Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

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4EvrYng

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Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSat Jun 03, 2023 1:41 am

I am trying to correct light falloff across the frame caused by lens vignetting and/or circular LED light within rectangular softbox. I’m looking for the best method/tool to do this.

I know I could try to use power windows but that is calling for manual guessing back and forth, it is assuming (I am guessing) certain falloff “curve, etc., so it might not work / it wouldn’t be bringing me to most natural looking results and/or doing it fastest.

What is the best tool / way to do this, please?
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSat Jun 03, 2023 3:04 am

Post a still frame as an example and we can venture a guess. But if you're trying to eliminate (say) a lens vignette, or uneven lighting, this is fraught with problems for a lot of reasons. It may be possible to "improve" the look, but it may be impossible to make bad lighting (or shall we say, lighting with "issues") perfect.
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4EvrYng

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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSat Jun 03, 2023 3:11 am

Marc Wielage wrote:Post a still frame as an example and we can venture a guess. But if you're trying to eliminate (say) a lens vignette, or uneven lighting, this is fraught with problems for a lot of reasons. It may be possible to "improve" the look, but it may be impossible to make bad lighting (or shall we say, lighting with "issues") perfect.

Unfortunately, I am looking to improve/eliminate lens vignette and/or uneven lighting and am not looking for solution for "one off" case but generic approach. In Photoshop I've been spoiled with various "radial/linear gradient filter" tools that have let me choose strength of filter along the curve, unfortunately I don't see anything similar for Resolve, power windows are rather ... basic.
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Uli Plank

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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSat Jun 03, 2023 5:08 am

While power windows may be 'basic' compared to what you are familiar with, they are good enough to compensate for lens vignetting in my experience.
Heck, we are often using them to introduce fake vignetting ;-)
Just save them to a power bin.

Compensation of uneven lighting can be much trickier, since you may have people or objects in the frame. You know about the inverse square rule, right?
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSat Jun 03, 2023 5:58 am

The correct way is to fix it before you hit record. Fixing things in post IMHO should never be the goal.

Light falls off at twice the square of the distance. The closer the light is the more powerful.

The other thing is if you have a scene that needs the whole frame evenly lit (Panel on a stage?) You're either needing one really big box or multiple lights. Often the edges of the frame aren't hurt by fall off. If anything it helps focus people on the lit part. Perfectly even light isn't that interesting. In other words light the important subject.

Think about mounting lights above. People might imply hair lights.

There are university level books on lighting. If my brain wasn't so off I'd remember the name of the classic text.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSat Jun 03, 2023 6:18 am

One of the best I know is "Die chinesische Sonne scheint immer von unten" (The Chinese sun always shines from below) by Achim Dunker. I don't know if it has ever been translated.

@Nick
Considering his questions about measuring fall-off I think he wants to find out about getting it right when shooting.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSat Jun 03, 2023 5:13 pm

Uli Plank wrote:While power windows may be 'basic' compared to what you are familiar with, they are good enough to compensate for lens vignetting in my experience.

I've tried power windows to correct for lens vignetting and while I do wish I had something more powerful I'm not claiming they aren't good enough to handle it. I just wish I had a way to handle it even more to my liking.

It is this ...

Uli Plank wrote:Compensation of uneven lighting can be much trickier, since you may have people or objects in the frame. You know about the inverse square rule, right?


... where I start having a challenge and really wish for more power/flexibility. In my train of thought I wish I could do same in Resolve for video as I can do in Photoshop for photo. Nothing, of course, is same as lighting the scene precisely from the get go but having that helped me save/improve on ones after the fact. I was in a way "relighting" the scene with tools that were very flexible. Pros rightfully cringe at thought of that but often it is good enough to make the difference for much less discerning viewer.

Hmmm... now that I said "relighting" ... should I take a look at Relight FX?
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSat Jun 03, 2023 5:21 pm

Nick2021 wrote:The correct way is to fix it before you hit record. Fixing things in post IMHO should never be the goal.

Both are absolutely true. However, that does not always happen and sometimes you need to try to do what you can. In turn there are two motivations behind my question: First, to learn what is going on so it can be avoided before one hits record. Second, to learn how it not being avoided before recording can be (somewhat) corrected after the fact.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSat Jun 03, 2023 10:30 pm

4EvrYng wrote:I've tried power windows to correct for lens vignetting and while I do wish I had something more powerful I'm not claiming they aren't good enough to handle it. I just wish I had a way to handle it even more to my liking.

