View Full Version : What's the best way to deal with overexposed video?


Bruce Pelley
March 16th, 2010, 05:54 PM
footage that is considerably overexposed shot with a older Canon GL-2?

So much so that the top of the speakers head & part of his face glows!

What's the reccomended/ideal solution? What effect or effects should be applied in what order?

Want to get a good result as possible.

I have versions PP 6.5, 2 and 3 to work with. I do not have after Effects.

All responses, feedback and input welcome.

Thank you.

Harm Millaard
March 17th, 2010, 01:20 AM
Reshoot is the best way.

Tom Hardwick
March 17th, 2010, 03:15 AM
If it's really blown there's little that you can do - the information has been lost forever. Try putting the sequence of shots into black and white and playing with the contrast - that sometimes helps as it looks as if you were trying to be arty in the first place.

tom.

Brian Barkley
March 17th, 2010, 06:08 AM
These people are right. There's litt you can do. Video is much less forgiving than film. In the film world, you could over expose or under expose and still have a great looking scene after color correction. But video, analog or digital, has to be shot very close to the correct exposure.

Tom Dickerson
March 17th, 2010, 10:52 AM
If you absolutely can't reshoot you can try to lower the gain (darken) a bit, then go into your color settings on whatever NLE you are using and try to bring out skin tones in the area that is over exposed.

If it's completely blown out then there isn't much you can do to fix it, but you might be able to improve the overall appearance a bit.