Quote: I am shooting footage of myself playing piano and harpsichord with multiple cameras.

The colors always come out extremely different whether I use my Canon HG21 camcorder, Pentax K-30 DSLR, Canon T3i DSLR, or Note 4 cell phone.

So far, I have refrained from producing any video with footage from multiple cameras, because the colors did not match.

The harpsichord can look red in one camera and pink in another, for example.

I tried the basic white balance, lighting, and color correction in PowerDirector, but was not successful in obtaining a color match.

Is this something that Color Director can help with ?

If so, is there a tutorial somewhere ? I just downloaded and installed CD3 so I just started my 30 day trial and would like to check if it's suitable.

Hi Julien

Using multiple cameras can be a bit of fun or a real trial, especially if you use several cameras made by different manufactures as they will record colours, well, err, differently!

Have you tried to do a manual white balance using the same white surface on all 3 of your cameras while they are setup for recording? This is the best way to reduce any difference to a minimum.

You'll find that ColorDirector will offer you far more control than the very basic controls offered in PowerDirector. (Please note that there are some plugins available within PowerDirector that can be used to help correct your video quality.)

You can use the "Eye Dropper" in ColorDirector as a starting point to visually match colours. I find that by picking a white, mid grey or even a black can narrow down great differences. BUT if your white balance is not correct on any particular camera, you will have trouble trying to get all the colours to match, it's best to try to reduce any difference before you start to record.

Check out the ColorDirector tuts in this link *ColorDirector Tutorials* for more help.

Good luck I just want to edit and make pictures, walk my dog and go fishing.

Quote:
Have you tried to do a manual white balance using the same white surface on all 3 of your cameras while they are setup for recording? This is the best way to reduce any difference to a minimum.

Yes, I have done the manual white balance on the same white surface. It's a no go.

The colors are still way off between the various cameras.

You'll find that ColorDirector will offer you far more control than the very basic controls offered in PowerDirector. (Please note that there are some plugins available within PowerDirector that can be used to help correct your video quality.)

The quality of the source videos isn't the problem. It's simply that they don't match in terms of colors, and because of the mismatch, I cannot use them together in the same project - it is very obvious that something is wrong at the first transition.

You can use the "Eye Dropper" in ColorDirector as a starting point to visually match colours. I find that by picking a white, mid grey or even a black can narrow down great differences. BUT if your white balance is not correct on any particular camera, you will have trouble trying to get all the colours to match, it's best to try to reduce any difference before you start to record.

I don't need "all" the colors to match, but the color of the largest surfaces - ie. my musical instrument - definitely has to be the same.

Check out the ColorDirector tuts in this link *ColorDirector Tutorials* for more help.

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Quote:

You can use the "Eye Dropper" in ColorDirector as a starting point to visually match colours. I find that by picking a white, mid grey or even a black can narrow down great differences. BUT if your white balance is not correct on any particular camera, you will have trouble trying to get all the colours to match, it's best to try to reduce any difference before you start to record.

FYI, tried that, and it was a complete disaster, for several reasons.

1) it "corrects" colors in different areas . For example, I'm wearing a red sweater which has the proper color in the video.

But the harpsichord also looks reddish when it should be pink.

Trying to change the red to pink affects not just the harpsichord , but many parts of the picture, especially the sweater.

2) compression artifacts show up like mad. Tons of dots on the surface of the harpsichord, which in fact should be a smooth gradient.

It is a non moving object - and camera is stationary. So, the surface really needs to be smooth. The color correction makes things quite awful. I don't think the "color replacement" tool is in any way the answer here .

3) also, there is no support for multiple clips in ColorDirector

Even when I put my two clips on the time line in PowerDirector, in different corners of the picture, ColorDirector can only "correct" one at a time. The other clip is not even shown anymore anymore. Thus, there is no other reference point to even try to match to. Is it really possible that ColorDirector is not up to the task of color matching 2 video clips ? MSI X99A Raider
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Hello Julien Pierre,

It's certainly a challenge when you're using multicam or trying to match clips from different cameras. There's no one-size-fits-all answer, except that once you determine the correct adjustment to make, it can be made on all the similar clips from the same camera.

