Vegas for Color Correction

[Tenolian Bell]

By gamma I mean the slope of the contrast curve at any given point along that curve. Black gamma would be the slope of the curve in the shadow region.

 

OK I see what you are saying. It appears this control is in the three way color corrector. Under the color wheels is a section called Limit Effect.

 

Under limit effect is a Color Range bar with four handles and two rubber bands.

 

Under that are two separate gray scale bars with handles and rubber bands. One is called saturation control, the other is called luminance control.

 

The color range control limits or expands the range of color within a given color grade. One set of handle/rubber bands work with green to navy blue, the other set of handles/rubber band work with green to violet.

 

The saturation control has four handles and two rubber bands that work with color saturation across the gray scale. One set of handles/rubber band deal with black to gray, the other set of handles/rubber band deal with white to gray

 

Luminance control has two handles and one rubber band that expands or limits contrast across the gray scale from black to white. It sounds as if that fits what you are talking about.

 

This kind of correction is essential, in my book, especially for video cameras that get "steep" in the highlight curve.

 

I can see this control being of use within the camera as it gives you a choice over the limited video dynamic range. But after the signal has gone to tape you have little control over dynamic range and gray scale in post.

 

I've shot the Varicam a few times and have done a tape to tape color grade on da Vinci. There was a little room in the shadows, and pretty much nothing usable in the highlights.

 

I would imagine unprocessed HD such as the Viper being the exception. If I shot that format I doubt I would be finishing my final color correction on a desktop NLE.

 

The monitor, timeline and all other screen components in Vegas cn be positioned anywhere on your computer monitors.

 

Are the monitor and timeline separate elements to be moved independently, or do you have menu options that change to look of the interface?

 

Vegas' built in audio tools are great. Sonic Foundry, Vegas' original development company, specialized in pro audio apps and it shows in Vegas.

 

That's right I forgot about that. I have a friend who used to use Vegas for sound mixing before Sony bought it.

 

So what do you use for compression or encoding and DVD authoring?

 

The source/preview monitor combination is 'a feature'. It's just a different way of working, like on a Moviola I think that was one of the things that orginally made Vegas intuitive for me.

 

Yeah, its great to have choices.

[Michael Nash]

Luminance control has two handles and one rubber band that expands or limits contrast across the gray scale from black to white. It sounds as if that fits what you are talking about.

 

Good to know, thanks!

 

I can see this control being of use within the camera as it gives you a choice over the limited video dynamic range. But after the signal has gone to tape you have little control over dynamic range and gray scale in post.

 

True that your limits are set once it's gone to tape, but you still want to "massage" the gamma. The one project I corrected in FCP had a scene shot at midday in broken sunlight and tree shadows (SDX-900). I exposed just hot enough to keep the highlights from clipping, knowing I would have to boost the mids, and ideally bring the highlights down even more (leaving white at 100). Neither I nor the editor knew much about FCP's color tool and could only manage to find mid level (which worked fine) and white level (clip). I think adjusting highlight gamma in post would have outperformed anything I could have done with the camera's knee function. Besides, the whole point of color correction is to use it beyond what you can do in camera.

 

Anyway, good to know. Thanks.

[Tim Tyler]

> Are the monitor and timeline separate elements to be moved independently

 

Yes. The on screen interface is made up of like 30 elements and they can all be turned on/off and positioned independently.

 

> So what do you use for compression or encoding and DVD authoring?

 

Vegas can render many compressed formats directly from the timeline. I usually render to a full rez DV AVI when the edit is complete and then use that as an encoding master to save time with projects that will be delivered in multiple formats. I use 'Squeeze' to encode FLV and the bundled DVD Architect for DVD's.

[Jayson Crothers]

Wow, a lot of great responses. This site always floors me.

 

I'm happy to report that I met the company doing my color correction and was thrilled by what they could do.

 

The movie is a S16 feature that's destined for a DVD release; the original transfer was done to Digi-Beta for cost reasons (the budget got chopped and so did the HD transfer).

 

The company doing post for us have used Vegas as a basis only; they have all the plug-ins and add-ons and have gone a step further to then go in and rewrite much of the software. They have it set-up so they can digitize from the Digi-Beta masters with no compression and export it at full resolution as well; we ran through a few shots today as a test run and I was very happy with what I was able to do - in some cases it's not as intuitive or as user friendly to do some things (dropping a window over something, for example, required using a separate program), but I was able to achieve what I wanted quickly and effectively - the gentleman doing the correction for the company is very good and knows the system very well, so as I was asking for things he was already presenting me with different options.

 

I'm sold on using Vegas for my post correction on this project (it's a low-budget horror film for the DVD market); I'm still set on pushing for a dedicated facility with a machine designed specifically for color correction on future productions that require it, but in this case, Vegas has my vote.

 

Thanks for all the input folks - it was very helpful in my making informed decisions.

[Sjur Pollen]

Just to add some insight to this thread, event though it seems to have died down now anyway:

 

 

A lot of people misjudge Sony Vegas for the low pricetag and it's differnent'nes. It is a very powerful NLE, and are often wrongfully criticized for lacking features that it actually has (by snotty FCP or AVID people). Such as the "lack" of media management, wich was added with the release of version 6 last year (or was it 2004).

 

Vegas' strenghts are these: Extremely intuitive interface, very modest on hardware demands, realtime preview (No matter how many effects you throw on a clip. Allthough framerate will decrease, you dont HAVE to render), it's very responsive, has the beste audiotools of all NLE's (vegas was originally a multitrack audio-editor), scripting, and generally a very fast workflow (it's just quick!).

 

The cons is that it has a very poor ability to working with different sequenses in the same project (it's possible, but ackward and buggy), and that it always puts out 8bit results where effects or transitions have been added. No matter what codec you use for the final output, the result is always deriviated from 8-bit RGB colorspace. So basically you can edit DVCPRO HD with simple cuts, and still maintain the 10-bit YUV colorspace, but as soon as you add an effect or transition it's 8-bit RGB. (This is kind of strange, as all color corrections and such are handled in 4:4:4 deep down in the inner realms of the software...)

 

 

Anyway, the 10-bit issue is expected to be history with the release of ver 7, wich rumour has it, is planned for release this fall.