Shadow/Highlight flickering

[Jack Banatoni]

When I use the shadow/highlight effect, my image flickers.  I'm using manual settings.  Someone suggested changing black clip to 0%, but that did not help.  Is there another way to use this effect without flicker?

Thanks,

JB

[Kevin-Monahan · Accepted solution]

Hi Jack and others on this thread,

It seems that if the Shadow/Highlight effect (and/or others in the "Adjust" category) are added to your clips or adjustment layers with the default setting, you can have the problem with flicker in both playback and output. Although some users have great tips on this thread, I would use these effects at your own risk.

The design of the effects probably need to be redesigned or at least refined so that the default application of these effects do not cause the "flicker" issue in playback and exports. For that, please file a feature request: http://adobe.ly/feature_request

Thanks,

Kevin

[jonathanf]

Hi Kevin-Monahan,

Thank you for responding, but unless I am misunderstanding the terminology, I think its been discussed throughly in this thread that even when not using the "default application" of these filters (i.e. manually specifying the strength of the effect rather than the checkmark for "Auto Amounts" being the default setting), the flickering still persists: Re: Shadow/Highlight flickering

Now, four years later, a similar issue is seen more generally within Premiere Pro, and you/Adobe are actively acknowledging that as a bug: Flickering footage in Premiere Pro CC 2014 but not in Premiere Pro CC 2013‌ Perhaps this a sign that the underlying issue brought up in this thread is also in fact a bug, and is now spreading?

I am very confused and frustrated that as working professionals and paying customers, the solution we are given is that we should "use these effects at [our] own risk." This seems to imply we should not count on Adobe CC products to be stable, reliable products.

[samsan]

I just ran into this issue with the highlight/shadow effect.

I've applied it to an adjustment layer and I have auto amounts UNchecked and I see a very random change in brightness throughout my clips.

[Smorgasbord42]

I've been trying different things for a while and believe I've figured out not only what's going on, but how to "fix" it:

Observations:

• In Manual Mode, we cannot use Temporal Smoothing since it's disabled.

• Given two different images, the same values for Black Clip/White Clip will have different effects. That's because the values we specify are percentages of pixels to clip. Take Black Clip: if one image has some very dark pixels already then a 1% Black Clip won't do that much to the image (it could be that 1% of the pixels are already zero). However, if another image doesn't have any very dark pixels, then in order to clip 1% of whatever the darkest pixels are, it'll have to bring the image levels down quite a bit to make 1% of the pixels zero. So Black Clip doesn't change the first image much, but it changes the second image a lot.

Therefore, since the Clipping effects are image dependent, we get pulsing if the video image changes enough during the shot. What we really need is the ability to set Temporal Smoothing even in Manual Mode. Adobe - pay attention!

The best work-around I've found is to first do clipping via the Auto Contrast effect, which has the Temporal Smoothing parameter that's always enabled. Then apply Shadow/Highlight, being sure that the Black and White Clip values are less than what you set in Auto Contrast (zero is safest, but the default of 0.01 is just fine, too). Now, the nature of Shadow/Highlight is that most of the parameters take effect based on image content, so there is still a potential for changes during a shot (the pulsing we see), but it appears that once Auto Contrast has evened out every frame via clipping, the other parameters take effect more evenly and so I don't see pulsing. This has worked for me on dozens of shots that had bad pulsing before.

Adobe could easily program the Shadow/Highlight function to apply Clipping first using Temporal Smoothing and then apply the rest of the parameters normally (hey, I'm available for hire if they're interested :^)). But, try my work-around in the meantime, I think you'll be pleased.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello Smorgasbord,

Adobe - pay attention!

Keep in mind this is chiefly a user to user forum. Calling out to "Adobe" won't actually help. What does help is filing a bug report with all your ideas attached. That would be the most effective way to get the product manager and product designer's attention. Here is a link to that form: http://adobe.ly/ReportBug
Hope the product gets fixed so that you can use this effect a lot more reliably.

Thank you!
Kevin

[Javier5C08]

what kinda fücking reply is this "yeah the effect is broken maybe don't use it" tf thanks for the help

[Guest]

UPDATE :

Changing format doesn´t matter.  I tried all of them and problem was still there.

cuz I really want to use this great plugin, I am still finding the way.   Even the LEVELS i recommended doesn´t work at all cases.

But i found definitelly right answer.    Try to use SA COLOR FINESSE first,  let´s take a look on meters on LUMA WFM.

On the LEVELS TAB  use black and white point and little increase highlight recovery   It removes shadows and higlight clipping / peaking, which is causing flickering / flashing of SHADOW/HIGHLIGHT effect.

