Fixing extreme low light outdoors in post

[JayNewWeb]

I shot what was intended to be just a test setup outdoors very late afternoon, but ended up recording over an hour of what became pretty good content, which I'd like to salvage even though, well, the sun went down and it was dark out by the time I got done. (I know. Next time I'll know better.)

I've researched and experimented enough to determine that using "Lumetri Color > Basic Correction > Exposure" and/or "Lighting Effects > Light 1 > Directional > Intensity" are reasonable tools to use. I'm wondering if there are any suggestions for perhaps better approaches.

I know how to use keyframes for the beginning and ending frames.

In the three files in this 10GB zip showing the whole shoot, I reset the f-stop before shooting the third clip.

Thanks so much!

[R Neil Haugen]

That may be a bit of a challenge.

It is easier,  especially for those without a fair amount of experience in both color/tonal corrections work and in key framing, to make simple cuts in the clip as it goes through changes. Correct each cut separately.

Then apply transitions to the cuts, extending the transition to maybe a second or two each way from the cut.

You may also need to do some major denoising to that clip, but that might even need to be done per section as in the above information.

Neat Video is really the beat denoising plug-in, though of course there is some cost. I have at times set Neat on a series of clips, testing the settings as you want the least amount that makes it not too objectionable, not to make it perfect.

And using 3-5 frames Temporal to the settings does a better job but takes longer to process.

At times I've determined settings on the clips of a sequence, then selected them all in the Timeline panel, selecting render & replace with both "include effects" and handles selected. Then went home for the night.

By next morning I had a clean Timeline with denoising finished. And could do the rest of the work on that sequence.

Neil

[JayNewWeb]

Neil,

Thank you so much for your help!

I'm afraid your suggestions are largely above my pay grade. All I'd know to do is a beginning and ending keyframe and set adjustments in Effects accordingly, and perhaps overlay a noise if PP has one in it. Yes, I would know how to do the rest of what you suggested, or most of it, but I think breaking it into pieces would involve do so much more work than I can justify the time for, and the rest would require so much learning curve, that at this point I think I have to either resort to what I already know to do or resign myself to trashing what I shot and reshoot the whole thing.

I'm curious why you suggest pieces when the gradual darkening due to the sun going down is essentially a consistent thing. (I realize cloud fluctuations also cause lighting fluctuations but I'm not nearly to that level of concern.)

And I'm curious what the simplest way to denoise might be, espeically without buying new software (I have CC), and also if I can do that with a single set of beginning and ending keyframes, too, like with, say, Exposure and/or Intensity, which I assume should essentially correlate with the progression of the Exposure and/or Intensity settings I employ. And whether denoising should be done before or after the Exposure and/or Intensity effects are applied (if that's even a valid question).

Thanks again!

Jay

[R Neil Haugen]

If it is a steady, gradual darkening, then sometimes staring with a base keyframe at the beginning, then go to the end and make any changes needed, can work.

Try it, and if so, cool. You may need to do one or more in-between settings though. I've rarely had it turn out to be as steady, smooth a change as it looks.

Neil

[R Neil Haugen]

Oh, another tactic is to apply Lumetri at the beginning of the clip, but not keyframed.

Then put an Adjustment Layer above, go to the end of the clip, and do a Lumetri effect on the AL.

Now simply set the opacity of the AL to 0 at the beginning, and then if you need to adjust, you're just adjusting the opacity of the AL.

Neil

[JayNewWeb]

Adjustment Layers looks quite convenient. Can try various settings and turn tracks on and off, and certainly makes it easier to have a gradual shift consistently across two consecutive clips. But is the effect the same? And I'm confused about setting/adjusting Opacity versus just using keyframes to set/adjust Exposure.

And is Exposure my best bet, do you think? Would you also use Lighting Effects > Directional > Intensity?

Thanks again!

[R Neil Haugen]

Lumetri works the same, and setting keyframes on opacity is about the simplest process in Premiere.

Exposure is a straight Gain tool. The white point keeps going up similar to the Curves tool, until it cracks about 98 IRE, on the left side scopes scale. Then it rolls off the brighter values but keeps lifting the lower values. Tge black point stays the same.

Essentially, this is increasing contrast.

This sort of thing is perhaps easier to do with the Color Wheels tab, lifting the Shadows brightness slider and the Highlight brightness slider to keep the overall contrast the same.

Watching the RGB Parade and/or Waveform scopes is invaluable while doing this.

Neil

[JayNewWeb]

Still well beyond my pay grade. It's time to private message to see if I can find an expert to pay to do this for me. Thanks!

[Richard van den Boogaard]

PPro includes a tool used for grading clips that are still somewhat salvable. However, garbage in, garbage out applies. Denoiser III from Maxon or Neat video will help you denoise the clip up until 3-4 stops (which is 33%-25% of proper exposure!).

My personal experience is that After Effects (Ae) is far better equipped at doing these types of tasks. I use Ae all the time for processing my day-to-night timelapses.

Hope this helps.

[JayNewWeb]

Well beyond my pay grade. It's time to private message to see if I can find an expert to pay to do this for me. Thanks!

[R Neil Haugen]

😉