brightening dark MPEG-2 skin tones without brightening anything else

[rch15]

Which video editor and technique do you recommend for brightening dark MPEG-2 skin tones without brightening anything else in the frame?

[jagabo]

Try a gamma correction. It isn't specifically for skin tones but it will lighten middle tones without blowing out bright areas or killing black level.

Note though that you may not need to do this. Computer monitors have very different gamma curves than televisions. What looks dark on the monitor may look fine on TV (if that's where you're going).

[guns1inger]

Most high end editors have colour correction tools that will allow you to limit the area affected with even greater accuracy. You could also look at the ColorMill filter for Virtualdub if you need a free solution.

[whatsmyname]

In Adobe Premier I use three main filters: Shadow and Highlights Ambient filter, ProAmp filter and Levels filter, depending on the scene, sometimes a particular filter works better than the other.

For scenes where I strictly only want to adjust areas with skin tones (like brightening up and increase a bit of saturation to a person's face), I use Track Matte + motion tracking. Track Matte tells the program to only run the filter on the facial area (you have to indicate that area) and motion tracking tells the track matte to follow the face as it moves around in the video.

[edDV]

If you could post a frame or short video clip, we could show you what the various tools can do. First we need to know the source format. What was the history of this MPeg2?