It is important to have whole footage normalized, sometimes, different picture making some  problems,  in this case, split clip and make a new track with different SA COLOR FINESSE setiings

With dynamic videos, try to automatize color plugin, it can repair whole footage without splitting to other tracks

100 %  working

It is important to correct the levels, I mean clipping of footage. If it is balanced and repaired and normalized, than you can use second FX chain and use HIGHLIGHT/SHADOWS with no problems.

Everything what is over causing problems.   So thanks this, now I am also sure my footage is correct and finally understanding some of main knowledge about picture

koki

[natalief28076859]

HEYYYY

I think Ive found another solution, not sure if everyones already tired this and I might look a bit stupid but anyway...

When applying the shadowing and highlighting effects MANUALLY, u'll see that just under the sliding tools there is an option that says

'Blend with original' - and just increase that.

For my work I was doing a lot of trippy fading and overlapping and layering (Video Art) and just doing this on each of my clips worked for me anyway.

[CONVEY:]

I've produced a post on a different forum, comparing various shadow/highlight methods and alternatives:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/968995

Summary: Adobe please, please fix this, there isn't a direct alternative, even from 3rd-party vendors.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi sqwarellc,

I've produced a post on a different forum, comparing various shadow/highlight methods and alternatives:

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/968995

Thanks (except for that crack about support. Geez, really?).

Anyway, I would recommend that you file the pertinent findings you have in a bug report so that it will be read by our product manager and/or our product designer. You can file a separate feature request (same form) for any improvements you'd like to see with Lumetri Color workflow.

Summary: Adobe please, please fix this, there isn't a direct alternative, even from 3rd-party vendors.

If you want to direct "Adobe" to fix a bug, again, the bug report/feature request form is the best way to communicate with us for those items. Calling out "Hey Adobe" to us here won't help much. The forums are chiefly user to user based with sporadic participation from most Adobe employees. I try to monitor posts, but I am only one guy and can't get to everything all the time. Hope you get your fix in an upcoming version.

Thank you,

Kevin

[CONVEY:]

Hello, Kevin -

Thank you for the reply.  Actually in my original post (on the other forum) I mentioned that I would be submitting all this to Adobe.  I'm working on writing up a summary of what other users have reported.  The flicker bug in Shadow/Highlight has been affecting a subset of users now for years.  I think it has something to do with interframe codecs (think AVCHD, H264, etc.) although others have reported similar problems with intraframe codecs.  I will submit as much detail as I can when I have the chance, although I think it's a fair bet that as far back as this bug goes (at least since CS6), others have submitted their own accounts by now.

Regarding the comment on support people, well, some of my most favorite relatives work/worked for Adobe, although in different departments.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi sqwarellc,

Thank you for the reply.  Actually in my original post (on the other forum) I mentioned that I would be submitting all this to Adobe.  I'm working on writing up a summary of what other users have reported. 

Thank you for doing so.

The flicker bug in Shadow/Highlight has been affecting a subset of users now for years.  I think it has something to do with interframe codecs (think AVCHD, H264, etc.) although others have reported similar problems with intraframe codecs.  I will submit as much detail as I can when I have the chance, although I think it's a fair bet that as far back as this bug goes (at least since CS6), others have submitted their own accounts by now.

I do have my eye on the "Adjust" effects as a source of frustration for users. It does seem to be a perennial problem for those that favor those effects.

Regarding the comment on support people, well...

I'm working on helping improve the quality of the agents, and a good number of them are recently Adobe Certified in Premiere Pro now. In the future, I appreciate any constructive feedback you can give to help us make support better.

Regards,
Kevin

[Cavemandude]

I've been using the Shadow/Highlight filter for many years without any flicker on 1000's of hours of film transfers that need details lifted out of the crushed shadows and some minor to major highlight recovery. In the timeline, you need to make sure to not have any video on the tracks above or below when using this filter. I do use a title (for masking borders with black rectangles on the left/right sides of the film edges) above the video without issue.

So, for a test, put one video on the timeline and use the Shadow/Highlight filter in Manual mode since Auto will cause flicker. Don't nest anything and put in a new timeline with video above or below as this will probably cause flicker. Also don't make a transition between 2 video clips when using this filter since the clip with this filter applied will flicker.

If you need to stack tracks of video clips then your best option is to export at a high quality format to burn in the filter effect and reimport to put in a timeline with those stacked video clips.

Here is a video example that used the Shadow/Highlight filter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVwtouKIJWs

[Smorgasbord42]

Cavemandude, your good experience with the Shadow/Highlight filter is probably related to your use of transfers from film, the process of which probably already does a Black & White Clip as part of the transfer to video. My own experience is that once a shot is clipped (or if you turn ZERO out Black Clip and White Clip), then Shadow/Highlight will typically work without problems. Auto Contrast takes a long time to calculate with temporal smoothing (and I've found it's not a 100% fix either), so I'm now using Luma Corrector (3-Way Corrector would work, too) to set Pedestal and Gain against the YC Waveform display, then using Gamma by eye. And then if the Shadows still need a boost, I layer on a Shadow/Highlight with both Black Clip and White Clip zeroed out. Haven't had flickering yet, but I've only done many dozens of shots, not thousands.

