On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 21:21:04 -0500, Mike Zannoni wrote:

>I'm new to the group and somewhat new to video production (self-taught)
>-- if I'm repeating an oft covered topic, please forgive. (I did review
>the last 500 posts and haven't seen it covered).

I second AI's comments about that! Bravo! Would that more
people did that!!! ;-)

>I'm editing footage for a feature length video movie my partners and I
>shot over the last 5 years. It is analog Hi8 (Canon L2) mostly
>handheld, with (we believe) very high content quality (story, dialog,
>acting, directing, music, extras, locations . . .). We're very happy
>with how the edit's taking shape.
>
>But-- Our light exposure, focus and color balance are somewhat,
>sometimes more than somewhat, uneven from shot to shot. We're using
>Adobe Premier 5.0 on Media 100, a lower end version. (I think we may
>have a demo version of Boris Effects, too.) I play around with Adobe's
>effects filters to
>get things to match up better, with some success, but I'm not altogether
>sure I'm doing things the best way that they can be done, given that
>it's always going to be somewhat "rough" -- we have no illusions about
>that..
>
>Does anyone have some good advice/tips for lightening dark video,
>sharpening unfocussed video, and for color correcting? General
>technique or Premier specific, either would be appreciated (or maybe
>Boris too, I have to check if we really have that). . . Or maybe direct
>me to a more specific newsgroup or web site where I might learn some of
>these things?

I do this all the time (even with "good" footage some
correction is often needed to get it just right...)
with Premiere on a PC (I'm not familiar with the Media
100, so not all the following may be relevant...).
For all the below, I use "alt" key scrubbing to give
me some idea of the results, and short renders of sample
parts for the "proofs" - then before outputting, I remove
all the test renders, and render the whole video as a
piece. For lightening/darkening, I use Premiere's
"contrast-brightness" filter (some contrast adjustment
is almost always necessary when changing brightness
to keep the blacks and whites). This can either be
key-framed on the main track (using the timeline in
the filter - useful for only a few key-frames, though...),
or a copy with the greatest needed shift applied can be
placed above the original on the V2 (or a higher track),
with its transparency "rubber-band" adjusted to make the
key-frames and control the changes in time of the track.
I also use the DPS' Power Surge "gamma" filter to open
shadows without moving the tone-range "end-points".
Color-correcting is done the same way, though if the
color direction is not constant, I chop up the track
into the color-shift-need areas (this makes accurate
key-framing using the filter timeline easier, also).
As for sharpening, the neat thing is that you can do
variable sharpening, too (and even follow and correct
AF "hunting" fairly well). Copy the track to be sharpened,
place it on V2 or higher, apply the "sharpen" filter
to the copy-track, adjust its "rubber-band" overall
level for the minimum overall sharpening wanted ("shift"
+ mouse on "rubber-band" - rarely over 12-14% to avoid
unpleasant artifacts), then place "handles" with the
mouse (at least three "handles" are needed for a peak)
and adjust points as needed. It is surprising what
horrors of oversharpening seen at the frame level
aren't seen at 30fps - but the visible focus "wobbles"
can be almost eliminated!
I trust some of this is useful...