There's a point where you may be hoping for too much. I don't know of any motion picture color program that can do what you're asking. Even in terms of VFX -- which can almost do anything -- there are time/money/learning curve issues that are almost insurmountable. Do you want to spend 2 weeks fixing a 1 minute shot? It could "theoretically" be done, but this is one of those things that (as Nick says above) would have been far better to fix on set.

A standard thing we always tell students is when in doubt, shoot tests first. That way, there are no surprises in post, and you'll be able to spend your time making good images better, rather than trying to salvage substandard images and major lighting problems.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 1:13 am

Marc Wielage wrote:There's a point where you may be hoping for too much. I don't know of any motion picture color program that can do what you're asking.

... as I often do :) :( But am I wrong to feel that even though no video editing software doesn't offer it at the moment there would still be a benefit to having "super" power windows?

Marc Wielage wrote:Do you want to spend 2 weeks fixing a 1 minute shot?

2 weeks? No. 20 minutes? Yes, if I care enough about that shot.

Marc Wielage wrote:... this is one of those things that (as Nick says above) would have been far better to fix on set. A standard thing we always tell students is when in doubt, shoot tests first. That way, there are no surprises in post, and you'll be able to spend your time making good images better, rather than trying to salvage substandard images and major lighting problems.

I can understand your and Nick's perspective as professionals. But many of people out there aren't in the same league nor position, don't work on sets, aren't in position to setup a shoot nor retake it. Only thing we can do when served a lemon is try to make lemonade little less bitter tasting.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 1:40 am

Don’t expect miracles from Relight FX. It can do a few nice things in day-for-night scenes, but it’s not capable of fixing bad lighting. The main problem are difficulties trying to separate foreground subjects and background, where it tends to produce halos.

Good lighting for a small scene doesn’t need a truckload of equipment. We have very light lamps with low power consumption for a decent price these days. And then, there are creative solutions, like preparing your own reflectors and negative fill plates. Go ahead and learn good lighting instead of trying to fix it in post.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 1:56 am

Uli Plank wrote:Good lighting for a small scene doesn’t need a truckload of equipment.

That is assuming I am always able to have any lighting gear with me while the truth is once on the road I will be way more often than not able to have absolutely none. I'm not anywhere near what you guys do, not even scaled down.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 2:05 am

Learning to recognize or see natural light the same as produced light was a main part of my early professional life.

Going to the potential subjects spot, looking for key/main light, fill lights, rim/edge lights, separation lights, background lights ... and if they weren't "there", changing subject location. Adding reflected light off anything handy including walls. Changing the direction the subjects faced.

But not just seeing where the various lights came from, learning to use a meter to match the film and get consistent repeatable results first time every time.

Flipping hard work but of course worth the hassle and totally necessary to get consistent results.

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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 2:11 am

4EvrYng wrote:I can understand your and Nick's perspective as professionals. But many of people out there aren't in the same league nor position, don't work on sets, aren't in position to setup a shoot nor retake it. Only thing we can do when served a lemon is try to make lemonade little less bitter tasting.

Actually, if you're an amateur, all you have is time. You'd be surprised how rapid the pace is on LA & NY commercial, TV, and film production, where they may well not have had time for proper tests (due to scheduling and budget issues), or they only had one day of prep and the tests were incomplete. But with students, or low-budget YouTube productions, or amateur shoots, you can take 3 days or a week or 2 weeks or a month to get it right the first time and stop the mistakes before they happen.

There's no reason students or other people learning can't learn the need to bracket exposures, take your time, experiment, try different things... and not assume that every mistake you make can be fixed in post. Often, all we can do in the final color process is take something from horrible and make it "barely acceptable," which is not a good compromise. If you expect more than that, you're going to be disappointed a lot of the time.

I have conversations with DPs all the time, and it's been a bone of contention for years: "how much can the DP 'bake' into the shot (like color filters, grads, vignettes, etc.)" vs. "how much should be done in post?" Top DPs often complain about losing too much control in post, where producers and directors change the photography and push it in unanticipated directions. If they apply the filters/vignettes/grads/etc. during production, they can't be changed... but the problem is, if it's wrong, now we can't fix it. So it's an ongoing discussion.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 2:11 am

rNeil H wrote:Learning to recognize or see natural light the same as produced light was a main part of my early professional life.

