Dark Scene correction without affecting other scenes.

[Mikenet82]

I'm new to Corel Videostudio x10 and wanted to know if there's a way to adjust the brightness of dark scenes without making the scenes that look good too bright. If Corel has something like keyframes to adjust dark sections that'd do but some of my old converted VHS videos have several parts that are too dark which would make editing each one very time-consuming. If there's a setting, filter, or addon that detects dark scenes and lets you adjust them while leaving the other scenes alone that would be ideal but I'll do each one manually if it's the only way.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Terfyn]

First you can increase the brightness of any one clip by highlighting the clip on the timeline and opening Options. Choose "color correction" and adjust the brightness in there.
But if the dark and bright sections are in one shot. Move the scrubber to the point where bright goes to dark and use the "split clip" or the scissors icon to cut the clip. Do the same at the end of the dark section. Repeat for all the affected sections. Now select each dark clip and apply the Brightness control as described above.
Cutting the new clips and adjusting the dark ones will not affect the flow of the original clip.

[MrJohnny]

Hi Mikenet82

In the X10 Ult edition there is an FX Effect NewBlue Essentials IV Day for Night. This may assist with the dark areas/clips isolated as suggested by Terfyn.

John

[Mikenet82]

Terfyn, it sounds like that would work fine, it'd be time-consuming, but it's a good start. I have a high attention to detail so if I selected a section of the clip to split it and isolate it that way I'd have to do the same for the surrounding areas of the dark part. That's because I want there to be a smooth transition from the original brightness setting to the brighter one. If the brightness or gamma suddenly changed by 10 points at (say the 5 minute mark), depending on how the scenes are laid out it could be very obvious there was an edit. If I use this approach I'll make several sections around the dark one with incremental brightness increases in each (if that makes sense). Unless there's something I'm missing and it can have an auto gradient effect somehow.

John, I'm gonna take a look at that, thanks for the additional tip.

If anyone knows of a filter that will detect the dark scenes and correct them according to how much each scene needs it (similar to a feature Powerdirector has) give me a holler, I have a lot of home videos to work on so I can improve as I go.

[Terfyn]

The Dark to Light filter will work for a complete clip. I tried it with my Ghost Train clip but it will need some experimentation to get it right. You can also use keyframes in this filter.
Using the split clip method you would need to cut the clip on the boundary between light and dark and then the change in brightness would become less visible. Again tried it with the clip.