Perhaps you could attach a short example clip from each camera, or even a screenshot from each showing the harpsichord and your jumper. Members may be able to offer suggestions.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

This is EXACTLY why I chose a manufacturer and stayed with it, Canon. A secondary benefit is they have the same menu system, makes things easier to set up, and alter under pressures of location shoots. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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Here is a very short clip where you can see two cameras at once.

The one in the top left is from a Canon HG21 camcorder, recorded in HD.

The one in the bottom right is from a Pentax K-30 DSLR, recorded at the lowest resolution.

On my calibrated screen, the harpsichord looks somewhat pink in the Canon clip, and more reddish/orangey in the Pentax video. It may not be hugely shocking since they are in small corners, but when the videos take the entire screen, it certainly is an issue.

The Pentax clip is a bit underexposed.

I have a bunch of other cameras that I mean to try. These two cameras are the ones I use the most.

I also have a Canon Rebel T3i with Magic lantern and a Galaxy Note 4 which allows 4K.

And currently I'm evaluating a Sony FDR-AX33 4K camcorder.

Interestingly, the Canon HG21 from 2008 and Sony FDR-AX33 from 2015 seem to have colors that are almost an acceptable match. I will put out a clip later.

I did not find that there is a brand-specific color look. For instance, the Canon Rebel T3i DSLR and Canon HG21 both shoot color very differently. Both have a lot of manual exposure controls that affect the colors - not just white balance.


For stills, I can shoot in RAW with the DSLRs and usually obtain the colors I want using a photo editing program - AfterShot is what I use.


But all of these cameras are consumer models, and all of them shoot video in 24 RGB bit color, not 36 bit or 42 bit RAW, making post-process color adjustments far more difficult.

I have attached two clips - one has had some correction applied, done in PowerDirector.

The other has had no correction - just files out of the camera.

I'm not happy with the level of correction I was able to to. ColorDirector really doesn't help with the matching, as it only shows a single clip at a time. MSI X99A Raider
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Here is an example of what I would consider an almost acceptable color match.

But the match is entirely accidental here - there is no color correction done at all in software, just files out of the camera.

In this clip, the cameras alternate.

This one has the Canon HG21 shooting me playing, and the Sony FDR-AX33 shooting the keyboard.

The Sony camcorder / tripod ended up in the Canon shot - doh.

This was just a quick recording test, though, as I just acquired the FDR-AX33 and I'm evaluating it. This camera was in full auto mode, and I haven't even done the manual white balance on it. Whereas the HG21 had the white balance settings done.

Editing took a lot longer. I stopped alternating cameras at 40 seconds. I am doing the alternate with keyframe opacity 0 or 100, which is painful and takes time rendering. There has got to be a better way.

FYI, the audio is separately recorded, not from either camera.

The rendering is in low bitrate 720p WMV. MSI X99A Raider
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All my multi-cam shoots are done with opacity settings, it makes changes very easy, in my experience. Cutting files can be a bug in the ointment. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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FYI, doing google searches, I found the following tutorial for Adobe Premier Pro to do color matching between clips of different cameras :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lumz0GXTtXE

This is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for.
Unfortunately, with the way PowerDirector 13 and ColorDirector 13 work, this type of matching is not possible, mainly because there is only one single preview window.
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Quote: All my multi-cam shoots are done with opacity settings, it makes changes very easy, in my experience. Cutting files can be a bug in the ointment.

Maybe so, but it makes the rendering unnecessarily quite slow.

I agree that cutting files is worse, if one wants to change the transition points later on.

What's really needed IMO is some global way to turn a whole track on/off at different times.

Or some optimization in the PD rendering code for opacity values of 0 / 100 ... MSI X99A Raider
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Julien,
because I fade in/out using the opacity there is 0-100, and in between, too.
I never really noticed extended render times because it's the only method I use, so no comparison.
This topic, tho, is not exactly the point of the thread, only peripherally.
Please note your 90mb attachment is not being looked at because it's...90mb!
OK, I downloaded it, looks fine to me, too. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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Quote: Julien,
because I fade in/out using the opacity there is 0-100, and in between, too.
I never really noticed extended render times because it's the only method I use, so no comparison.
This topic, tho, is not exactly the point of the thread, only peripherally.
Please note your 90mb attachment is not being looked at because it's...90mb!
OK, I downloaded it, looks fine to me, too.