I'm not trying, nor am in position, to be professional like you guys are. All I am trying to do here is find a best way to correct light falloff in the frame of footage that has been already be taken. If that will help getting to the answer please pretend I won't be one taking the footage and will be handed over such footage to deal with.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 2:15 am

Uli Plank wrote:Don’t expect miracles from Relight FX. It can do a few nice things in day-for-night scenes, but it’s not capable of fixing bad lighting. The main problem are difficulties trying to separate foreground subjects and background, where it tends to produce halos. Good lighting for a small scene doesn’t need a truckload of equipment. We have very light lamps with low power consumption for a decent price these days. And then, there are creative solutions, like preparing your own reflectors and negative fill plates. Go ahead and learn good lighting instead of trying to fix it in post.

Very, very well-said, Uli. I've been on many sets in my time, and it's astonishing how great it looks just to the eye, right in front of the lens. The final look wasn't necessarily done in post -- all the heavy lifting was done by the DP, knowing exactly where to place each light and shadow. Or how to use natural light effectively.

I worked on a few shoots for the ASC as a volunteer, and I was shocked that on a few interviews with major big-name people (like Billy Friedkin and Haskell Wexler), the interviews were lit with just three lights: one soft light on the right (for fill), a small light on the front for an eyelight, and a backlight that also bounced back from the floor (with a white card) for a little soft fill. It was an amazingly-simple setup that took 15 minutes to do and looked like a million bucks on camera. They make it look easy, even with minimal lighting.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 2:30 am

Hopefully you'll be doing this for many years to come. It's difficult as noted to fix many things later, so you do the best quick fix possible now, and move on.

But you will shoot again, and each time, do some testing and measure your results. Eventually, you will learn to simply respond without having to take so much time to think a situation through.

And your work will improve dramatically. But over time.

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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 2:31 am

Thanks, Marc!
@Alexander
If you have no chance to influence the light at all, learn from the masters of nature photography. They studied light over the day, the changes of weather and even over the seasons for their location to get that one great shot. And then, all they had were some filters on the camera and a darkroom. Between this and a truckload of lighting equipment there is a very wide spectrum of creativity. Like, as already suggested above, placement of subject in relation to the environment and natural reflectors.

The tools we have today are far superior to those darkrooms, but at their best they can make a good shot look impressive. A shot with mediocre lighting can only be made acceptable at best, but never great.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 7:42 pm

Uli Plank wrote:Thanks, Marc!
@Alexander
If you have no chance to influence the light at all, learn from the masters of nature photography. They studied light over the day, the changes of weather and even over the seasons for their location to get that one great shot.

IF and WHEN I'm able to take time and wait for the perfect situation then I do. But my question is not about such times. It is about such times when I'm not able to. Don't think Ansel Adams, nor Henri-Cartier Bresson, think Joe Alexander Schmoe that took a passing by snapshot, won't be coming back there ever again in his life, knows you can't polish a t*rd into a Mona Lisa and is fine with that, all he is trying to do is put it into little bit nice wrapper. That is all I am trying to get an answer about in this thread, I don't know why thread can't stick to the topic.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostSun Jun 04, 2023 11:49 pm

I use power windows to do exactly what you are asking about and get perfect results every time. Use your eyes and the scopes to measure the effectiveness of your correction.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 12:34 am

4EvrYng wrote:
Marc Wielage wrote:There's a point where you may be hoping for too much. I don't know of any motion picture color program that can do what you're asking.

... as I often do :) :( But am I wrong to feel that even though no video editing software doesn't offer it at the moment there would still be a benefit to having "super" power windows?

Marc Wielage wrote:Do you want to spend 2 weeks fixing a 1 minute shot?

2 weeks? No. 20 minutes? Yes, if I care enough about that shot.

Marc Wielage wrote:... this is one of those things that (as Nick says above) would have been far better to fix on set. A standard thing we always tell students is when in doubt, shoot tests first. That way, there are no surprises in post, and you'll be able to spend your time making good images better, rather than trying to salvage substandard images and major lighting problems.

I can understand your and Nick's perspective as professionals. But many of people out there aren't in the same league nor position, don't work on sets, aren't in position to setup a shoot nor retake it. Only thing we can do when served a lemon is try to make lemonade little less bitter tasting.


That's why you do test shots first. Don't wait until the day of to shoot them either.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 1:00 am

Peter Cave wrote:I use power windows to do exactly what you are asking about and get perfect results every time. Use your eyes and the scopes to measure the effectiveness of your correction.

I'm not as skilled as you, I'm not able to get perfect results just by using power windows. As I think about it, does any real word vignetting ever follow linear falloff or they are curve like and none of them is ever identical to each other?
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 1:07 am

ShaheedMalik wrote:That's why you do test shots first. Don't wait until the day of to shoot them either.

