minor track issue

[Dale Guthormsen]

on my number one track when I tack a grab and place it on the same track it is not the same and it looks like it has color correction.

no I do not have any track corrections at this time (that I know of at least)

any ideas

[Seth Bloombaum]

Not the same as the video clip you grabbed it from... on the same track?

There are some track level possibilities, for example, if you had set track opacity to 90% (or some other effect), grabbed a still off a clip on that track, then put that still back on the same track, the opacity is now 90% of 90%, or 81% or so. (I'm not entirely sure what happens if you set clip opacity other than 100 and grab a still of it - is the still at 100% or the setting?)

If there are truly no efx on that track (do check track and clip opacity!), look at the opacity of the still, and make sure you didn't drag that down by mistake.

Another possibility is gamma/colorspace issues. I have better luck matching with pngs than jpgs, but I rarely edit in anything but the 8-bit default colorspace.

On the other hand, if you experienced a problem with a png grab, try a jpg.

Often when I want a still to extend a clip, I use an alternative method: Set velocity to 0. That's real nice for not introducing unexpected looks. Excalibur makes that one ultra-easy, but Vegas natively has a good control for velocity.

[Ian Stark]

Dale, my immediate thought is to ask what quality your preview is set at when you take the frame grab.

Unless I'm mistaken, a frame grab is always at the same resolution of the preview preview, i.e. if it's set to 'good' the grab will be at a lower resolution than if it's set to 'best'. I'm wondering whether, for example, if you are taking a grab from a 'good' quality preview which is then being further compressed when you subsequently view it on your timeline at 'good' quality, i.e. you're doubling the compression and therefore altering the image. Hmmm . . . reading this back doesn't come across as clearly as it's in my head, but hopefully you get my drift! Perhaps you could try increasing your preview quality to 'best', then take the frame grab. Does that make any difference?

Another thought is whether you have dropped any effects on the master video track that are then being doubled when you drop the grab on the track.

I'll have a coffee to wake myself up then I'll test my theory out!

[Ian Stark]

. . . and a thumbs up for Seth's velocity envelope suggestion. That's how I do it - especially easy since they (FINALLY!) introduced the 'Set to 0%' option in Vegas.

[Ian Stark]

Well, my first theory doesn't hold water, at least not in VP13! I just tested it out by taking four screen grabs of an untreated HD clip: Preview Half, Preview Full, Best Half, Best Full. I compared these against the original frame in all modes and aside from an obvious resolution difference (best being higher, clearly) there was no noticeable colour shift or other change to the image. I also tested this against a 4k clip - same result. Finally I tried both png and jpg. Again, same result.

I was convinced I had seen this behaviour before but perhaps I was mistaken. Of course there may be other variables to take into account - source format being the obvious one. Maybe this was an issue in earlier Vegas releases? Just throwing out a few ideas!

What about media level effects? Nothing lurking there that you forgot about? Nothing higher up in your tracks that might affect the clip below?