Miracle fix for washed out video?

[Brian Farris]

I was filming a drama performance and one of our camera's had the gain too high, and now I'm trying to fix it in post. I've tried messing with brighness/contrast, gamma, levels, but nothing is making it look better.

http://www.stinky.rednek.net/images/blah.png

Is there some kind of miracle fix for this problem?

Thanks.

[Tim Dashwood]

You have stumbled on the reason why film won't die just yet!

The thing about the limited dynamic range of video is that once a pixel has gone to 100% brightness, there is no more detail left to "pull back" if needed.

This is why I always suggest low-contrast filters and slight underexposure in stage/spotlight conditions. It is always easier to "bring-up" pixel information from an underexposed image.

Miracle fix? Not really... but you can use the 3-way colour corrector to bring the whites back down a bit, but they will eventually just turn gray. Other than that, I would just try to match the bad camera to the others and avoid cutting to it during extremely overexposed sections.