Fixing blown out footage and shadows....is it possible?

[DJ Persino]

I am guessing its not really possible to fixing blown out footage footage and shadows, but if there is a way to reduce the negative effects in post I'd love to look into those options, maybe through color correcting and after effects.

 

[Ryan Sauve]

Depends what it is. For example, if you blew out the sky, you can luma matte it out and put in a new sky. I don't have much experience in this area though so I'll let the pros chime in.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Post some R3D's. The answer is "it depends," but generally the problem can be reduced by quite a degree. Still, there's no recovering the highlights if they've been blown out to the point of being nuclear. This is why a) shooting tests first and b) always checking the histograms [or scopes] are so very important.