exposure and contrast corrections

I like to ask you guys what is your opinion in enhancing contrast, colors, exposure in the clips.

Sometimes the clips look a little dull / low contrast and they could need some enhancing.

From the 1 hand i think that clips with a good contrast, strong colors, might sell better.

But on the other hand, i think the companies have much better possibilities to work with the clips if the clips are not enhanced. They can do the changes the way they want or like.

So, what are you guys doing about that?

Just preparing new clips to upload and thinking about this....

Any suggestions from Pond5 about that?

For me I agree that many clips do need some contrast, brightness or even some level adjustment. Many buyers are small time users that do not have the equipment or knowledge on how to enhance the footage and will use it as it is. Bigger or more knowledgeable buyers will definitely make adjustments so that it matches the other footage that it will be with. In this case a RAW untouched clip is the best. If you feel it needs a little adjustment I suggest maybe only about half of what you would want to use. This makes it look better to sell but does not change the pixel information so much that it can't be re-adjusted. If it over processed it may not be able to integrate into the buyers work.
Good luck and welcome.

Don

Thanks for answering,
great portfolio that you have, lots of work.

I think i will stick with your proposal. Giving the clips just a little touch up on brightness and contrast.

I agree that you should make only very small changes to a clip before submitting. Only in a couple of cases have I tweaked the brightness by a few %. If I am unsure of my exposure when taking a clip I will often grab a few shots at different levels and then select the best in post. If the levels are just too bad it doesn't get uploaded.

Mark

pro_samos,
Using different f-stops and shutter speed settings while framing your clips. To correct brightness, contrast and color one should use a vector scope/wave form generator or software for adjustments. Last of all if you don't a studio monitor to check your adjustments leave the clips alone.
There are times when you won't be able to frame a shot such as fast motion or once in a life time shots. I've looked at your clips and they are great clips.

If you shoot with one of the little cams (me too), wait for good light and contrast (not too high contrasts though because of the limited dynamic range of these cameras). If colors ain´t good enough yet, use a polfilter. Shoot different exposures if you are unsure. You can also combine to differently exposed shots to create a HDR like effect and avoid under-/overexposures.

Getting it optical is always better than digital, unless you are after special effects.

Nice shots! Would like to go to Samos :).

Good luck,
Stefan

Thanks for your reply,
@Stefgo
"wait for good light....." on Samos Island we have always good light :-)

I do not have big problems with the f-stop. I am using Canon HV20 and sometimes Canon XH A1.
There are good cams.
What i mean is that i loose quality when it comes to stream the tapes and rendering mov. clips. Very often after that the clips look dull... pal with low contrast and washy colors.

Very high contrast is something people either love or hate, and I do it sometimes... But you really probably should NOT do it if you do not know what you are doing.

Often times when you increase the contrast the colors will go outside the broadcast color range on TV, so if it gets played on TV areas of the clip will be white (I Think thats what happens, maybe its black.) Anyway it causes problems. So do a broadcast color check, and have it reduce the luminance.

Good light? I bet you do...I have been to Rhodos and Crete. Nice places.

For my SD clips, I am always getting washed out colors when transcoding from DV-avi to DV-mov with Quicktime Pro or Streamclip, doesn´t matter. Even if I go over an intermediate uncompressed file it´s the same. But when I re render those mov to avi they look o.k. The full frame preview at P5 also looks o.k.. so I guess it´s a problem with the mov display on a Win system. Maybe it´s the same for HD?

Hi Stefgo,
yes that could be possible. I realized that also, if i play the avi file on the windows media player, it looks better.

Good Light?..... Well most of the time... July and August can be very Hazy sometimes, because of the hot temperatures and sea floating around us ;-)
Sometimes in summer we get 40 celsius and over.
Hottest i ever seen was last year.... 43 celsius....