It seems you missed part where I said "took a passing by snapshot, won't be coming back there ever again in his life". Imagine one is a part of a tourist group on a cruise ship visiting something for the very first and only time. He can't pick schedule to suit when best lighting will be, nor he can swim to location ahead of the schedule to take test shots, nor he can separate himself from the group, whenever they will be somewhere is when he will be somewhere and where the dice lands is where it will stay so he will have to make the best of it.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 1:48 am

Peter Cave wrote:I use power windows to do exactly what you are asking about and get perfect results every time. Use your eyes and the scopes to measure the effectiveness of your correction.

I'd say it might not be perfect every time if somebody baked in a vignette (either through actual lighting or a glass filter on the lens), but we could certainly get rid of more than 50% of the problem.

In the event of real trouble, I'll sometimes spend time convincing the client that what they shot is not that bad, and just to embrace the look and accept it as a perfectly fine visual choice. That's easier than trying to fix an extreme screw-up on set.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 2:25 am

Marc Wielage wrote:In the event of real trouble, I'll sometimes spend time convincing the client that what they shot is not that bad, and just to embrace the look and accept it as a perfectly fine visual choice.

FWIW I often feel that I'm my own worst critic/enemy as something I obsess over likely wouldn't be cared about by somebody that is just viewing content, they would accept it as-is, as if it was meant to be that way.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 2:32 am

Technical shortcomings can often be used as a creative choice. Even someone with a good budget may choose a vignetting lens to steer attention of the viewer.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 3:26 am

Uli Plank wrote:Technical shortcomings can often be used as a creative choice. Even someone with a good budget may choose a vignetting lens to steer attention of the viewer.

Oh, I don't have problem with "technical shortcomings", like vignetting, IF that is what I meant to accomplish and I accomplished exactly what I wanted/envisioned.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 3:47 am

4EvrYng wrote:
Peter Cave wrote:I use power windows to do exactly what you are asking about and get perfect results every time. Use your eyes and the scopes to measure the effectiveness of your correction.

I'm not as skilled as you, I'm not able to get perfect results just by using power windows. As I think about it, does any real word vignetting ever follow linear falloff or they are curve like and none of them is ever identical to each other?


I use multiple windows to correct the shot so it looks good. It does not always need to be technically correct to create a pleasing image. It does not really need a lot of skill, just a bit of experimenting which will allow one to become very fast after a few attempts. Don't talk yourself out of it. You CAN get good at it quite quickly. A positive attitude is the best approach!
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 3:48 am

A circular ND filter on the lens. Specific for every lens and aperture.
Just kidding ;-)

A power window is the best method. With some practice it takes a minute or two to make vignetting invisible to the viewer.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 4:11 am

Uli Plank wrote:A circular ND filter on the lens. Specific for every lens and aperture.
Just kidding ;-)

Even better, I hear lens cap makes for most even exposure :shock: :o :lol:

Uli Plank wrote:A power window is the best method. With some practice it takes a minute or two to make vignetting invisible to the viewer.

I'm not Uli Plank, in my case it would take a month or two :)
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 4:32 am

Then stop testing cameras or lenses, start practicing grading, and in a month or two you'll be faster than me ;-)
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 5:48 am

4EvrYng wrote:
ShaheedMalik wrote:That's why you do test shots first. Don't wait until the day of to shoot them either.

It seems you missed part where I said "took a passing by snapshot, won't be coming back there ever again in his life". Imagine one is a part of a tourist group on a cruise ship visiting something for the very first and only time. He can't pick schedule to suit when best lighting will be, nor he can swim to location ahead of the schedule to take test shots, nor he can separate himself from the group, whenever they will be somewhere is when he will be somewhere and where the dice lands is where it will stay so he will have to make the best of it.


I think you missed the part where you take test shots. That way shots that only happen once, you are better at shooting them.

This tourist group had a softbox?

4EvrYng wrote:I am trying to correct light falloff across the frame caused by lens vignetting and/or circular LED light within rectangular softbox. I’m looking for the best method/tool to do this.


You'd be able to fix this if you do what people are recommending instead of going back in forth with them.
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Re: Best way to correct light falloff in the frame?

PostMon Jun 05, 2023 8:39 am

You mentioned Cartier-Bresson. He was the master of the moment, and he had nothing but his rangefinder Leica. Do you think he ever measured light falloff in the frame? And do you think he was born as a master?

Go out shooting in every spare minute. Then look at your shots and delete 99% of them. You will get there. Oh, and it'll help to visit a museum and look at classical paintings too.
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