Barry,

To put into evidence this extra rendering time issue, do the following.

1) take an H.264 clip and put it on your timeline

I took a 2min21sec 935,046 KB H.264 4K clip as a test

2) render it with SVRT to see that render time is very quick

It took 3 seconds for my clip.

3) render it again through another method.

I used the hardware encoder, and it took 1 minute and 7 seconds

4) use keyframe opacity to blank a single frame in the middle of the clip

This requires setting 3 keyframes - one with value 100, next frame with value 0, next frame with value 100

5) try to re-render the project with SVRT

You will see that SVRT is now disabled completely.

Ie. the SVRT is not so "intelligent" - PD13 should be able to use it for all but the one black frame, since almost all frames have opacity 100 and no other keyframe changes. But instead, it disables SVRT for all frames, and no longer even allows SVRT rendering to be selected.

6) try to re-render the project with the hardware encoder

For me, it took 4 minutes and 54 seconds.

That is more than 4.5x as long as in step 3), just because one frame is now black. MSI X99A Raider
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Because of alterations to the videos (color, white balance, audio, etc) SVRT is not always available to me. I get your point, though. HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
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Quote: Because of alterations to the videos (color, white balance, audio, etc) SVRT is not always available to me. I get your point, though.

It wasn't only SVRT that was disabled - hardware encoding also took 4.5x as long .

This wouldn't happen when cutting clips, only when using keyframe opacity.

I feel this is a fairly simple runtime optimization in the rendering engine, and I wish Cyberlink would implement it.

Anyway, back to the subject of the color matching ... I hope PowerDirector 14 and Color Director 4 allow for something better. MSI X99A Raider
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Hi Julien, Sorry I've been rather busy at work and couldn't find time to post but it looks as if you've moved the topic on.

I haven't down loaded your clips but would it be possible for you to upload to a YouTube channel and post the link?

Just a thought, is it the spatial highlights that are giving you the problems or, say skin colours in general? ( I'm thinking along the lines of selective masking to help to sort your problems !!)

If only PD had some of the colour correction tools available as in Adobe Premier it would help everyone. However there is a great finacial cost involved (which for me at the present time) I can't afford.

The colour matching video does show the way to match clips providing you can show 2 clips at the same time .... well... it is possable! I had to find away do it for one of my little productions. It is a bit of a pain but when nothing else works you gotta try. Yes, I used a split screen involving 2 video tracks, a bit clumsy but I couldn't do it any other way on my simple set up and it was just to get a match on the one clip! Using the video scopes is the best way to get an accurate match, again I can't aford a proper scope but New Blue FX does have a primitive scope in one of the FX. In fact you may be able to achive what you need by using some more of the New Blue plug ins. Failing that, have you tried using Curves and creating more of an "S" bend on the graph(s) as it is possible to tweak the highlights or shadows. A warning here as the controls are a bit coarse and you just need the merest "tweak" of the graph to drop the ( colour of ) highlights or shadows. Hopefully PD 14 will be able to handle this side of things more efficiently !

Sorry but the clock has beaten me once more. I may not abe able to reply for a day or two as I'm working away again.

Good luck I just want to edit and make pictures, walk my dog and go fishing.

Hello Julien, Barry & Kyle,

That's a really thorough tutorial and shows a great deal about how Julien's camera matching problem needs to be approached. Despite the interface & facility of CDR & PP are very different, much of the same process can be applied.

At the moment, all we have to go on are produced files in different formats. That's slightly inaccurate, because the colour information will be slightly different from the original.

Julien Pierre, would it be possible to attach either a short original sample from each camera or a screenshot of the same scene shot by both cameras? Then, we might get closer to a correction process.

One line in the tutorial that is a good guide is the one about "avoiding the jarring effect when switching beween cameras". I believe CDR will be able to do this.

PIX PIX YouTube channel

PIX,
I actually didn't see your last couple of replies.
You can download a project at
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqed2tWdF9TNWxiZ0E

which includes source material from 2 different cameras.
The project shows them side by side.