Note that Luma Corrector could potentially be used to boost Shadows or Highlights by using the Tonal Range selector (it has 3 values: Shadown, Midtones, and Highlights). However, the defaults for the Tonal Range Definition are really bad and I haven't yet figured out what those settings need to be to match what Shadow/Highlight does. This page: https://mixinglight.com/portfolio/getting-better-grades-premiere-pro-tonal-range-definition/ describes how to get better values. The big thing is that the transitions between the ranges needs much more overlap, but I still can't find the really good values that Shadow/Highlight obviously uses. Check out that page though - very enlightening.

FWIW, I have not found any correlation with having shots above or below the shot being adjusted in the timeline. If someone has two timelines where the only difference is that there's an additional shot on top or below the shot being adjusted, that would be interesting. I have gotten flickering/banding on shots where they were the only thing on the sequence at that point in time.

I also haven't seen a correlation with the output codec being used. I get flickering/bands on previews and various output formats and resolutions. But, the issue is sensitive - sometimes just changing the length of a shot by a couple frames fixes or introduces the problem. Again, it would be useful for Adobe debuggers to have two sequences where the only difference was codec and yet the flickering/banding changes.

[Cavemandude]

I also edit "normal" videos shot with a variety of cameras, including the Panasonic GH4 and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, and use the Shadow/Highlight filter without any flicker problems. Anything "Auto" is going to cause problems.

[nforzy]

Hi Jack,

My editor encountered the same flickering problem with Shadow/Highlight. He used Auto settings.

The flicker completely disappeared as soon as he disabled any clip in tracks BELOW the active one (ie. below the track where the clip with Shadow/Highlight effect was used).

Though we don't know why that solved the issue, it did.

Hope that helps.

N

[rishabhr56683654]

Hi Jack/Everyone,

I'm just starting out with Premier Pro and video editing in general so I apologize in advance if my reply is inappropriate.

I know this thread has been going for quite a while now. I encountered the same flicker problems as everyone reported BUT in Adobe Premier Pro CC 2015 there is the 'Lumetri Color grading tool' which I'm finding quite useful & wonderful to do all kinds of stuff including shadow/highlight correction. Its quite Lightroom like (I have a photography editing background - but pretty much a newbie as far as Premier Pro/Video editing goes).

You/Others may try use this tool to the same effect in case you have the Premier Pro CC 2015.

Hope it helps.

Rishabh.

[CraigGordonDMD]

For those of you that simply notice the "sky" in your clips flickering when using Shadow/Highlight Adjustment, make sure to manually set the Black Clip and/or White Clip from .01 (default for some reason) to 0. This will stop that annoying flicker throughout the entire clip. This simple fix has solved the problem every time for me, but I cant be sure it is a solid fix for every situation. I think the more your light and dark values are outside of 0 and 100, the more flickering you will get with shadow/highlight.

Yes, the Lumetri Color Grading Tool works without problems BUT it is not as effective as Shadow/Highlight.

Also; If you do a crossfade, with two shadow/hightlight adjusted clips, you get another type of flicker. Rendering without GPU acceleration will solve the problem. Go into Project/Project Settings/General and click software only. Save the file, close out, reopen. It works.

The problem occurs when two clips that both have Shadow/Highlight adjusment with different values are crossfaded. You get these light dark bands of flickering in the crossfade. It looks horrible.

Setting the clipping amounts to 0, as opposed to the default of .01 will help with the clip flickering, but NOT the crossfade flikering. It will not help

Using Opacity keyframes as opposed to the Crossfade Video Transition Effect will not help.

Rendering without GPU acceleration will solve the problem. Another way to solve the problem is to make INTER clips. Render the two clips seperately with all shadow/highlight effects, then replace the clips on your timeline with the rendered clips and THEN crossfade them.

[MobyTrix]

"make sure to manually set the Black Clip and/or White Clip from .01 (default for some reason) to 0" absolutely solved my problem as well.  Didn't need to adjust clips above/below, turn off GPU, or anything; only making sure these were set to full 0 fixed it.  Good catch!  This is going to save my project.

[Javier5C08]

this doesn't work

[pabloa59875872]

Hey! i m using Pro cs6 and got the same problem.

I solved it removing any video clip in the timeline that was lying under the main clip in which i apply the effect. it got ride of the flickering.

hih!