You don't use that video camera enough do you, and it was really expensive. You decide to make a video of something; a company celebration, a day out with family and friends, whatever. So you remembered to take your camcorder with you and you shot some great video. You downloaded it onto your computer to edit. But when you watch the video play on your screen you can see that it's not quite as good as you hoped. Some of the faces and details are lost in shadow. The overall colours are a bit dark and drab and in some shots the whole scene has a strange colour cast to it. You sigh and start to look round your editing screen for video controls to help you fix it. So what can you do?
Most modern video editing software bubbles over with gadgets to help you. There are video filters and correction tools galore. The first tip I would give is for those dark shots you need to lighten up. You might find a way to adjust the Brightness in your video controls and filters, but it is often a bad idea. Increasing the Brightness tends to bleach out the whole picture, and then you start trying to balance it by adjusting the Contrast. You can sometimes improve a video by doing this, but it's usually much better to adjust the Gamma Correction if you have that function. A little tweak on the Gamma Correction and details start to emerge from the shadows, faces can be recognised again, and your video becomes more of a joy than an embarrassment.
The best cure though, is preventative. Shoot your video better in the first place and you will not have to mess around trying to make it look nice while you are editing. Here are some shooting tips to keep your video looking the way it should.
First, look carefully at the image on the viewfinder or screen of your camera, can you see the details, are there shadows? Is the person in silhouette against the bright sky? Try to get the person to stand against a more neutral background, or fill in the shadow by using a small camera light or a reflector.
The golden rule though is to remember to set your white balance in each new situation. Our eyes adjust to different colours of light without us noticing, but the camera does not. Most camcorders are automatically set for bright daylight, but artificial light sources like tungsten or fluorescent lights all have quite different colours. You may have a single easy button to press or you may have to fiddle about going through function menus, but which ever way you set the white balance it's worth it. Point the camera at a sheet of white paper held in front of the person or subject of your video shot, press that button and let the camera do it's stuff. One the camera knows what white looks like under those lighting conditions, it will adjust to record every other colour correctly.
Most modern video editing software bubbles over with gadgets to help you. There are video filters and correction tools galore. The first tip I would give is for those dark shots you need to lighten up. You might find a way to adjust the Brightness in your video controls and filters, but it is often a bad idea. Increasing the Brightness tends to bleach out the whole picture, and then you start trying to balance it by adjusting the Contrast. You can sometimes improve a video by doing this, but it's usually much better to adjust the Gamma Correction if you have that function. A little tweak on the Gamma Correction and details start to emerge from the shadows, faces can be recognised again, and your video becomes more of a joy than an embarrassment.
The best cure though, is preventative. Shoot your video better in the first place and you will not have to mess around trying to make it look nice while you are editing. Here are some shooting tips to keep your video looking the way it should.
First, look carefully at the image on the viewfinder or screen of your camera, can you see the details, are there shadows? Is the person in silhouette against the bright sky? Try to get the person to stand against a more neutral background, or fill in the shadow by using a small camera light or a reflector.
The golden rule though is to remember to set your white balance in each new situation. Our eyes adjust to different colours of light without us noticing, but the camera does not. Most camcorders are automatically set for bright daylight, but artificial light sources like tungsten or fluorescent lights all have quite different colours. You may have a single easy button to press or you may have to fiddle about going through function menus, but which ever way you set the white balance it's worth it. Point the camera at a sheet of white paper held in front of the person or subject of your video shot, press that button and let the camera do it's stuff. One the camera knows what white looks like under those lighting conditions, it will adjust to record every other colour correctly.