In this project, I didn't make any color adjustment at all. It is mostly the blue shirt that looks the most "off" to me between the 2 cameras. Exposure is also different - the one on the right is darker.

I tried doing manual white balance on both cameras, but the result was actually much worse, at least on the camera LCDs, so I switched back to AWB. Exposure is auto also.

I'm guessing it's possible to fix this, maybe in PowerDirector, I just haven't tried.

For a project with many more clips and many more color problems, you can download the source files at :

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqedkZBWXhqT3RuQUE
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqedTFvTXIzVXJncjA
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeQXVuOWZxX2t2V0U
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeWDFoUjJNd0Q4eXM
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeUG96cVRyblV6eW8
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeX1dLQUN6UW9LQlU
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeTDNkQXRwbzA4dUU
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeV2drSnlCc0h5S2c
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeQXZ2TS13SjNMUzA
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeUng5a0R4dmVaUnM
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqeckFkZzh0TkZDZG8
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B1eSSO_7gwqecjNTUml6cDZhUlE

Sorry that they aren't in a single ZIP, it is 2GB total.
I haven't gotten around to rendering an uploading this to Youtube in a single video yet - the problems would easily show in the transitions.
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Hello Julien Pierre,

Thank you for uploading the project files. I downloaded the first project (only) to work on & I believe CDR has given us (at least) a starting point.

The point you made about not being able to do a side-by-side comparison in CDR, in order to match clips from different cameras, is a valid one. I overcame that, partially, by opening a snapshot from the HD video in PhD to give me a reference point.

Adjustments were only made to the Sony 4K clip to bring it closer to the HD one. Here's a snapshot from your original project (top) and the adjusted clip (bottom).



I saved the adjustments as a CDR preset and uploaded to DirectorZone - http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/124826751 It's a beginning point. Once you apply it, switch to manual to see the adjustments made, though the illustration on DZ gives an idea (scroll down)

To put the CDR adjusted clip to the test, I produced it in a short project in PDR 14. You can download the produced file here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_yokCW6H_crUzNDcm9TRlNoZFE/view?usp=sharing

PIX PIX YouTube channel

Quote: Hello Julien Pierre,

Thank you for uploading the project files. I downloaded the first project (only) to work on & I believe CDR has given us (at least) a starting point.

The point you made about not being able to do a side-by-side comparison in CDR, in order to match clips from different cameras, is a valid one. I overcame that, partially, by opening a snapshot from the HD video in PhD to give me a reference point.

Adjustments were only made to the Sony 4K clip to bring it closer to the HD one. Here's a snapshot from your original project (top) and the adjusted clip (bottom).



I saved the adjustments as a CDR preset and uploaded to DirectorZone - http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/124826751 It's a beginning point. Once you apply it, switch to manual to see the adjustments made, though the illustration on DZ gives an idea (scroll down)

To put the CDR adjusted clip to the test, I produced it in a short project in PDR 14. You can download the produced file here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_yokCW6H_crUzNDcm9TRlNoZFE/view?usp=sharing

PIX

Nice one Pix, I decided NOT to download Julien's files as I felt they were too large for samples. I think you've achieved a good starting point. The 4k does look more natural with the HD having a slight warmer cast but pretty close from 2 different types of cameras.

Personaly I think I would have played with the lighting set up a bit more before shooting the video to try and create a bit more depth to the subject. I feel that the reflected light from the "off white" walls is adding a colour cast to the subject compounding problem with colour correcting/matching. I know this is a separate issue to what Julien first described but I feel it may be worth mentioning!.

Having said all that, I have no way of knowing if it were possible to achieve a different lighting set up or move the cameras as room to manoeuvre could well be an issue.

One way around showing 2 separate video tracks is to create a split screen on your time line. ( I have already mention this in my previous comment ) and use 2 video tracks in the timeline! It does work as I've had to use this scenario in previous productions.

Good luck Juilien on your work, you do appear to be a very accomplished pianist ( if that is the correct term?) and the short clip I've listened too sounds wonderful. I just want to edit and make pictures, walk my dog and go fishing.