Fixing Underexposed Footage

[Curtis Jensen]

I'm in the midst of editing a short film shot entirely on the Red One. It's my first time working with Red One footage. Same goes for my editor. We imported all the footage using the Log and Transfer in Final Cut Pro. The footage was conformed into Prores 422 (HQ).

We are finishing a fine cut of the film and realizing that several shots are noticeably underexposed, which brings me to my question:

What is the latitude on the Red One and is there a way to boost the exposure by one or two stops without compromising the footage?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

- Curtis

 

[Kim Frank]

Best way for me was doing it in the first place, by tweaking the Raw footage. In red alert I increased brightnes (not exposure or Asa which are the same anyway but do shift the colors) and then used curves to really get a completely filled histogram from left to right than rendered out as 16 bit tiff to make colour Correction.
This way I could brighten up faces of talents shot with the bright sun in their back and not using any bounce. Must have been minimum 2 stops. But watch out to not bring up the noise floor.

 

[Gregory Leno]

Curtis,

You can dig out one or two stops very easily. Especially if you have upgraded to the latest software from RED that accesses the new color science, as well as the latest QT RED codec.
As Kim says you will need to go back to the original footage and use RED Alert or Clipfinder to get to it though.
I would experiment with using the ISO/Exposure as well as the Brightness. My understanding is that Brightness mainly affects the blacks and Exposure/ISO affects everything. So depending on your situation one may be better than the other.

It really is amazing what you can pull out of it.

 

[Gunleik Groven]

If you go to RAW and set the cam-metadata flat (5k kelvin/320 or lower ISO) you will be able to get a lot from underexposed shots.

Using the exposure/iso to get a brighter shot, adds significant noise...
It may be a better idea to use the brightness to lift the image and then apply a curve.
You may even find that LOWERING the ISO/exposure and lifting the brightnessas a startingpoint gives a much less noisy and beautifull image, also in the lowlights.

Just a hunch...

But you should defenitely use some kind of conform tool - to get back to the RAW data in this situation...
Good luck!

 

[Curtis Jensen]

Thanks guys! I greatly appreciate your prompt responses! I'm going to attempt to brighten these shots today!

- Curtis