Gray Card
 

I shot some 16mm film and had it professionally telecined and am not very happy with the way it was done. I'm wondering if there is a way in Vegas to set colors and your white balance with a gray card that I shot. Let me know my options on this. Thanks guys.

Mitch

Please guys, anything having to do with setting a white balance and timing to a gray card. Thanks.

Mitch,
What are you unhappy with? The colors? Was it a 'one light transfer'? "Best light transfer?"

Assuming you are dealing with some consistent overall color cast issues, as can frequently occur on a one-light transfer.

Put your footage up on the timeline. Make sure the preview window is open.

Assign the Sony Color Correction filter, perhaps to the track (this can also be done at the event or media pool clip level).

Lower right of each of the three adjustment "wheels" is an eyedropper. Roll over it, the tool tip should read "choose adjustment color".

Click on the Low eyedropper, then click on an area of your image that should be black. Mid, your gray card. High, something that should be white.

Voila, instant bad color correction, quick and dirty as you can get. From here, go with finer adjustments of all parameters exposed in the filter, keep an eye on your vector and waveform scopes to assure that you don't adjust into illegal values.

There are books on color correction, and people who do such as their full-time job, so, please realize that study and practice are needed to get good at this. Vegas makes it easy to play with the parameters, to produce changes over time or on scene change with keyframes...

VASST sells a color correction tutorial DVD for Vegas by Glenn Chan, look around for online tutorials.

To add onto what Seth said...

The Color Corrector filter would be the first thing to try. Sometimes it may not completely fix the problem... i.e. white balance may look a little off. In that case, go through the color corrector starting with high, then mid, then low. Whatever eyedropper gets done last means that tonal range will be accurate. If you do the highlights last, they may be a little inaccurate. So, add the Color Corrector Secondary. Limit its range to highlights (i.e. limit luminance to very bright values), and de-saturate away.

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