Increasing the blacks with video?

[Patrick Cooper]

For those who use Adobe Lightroom to process Raw still images, I'm sure that you're familiar with increasing the blacks of an image with a slider. And sliding to the left to make use of the negative numbers. Just wondering if you can do the equivalent of that with Shotcut or perhaps the free version of Davinci Resolve? 

I have some wildlife footage that was shot on an overcast day. And it looks a bit flat and lacking in density. I have the video in Shotcut right and now and increasing the contrast doesn't really help much. I think I likely need to increase the blacks like you can do with still images in Lightroom. It would be great to be able to do more or less the same thing with video editing software. 

[Patrick Cooper]

Okay, I went into the Color Grading section of Shotcut and adjusted the shadows on the left (using the negative numbers.) That is kind of working to improve the picture.

[Daniel D. Teoli Jr.]

 

On 3/11/2025 at 10:36 PM, Patrick Cooper said:

For those who use Adobe Lightroom to process Raw still images, I'm sure that you're familiar with increasing the blacks of an image with a slider. And sliding to the left to make use of the negative numbers. Just wondering if you can do the equivalent of that with Shotcut or perhaps the free version of Davinci Resolve? 

I have some wildlife footage that was shot on an overcast day. And it looks a bit flat and lacking in density. I have the video in Shotcut right and now and increasing the contrast doesn't really help much. I think I likely need to increase the blacks like you can do with still images in Lightroom. It would be great to be able to do more or less the same thing with video editing software. 

 

Send in samples of what you are working on. Global slider is just part of it. Hand contrast grading is a big deal. (Dodging and burning.) You can easily turn up the blacks and lose shadow detail. Or it may throw off the color.

Do they make movie software where you can dodge and burn spots by hand? But how would it carryover to the next frame if things move? You would have to adjust frame by frame. Forget the time, timing continuity is hard to do it in dozens or hundreds of adjustment spots on complex jobs. (See below.)

This has sharpness, blacks, shadow and contrast slider adjustments as well as tons of dodging and burning adjustments. 1-1/2 hours of Lightroom! You can't do that frame by frame. It is too much.

You won't get anywhere near what I did with this raw scan with sliders alone. 

I wasn't finished yet...this is just some of the adjustments!

<><><><>

Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Advertising Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Popular Culture Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2025 by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

[Mark Dunn]

14 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

Do they make movie software where you can dodge and burn spots by hand? But how would it carryover to the next frame if things move?

Yes and yes. Power windows.