RED and Day for Night

[Eki Halkka]

(...continued from previous page)

Tinted to blue with levels:

Here's the second method - again, copied the original to a new layer, applied channel mixer to blue channel only with 50 R, 50 G, 0 B. Looks a bit like very old two emulsion color film, doesn't it ;-)

Applied on top of original in darken mode (this is the same as blue spill removal in keyers - note that the sky had a lot of green and red in it so it didn't darken much):

Applied saturation reduction and blue tint:

 

[Eki Halkka]

Here's a mix of the two:

Darkened a bit more:

Here's the photoshop file:
http://eki.pp.fi/digivideo/N2D/N2D_001.psd

Alternate version:

Here's the photoshop file for that:
http://eki.pp.fi/digivideo/N2D/N2D_002.psd

And finally, here's how the original would have looked without fuzzing with channel mixer, but otherwise with the same color correction:

 

[Evin Grant]

How did you get to the alternate version? That one looks the best.

 

[Eki Halkka]

How did you get to the alternate version? That one looks the best.

It's the same as the other one, just with a bit less saturation reduction and tint color that has a bit less blue and bit more green in it.

In other words, just a slightly subtler version of the same process.

 

[Evin Grant]

OK I see, I downloaded the PSD. Know how can you do this is Color or AE?

 

[Eki Halkka]

OK I see, I downloaded the PSD. Know how can you do this is Color or AE?

AE would be more or less exactly the same as photoshop - i need to run again, but ican make a sample comp later.

 

[Lauri Kettunen]

Halsu, great example!

 

[Uli Plank]

Know how can you do this is Color or AE?

I'm sure you can do it in Color too, the necessary channel ops are in the FX room. I'll try as soon as I find some time.

 

[Eki Halkka]

i can make a sample comp later.

Here you go:
http://eki.pp.fi/digivideo/N2D/D2N.zip

It's a third variation of the theme, as far as color correction goes (i didn't copy the settings, just eyeballed as usual). I used AE7 for backwards compatibility.

I made all modifications as adjustment layers, so it should be easy to toggle them on and off to see what affects what and how.

PS. remember that this is not an one-size-fits-all automatic procedure - the results will vary a lot depending on source material, and the settings will need to be tweaked a lot on shot-per-shot basis.

 

[Edmundo Díaz]

I agree with "gdv", Shoot "with" the sun and not "against" it. Try to get the bluest and cleanest sky possible. It's very different feel at night the contrast that the sun prints during the day, if we look at the scene in the way of light and to avoid the over-exposed sky, we can expect a good result. Underexpo can raise the noise level and not be required. In any case, I recommend the use of polarizing as a good kill-shine, despite working in a limited angle with the sun behind the camera.

 

[Kim Frank]

This is my first post, so please don't get me wrong...
Eki I tried your way, but I think by cutting the blues in the Channel mixer you are also loosing Contrast.
The Charakters Face in your versions always gets washed out.
Look at the last two pictures you posted with and without.
As far as I know, correct me if Im wrong, most of the Contrast in a picture is in the blue Channel. So:
Steeling blue channel=steeling contrast
I just made a screenshot of the original you posted and played around in Photoshop:

I think if you have the chance to shoot DFN against blue sky, why not jusing a colorkey to mask the sky and darken it a bit with Curves. Then do the overall darkening and grading. This way you can really make the sky black (if you want to) and its very easy to do in AE.
I think even a blown out, white sky should do the job with a louminance Key if nothing else in the picture (The Location, the subject) is clipped to white.
Ill give it a try...