Feel a bit stupid asking this question but in colour correction programmes there are adjustments for Highlights, Midtones and Shadows. A photo or video is 2D so what do these apply to and which is which?
Harry :confused: :confused:
Stills are spatially 2d (h and w), but are colorimetrically 3d (r g and b, or H L S, or Y U V etc) as well. Video has a temporal dimension as well as that, so is 6-dimensional, stills are 5-dimensional*.
Simply, Highlights means bright parts, near white, Shadows means stuff near black, Midtones mean stuff in the middle. Pretty much what you'd expect.
*I usually think of colour as being 77-dimensional, meaning a separate dimension for each 5nm-wide wavelength group from 380 to 760nm, but video and film does a iso-meric to meta-meric conversion, to shrink it to 3-dimensions. It works provided you have normal colour vision. But I digress..... :D
Best bits of Match of the day, a Punk group and Cliff Richard.;)
Or
White or Bright pixels (often sky), mid tones? and dark.. oh boll*x Alans beaten me...
You gotta be quick 'round here :D
Some colour correctors that have independant black, mid and white adjustment such as exists in Edius can be used not only to adjust colours in those specific areas but also the luma level (contrast) so that black crush or stretch can be applied, or mids boosted without burning out whites, etc and of course to legalise peak whites in a more refined way that simply throwing a clamp on and just clipping blacks & whites.
Previously I would have used YUV curves for this task in conjunction with waveform/vectorscope but these days I prefer to do it with Edius's "White Balance" tool which to my mind is not well named at all since it does all these things and much much more.
I suppose these tools will be in most decent NLE's these days.
Thanks folks for the enlightening replies. Now I know that I am not stupid but that I am technically deficient. :o
Harry
I agree about Edius' capabilities, very impressive once you get to grips with it.
You can get a very practical idea from still photography software like Photoshop, in particular the levels adjustment and the corresponding histogram
You can get a very practical idea from still photography software like Photoshop, in particular the levels adjustment and the corresponding histogram
Many stills and video cameras now display histogram of levels, so for those not used to seeing them, after experimenting with likes of photoshop 'levels', it can improve your art at source by checking your shots..... so it's not just a pointless gizmo for the geeks.;)