Suggesting some Event FX for Vegas

[namphong0612]

I filmed some sport footage with Sony HDR-CX110.
The color looks quite pale and a little bit dark in my opinion, so I am looking to use some Event FX (filters) in Sony Vegas 10 to fix it.
I have tried some combination of Color Balance, Color Curves, Brightness and Contrast, but the results all look too harsh or weird.

Can someone suggest me some settings please?
A piece of footage (12 seconds) has been uploaded for your examination.

Thanks in advance

[edDV]

How are you viewing the file?

How does it look if camcorder is directly connected to a TV?

The exposure is typical for Sony consumer camcorder (16-255 nominal). However it is not "dark" since there is no true black in the scene.



What is lacking in this clip is additional lighting to define the dark garments up from the dark window and background. You can play with gamma but the window will also get brighter. You need to light your characters to lift them out of room light. Side lights will help define a brighter edge vs. lifting all luma values.

[edDV]

A bit of fiddling with the levels filter.



Verify results on an HDTV.

[namphong0612]

A bit of fiddling with the levels filter.


[Attachment 12380 - Click to enlarge]

Verify results on an HDTV.

Wow, that was fast. Thanks a lot. I will try it!

[budwzr]

I noticed the WB was off and corrected it:

The correct WB was ascertained by the type of lighting, which appears to be sunlight. Sunlight bounced on the foreground person's back would not have a bluish tint against a black robe. This is why you lost your blacks.

If you correct the WB first, then do what edDV mentions, you might end up OK.

[poisondeathray]

Yes, there is a blue color cast , probably partly due to reflected light off the blue walls & floor - skin tones look awful. Too "cold" and doesn't fit well with exciting / explosive kendo action

But I think budwzr overshot the correction a bit, now there is a bit of red color cast and "red" (black) robes

[budwzr]

That's weird, because I was thinking I overshot it a tad too, but was too lazy to redo it. I think I notice some purple tinge too. That's the "overshoot" warning, right?

I don't use those fancy meters and histograms and such. Can't figger the darn things out.

SiC

This one's the same WB correction, 10% contrast bump, and a resize.

[poisondeathray]

I don't use those fancy meters and histograms and such. Can't figger the darn things out.

You should learn - they are useful

This one's the same WB correction, 10% contrast bump, and a resize.

Still a red cast - use a color picker and sample the "black" robe, and look at the RGB values . "Pure" black would be RGB 0,0,0 when you take a RGB screenshot from YCbCr video - but you would rarely have pure black . Shades of black will be in the lower value ranges, but have roughly equal proportion, for example something like 14,10,13 . Your Red channel is much higher than the others e.g. it might be something like 40,12,10 . You can check in the white areas too - the red channel is disproportionately high .

Unless you are grading for a specific look - If anything, you usually want to preserve the natural relationship from the original shot, just tone it down a bit - so the reflected blue light - otherwise it starts to look weird and unnatural. So if anything, the blue channel should be slightly disproportionately higher

[budwzr]

OK, I broke out the secondary color corrector, and this is my best shot. Anyone with a better example, please post it. Note: the funk on the wall and the little cubby holes near the ceiling have too much red in them, and govern any correction.

No filters applied other than red reduction.