Do you guys think this looks any good?
 

I was just messing around in Vegas 4, looking for the effect I wanted for this video, and I think I nailed it, what do you guys think?

Original:
http://atlas.imagemagician.com/image...enberg/omg.jpg
After Vegas 4:
http://atlas.imagemagician.com/image...nberg/omg2.jpg

Another example:

Original:
http://atlas.imagemagician.com/image...nberg/omg3.jpg
After Vegas 4:
http://atlas.imagemagician.com/image...nberg/omg4.jpg

What exactly are you try to do Alex? The FX examples have more saturation but look very soft, if a little blurry.

Effects can be tricky sometimes and you have to be careful not to use them just for the sake of it. They are like those tacky wipes and disolves that can really make a good piece look "home video". You should use FX like the ones you have used to convey a mood or idea or to highlight something particular. The fuzzy glow look you have in your examples would be best use for a dream or fantasy sequence, not for regular happenings. Colour correct by all means, add more colour if your shots look a little flat and washed out, but save the other effects for creating mood.

Too much.
The second one isn't as bad, but the first one is way overboard.

Yeah, I know about the mood stuff, but this whole video is going to be kind of a dreamy video. It's not going to have any audio, except music, and almost every shot will be slow motion. I'll lighten the blur a little bit....

I agree with Dylan. It's easy to go overboard when you first start to experiment with color correction. If your goal is to make the image look dreamy and "painterly", your'e on the right track. However, it is just a weeee bit too over-saturated and "over-peaked in the greens". In the first image you completely lost your black detail. You cranked the green so much that even the windows are green. Same again in the second image. The tree bark no longer looks brown, his jeans no longer look blue and your shadows no longer look black - everything looks green.

Keep at it though and in time you will hit the bulls eye. Like I said, you are on the right track. Persistence is key. I suggest you give yourself more "eye breaks" when you color correct your footage. That is, don't go too long in a session without taking just as long of a break. Never go over 4 hours in one session, at that point your eyes can get tired and fool you, you lose your objectivity and you are no longer making useful decisions. It's very important to learn how to give your eyes a break so that when you do come back to your footage, you are able to catch mistakes such as not having any kind of black detail.

Do keep in touch,

- don

Thanks for the good advice. Yeah I noticed that i'll do something one day and then i'll continue the project the next day, and I change lots of stuff because it doesn't look right...

Alex:

Nice effect!

For that ultra dreamy look, what if you move your track out of sync by a frame or few? Moving objects would split between their sharp and blurry versions. Might be worth a try.

///d@

Alex,
That's pretty much the cycle that I believe most of us follw with respect to editing and related activities. And it's a healthy cycle, too. It's very good to bring a fresh pair of eyes to a project, even one you believe is done.

BTW, I just want to add to Don's note concerning taking visual breaks when doing color work. It's not just that your eyes get tired as they might from reading for long periods. Your eyes actually begin to see colors differently after looking at the same subject for a long time. (It's somewhat similar to sitting next to something smelly for a long time; after a while -you- can't smell it any more.) So taking those long breaks, as Don recommended, are like re-white-balancing your eyes.

As Don says, keep at it! You'll get better and better at applying affects and color corrections very soon.

There are other factors that effect color perception. Caffeine, Coke, Pepsi, Mtn. Dew etc. have a serious effect on how we perceive color. This was discovered years ago in the color printing industry. People coming back from lunch would print differently than before lunch. The caffeine at lunch altered their color perception. That's why it is always a good idea to use a waveform monitor and vectorscope to insure your colors remain consistent from scene to scene.

Jeff,

That is amazing, i am always wired up on caffeen, does that mean it is a constant equal colour for me now? or am i seeing colours differently than everyone else?

Zac

If your always drinking caffeine, then I would assume you're perceiving color consistently, but altered from a non-caffeine drinker. To go along with that 7% of the male population (American) suffer from color blindness of one degree or another.