do.
If your only job is grading then a standalone package is the way to go. If it's one of an army of things you do, from shooting and editing to burning the DVDs and writing the blog, I'd say to stick with the inbuilt tools in PP/AE, have a go in Speedgrade if you have CS6 and some time to teach yourself, but the expense of a standalone grading tool would only be worthwhile if you have a few months spare to learn the skills. There's a reason the best colorists earn top dollar, it's 50% art, 50% science and 100% dedication.

Transitions not working in Premiere CS6.Video was color corrected in AE 6 and sent back to PPro cs6.

I exported my film to AE6 from Premiere CS6 for color-correction and got it back to Premiere Pro through DYNAMIC LINK.Now,the problem is that AE has discarded all the transitions and also cross-dissolve and film-dissolve don't seem to work on this color-corrected video.I am able to apply the transitions but they don't work....somebody please help!

As Jim said, not all effects and transitions are properly translated when you replace a group of clips with dynamically linked AE composition. Actually you should have noticed that your cross-dissolves etc. had been replaced with black solid layers in After Effects, which didn't reflect your PrPro transitions.
Now you can jump back to your AE project and fix broken transitions there.
For your future work you should keep it in mind and decide whether to replace a group of clips (and, therefore, fix broken transitions in After Effects) or a single clip, taking care of its handles.

Color corrected video washed out by font / graphics

Hi everyone-
I'm running FCP 4.1.1 on a Mac dual G4. I have some DV clips on the timeline which I adjusted using the brightness / contrast function of the Color Correction tool. When I lay font or graphics over it, the clips get all washed out, and look more like the original clips. After rendering, the Viewer tells me that the video clips are still brightness / contrast adjusted, even though they're not. When I remove the font / graphics, they look as I intended (adjusted).
I used these same graphics on other video clips and they worked fine. It seems to be an issue with the adjusted clips.
Can anyone help? Thanks.
Mac dual G4 Mac OS X (10.2.x)

what color is the render bar above these problem clips?
it may be that with these graphic overlays applied then you are seeing only a proxy or preview of the final effect and not a full render
if so, check your Sequence > Render settings and make sure to check the Preview and/or Proxy options
cheers
Andy

Underwater Color Correction--D800 Video

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