Colour correction/reducing audio noise/feedback

[PCC]

I've posted this as a reply in the audio section, but I'm quite desperate for some replies so I'm posting it here too.

I had a screening of a documentary I'm making on a cinema screen yesterday.

I'm very happy with it, the only things I want to do to it now are:

colour correction on all the "interview" shots as he looks quite orange in them

(I've tried using Colorista II but haven't managed to find a great way to do it yet, it takes some of the colour from other areas as well as his face.

I want to try and get it to the skin tone on the right:

I'm not sure about the music at the start and the end;

and when it played on the big screen, you could hear some background noise, but only in a few small sections, mainly towards the end at 8:03. The part where he's talking to his wife off screen, at 4:57, also sounds a bit odd.

There are also two tracks I don't have the license for, at 1:53 and 4:39, which I'll need to replace with copyright free ones.

Is there anything I can do to make the dialogue as clear as possible? The noise doesn't come out in my headphones.

[sanlyn]

I want to try and get it to the skin tone on the right:

);

You sure about that? The face on the right is purple. Subtract blue.
The face on the left is too red. Subtract red.

Colorista is basically a bunch of Hue controls. WHat hue controls do is change one color while mis-adjusting the other two at the same time. Use an RGB levels for each color channel, or use a gradation curve. I find Hue wheels to be a useless PITA.

[PCC]

So do I! After a bit of fiddling, I've got it looking more natural. But I don't know what you mean about purple on the right? That looks like skin tone to me, with a bit of brightness on the left of his face.

[sanlyn]

Hmm. Well, I dunno: Took 5x5 pixel readings off the lighted part of the guy's face. They look purple to me. Properly, it's red + blue = magenta. Add some green, it's a grayed-out purple.


[Attachment 17349 - Click to enlarge]

The shadow side of the face is maroon (probably a warm light off to our right?). And the teeth are bluish gray.


[Attachment 17350 - Click to enlarge]

Had to correct green and blue. Looks like my Uncle Mike. Sorta. But Uncle Mike has a mustache.


[Attachment 17352 - Click to enlarge]

[poisondeathray]

There is large variation in human skin tones .

Presumably, "PCC" did the shooting or at least was there on the day of the shoot and saw this man in person, so I would assume what he describes is correct. But what many people do is take reference photos at the same time, because human memory isn't always that good

[sanlyn]

Agreed. The man in the picture just might have that healthy pink outdoorsy Brit look. Who knows? But I'll bet he's not purple. I hope not.


Mixed lighting always make it tough.

[budwzr]

I've seen your documentary, and I liked it. I'll listen to your audio....

I can make you some royalty free music. That free stuff on YT is horrendous.

[budwzr]

What Sanlyn said is true. The right photo has a blue tint. The one on the left is a tad red.

[poisondeathray]

I totally agree, and he definitely looks "healthier" and better after Sanlyn's corrections . But without a reference, it's tough to say what his skin tones look like in reality

If you assume his collar to be "white", then that would suggest a blue color cast

But this is an indoor shot, but has at least 2 types of lighting, exterior through the window (you can see reflections in the glasses), and indoor lighting. Sometimes the lighting can make interpretation more difficult

[sanlyn]

Looks like a tungsten lamp off to the right, rather warmish so it's perhaps home lighting near the chair. In the left image, the collar to our left looks whitish. It might be very pale yellow or even a tad pink (? ?). We could guess forever, I suppose. Only the O.P. would know for sure. The eye adjusts to these variables; the camera doesn't. So things like color and levels get iffy later.

[PCC]

First, can I just say thanks for the responses. Deadline is 34 hours away!

The collar is cream. Do you think you could screenshot the settings you used to correct it? I have since done some simple three way settings just to the highlights and it looks better but not as good as yours! The worst thing is from around 7 minutes - hot orange!

Yes, it's home lighting, one ceiling light above the chair.

The music is from Audio Jungle. I want a new track for the end probably, but I think I've found one. I really could do with two similar but different versions for 1:53 and 4:39.

Thanks again.

[sanlyn]

Well, no "screen shot" of the settings. I worked a quickie in VirtualDub with gradation curves. Didn't save those settings, but can do it again. We don't know what you're using for video work.

[PCC]

Premiere Pro CS5.5.

[sanlyn]

Premiere Pro has, I believe, a curves filter similar to VirtualDub's gradation curves and the curves in After Effects. It's more difficult with color wheels, because they change all the colors at once. Wow, that gets a little difficult to describe....all curves controls work in the same way. Premiere Pro also has a pixel sampler, and you can read pixel values in the "info" panel. If you try to eyeball it, you can go insane directly. Give me a short while and I'll try to post screen shots of what I mean.

