Upping low exposure
by Paul Baron
on
Aug 11, 2009 at 7:52:05 pm
Hi, I posted yesterday under the wrong heading and can't delete it so, I'm re-posting today hoping for some answers.
I recently shot a wedding wherein the cameraman I hired to run my B-camera shot with auto-exposure, therefore anyone shot in front of a window turned into a silhouette. Very, very, very aggravating. I need to know if there is a good way to make this image:
look more like this image from my camera:
Re: Upping low exposure by Nick Meyers on Aug 12, 2009 at 5:00:45 am
"a good way to make this image... look more like this image"
short answer: no. :(
you may be able to get SOMETHING out of the underexposed stuff,
but it wont look great, and it really wont look like the A-Camera.
i've been lifting some outrageously underexposed stuff recently.
i use a few tools for this:
the free Lyric "Shadow Highlight" plugin is good.
i use the Free To Much To Soon "Diffusion" plug in.
i don't actually add any diffusion, 9I have that set to zero)
but i like the plug in as it gives you a simple way to feed the clip back into itself via a composite mode.
using Add mode really lifts the exposure.
there is also a control to affect the Shadows, Highlights, or everything.
sometimes you have to use both of these, and sometimes more than one instance.
this does freaky things to the colour,
adding a 3way CC after each instance helps to control.
it also adds a lot of noise,
so my final tool is the Neat Video noise reducing plug-in.
i had a quick go at something here: (this is PRE-noise reduction)
in this image, i also used the free Marcus Herick "Facelight" plug in, to punch some extra light into just the face area.
and used the 'limit colour" effect in a 1way Color Corrector to tone down the outside, which had gone neon green
you can see blotchy colours in the face, too, unfortunately.
here it is with some NR:
as you can see, it's hard to get something good out of those shadows.
if you want i can email you a project file so you can see what i did, and tweak it.
i'll send you the version without NR, as thats not a free filter.
