Any Suggestions?
 

I'm about to finish a clients video and I love everything about it except the first dance. I did some neat editing to it, however, the low light was apparent and it's a little more grainy then I thought it would be. I added in other scenes so it has "flash backs" during, but I'm trying to figure out a way to disguise the low light situation. I have premiere 6.5 and after effects so I'm sure there are many ways to do it, but after playing with just the colors and brightness I'm still not happy. Anyone have any good tips or tricks to make the video look better? I was looking for tutorials in after effects about maybe a dreamy effect or something, but haven't found what I'm looking for yet. I could switch to b/w, but it's still a little grainy.... Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I am not an expert in doing this but I have used a glow effect and then dropped a diffuse effect in to create a good look on a lowlight video. Both effects were from the 55mm filter set. Hope this helps

I've dealt with this as well. I've tried working WITH the grainyness of the video. Expose the video as well as possible using levels- even if it enhances the visibility of the grain. Then try converting the footage to greyscale, and adding a soft diffusion ont he whites. It'll look artsy as if the grain was intended. When you cut to flashbacks...have them in color. That'll help differenciate the two scenes.

I can't speak for ALL brides but a great deal of them melt over b&w footage. More than likely they wont mind the first dance is in b&w. After all it'll probably take on a classier more deliberate look than the desaturated grainy image your starting out with.

Sometimes even a soft focus effect can help "smooth" out the noise.....though I like diffusion I'm not a fan of soft focus look.

Best of luck Jennifer.