[PCC]

I know what you mean about each one affecting the other. I managed to get decent results just by moving Highlights into light blue.

[budwzr]

First, can I just say thanks for the responses. Deadline is 34 hours away!

Shoot, I'm out then. Too much going on. Sorry.

[PCC]

What were you planning to do? I can probably hand in as it is, and hand in another version later on.

[sanlyn]

You might be referring to the color wheels, which always give me a difficult time. For what it;s worth, these are pics of the VirtualDub gradation curves, but they are simialr to the same curves filters in Premiere, After Effects, and Photshop, etc. A looko at the pics tells you why they cakll theswe things "curves" filters. For those haven't used the VirtualDub version, I'm posting these here anyway to dispel some of the mystery about this dandy tool.

Any anchor point at the bottom left is dark color. Any anchor point at top right is bright color. There should be a curve panel or window for RGB (general luma) and for Red, Green, and Blue. I believe Premiere calls the "RGB" master the, uh, "Master" (I haven't used Premiere in a while. After Effects took its place). You create an anchor point by right-clicking on the diagonal line and then dragging that anchor to another spot. Move up or left = brighter. Move down or right = darker. Each panel affects a single entity, as in BLUE won't affect Red, Red won't affect Green, etc. "RGB" affects all colors and is used for overall luma levels.


[Attachment 17353 - Click to enlarge]

This list describes the anchor points created on each panel. "0 = 0" means the "0" anchor points was left at 0. "0 = 8" means an anchor point was created at 0 and moved up and to the left to 8. "255 = 240" means an anchor was created for 255 and moves down and to the right to 240. A readout in the panels tells you the original anchor point and its new value.

RGB anchor points:
0 = 0
23 = 23
125 = 131
205 = 210
226 = m228
255 = 240

RED anchor points:
0 = 3
241 = 255

GREEN anchor points:
0 = 8
255 = 250

BLUE Anchor points:
0 = 8
134 = 113
255 = 224

Anyway, for what it's worth.....Not as difficult as it first appears.

[PCC]

Thanks. Yeah, I have dabbled with them before.

[budwzr]

What were you planning to do? I can probably hand in as it is, and hand in another version later on.

These things sort of come to me when I get my groove on, and that doesn't happen until the cleanup work is done. It's going to be mostly pads, maybe more, depending on the visuals and tone of the video.

I'll start on it tonight, and post a sample or two.

[PCC]

What were you planning to do? I can probably hand in as it is, and hand in another version later on.

These things sort of come to me when I get my groove on, and that doesn't happen until the cleanup work is done. It's going to be mostly pads, maybe more, depending on the visuals and tone of the video.

I'll start on it tonight, and post a sample or two.

I'm mainly after similar versions of the music at 1:53 and 4:39, so if you could start on those first that'd be great!

[budwzr]

Hey PCC, that audio has too many issues for me. Maybe someone else here more skilled can have a go at it, it beat my ass.

Some of it sounds like somebody half-pushed a FF button on a tape deck, and you get that fast garbling, Hahaha. If I can't do something right, from end to end, I can't stick with it. How can anyone "ungarble" a voice?

Somebody already removed most of the obvious noise, but the AGC noise is still there. You should never use that in the future, that's for complete noobs.

Anyway, I'm disappointed too.

[PCC]

I can upload a track with all the noise back in? Tomorrow though.

[budwzr]

As far as the music goes, I notice it was a little too loud especially in the background during talking. Was that to help hide the noise?

[PCC]

Nope, it's cos my headphones aren't great. Got some better ones now. I'm gonna go back and sort it tomorrow (UK time), had a break from it today.

It was annoying on the cinema speakers; no noise for most of it, then a few moments where it would come in, go for a second, then come back.

I set all the peaks to 0db so everything is right up there. Sounded good in Premiere, but not in QT.

[budwzr]

Well, anyway, as far as the short film goes, it's not bad. I'm sure eBay loves it! It's real, and a lot of people can relate to it.

[PCC]

Thanks. Just the quandary now that, I'm really happy with how it looks, but not how it sounds, and I want them to match up. It's being exhibited next week, but Friday is the deadline for it being assessed.

[budwzr]

Just do it. Content is King!

Maybe just tone down the loud parts, yeah?

[PCC]

Yeah. I got a day tomorrow to go through and fine tune it. Do you think you'd be able to do anything more if it was all the original audio, warts and all?

[budwzr]

Post it.

Maybe I can just "smooth out" the finished one by converting to a mono-mix, then normalizing it, then back to stereo. Or does it have to be stereo?