How would you fix an ugly blown-out spot on a background?
 

I am trying to fix a horrible production lighting problem in post. Sometimes good intentions create colossal headaches in post, and this one is a dandy. How it got that way is another story. What I got was a blown-out spot that looks... well, awful.

Now I am trying to fix the offending areas in post. I have had the most success using 3-way Color Corrector to highlight the offending areas and drag down the brightness. But, I'm not quite where I want to be, as I get color gradients with banding.

Any ideas would be appreciated. The footage is DV, and I have CS5 to work with. Thanks in advance.

Re: How would you fix an ugly blown-out spot on a background?
 

Another option may be to bring up the rest of the backdrop a bit using a luma key, then you can bring the hotspot down less and get them to blend a bit better.

Re: How would you fix an ugly blown-out spot on a background?
 

Hi Ray. This was done in After Effects (which you don't say if you have) though you may be able to do it in Premiere with blending modes? Basically use two layers, upper layer set to Screen Mode, add a Curves Adjustment and set the layer's opacity down. The jpg was very low quality, but this should give you the idea.

Re: How would you fix an ugly blown-out spot on a background?
 

Cole,

Thanks for the reply. I tried the Luma Key, but it only partially keyed out the background.

With the Premiere Pro Luma Key, but could not sufficiently qualify just the background. That is, I could not end up with a matte of only the background. Hence, whatever I did to the background also affected objects in the foreground.

Do you know a technique to enhance the background or foreground enough to make the Luma Key work?

Gregory,

I have AE, but am not up to speed on it yet. Perhaps this is a good time to give it a try. The preliminary results look promising!

Ray

Re: How would you fix an ugly blown-out spot on a background?
 

Try this:
Instead of using the titler you can drop a garbage matte on a white color matte and animate if nessecary

Re: How would you fix an ugly blown-out spot on a background?
 

I would fix this with secondary color correction. You can isolate the hot spots and then take down the luma values with the controls. That is, if there is still color information left in those hot spots. Often, there aren't.

More info: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/short-and-...lor-corrector/

Re: How would you fix an ugly blown-out spot on a background?
 

Kevin,

Thanks for the tip. I have been working with the 3-way color corrector and secondary color correction. While the blown out spots do not have color info in them, I have been able to adjust the highlight wheel for the qualified area to get a color that works with the surrounding colors.

It produces a bit of a multi-colored effect on the bright areas of the background. That is similar to the original intent (three light splashes, each with a slightly different color. Unfortunately, the splashes run together. I'll just call it "artistic license".

Thanks again.

Re: How would you fix an ugly blown-out spot on a background?
 

Ann,

Your results with the titler looks quite good. I will also experiment with that technique. Since I have a lot of footage to fix, I will evaluate the trade off between time and results.