Dark SDR Video

[4K@60FPS]

Hello Selur,

I hope you are doing alright and have time to answer my question.

I want to convert normal Blu ray (NOT HDR JUST SDR) video content and add more colors, brightness to such films as "the Heat" and "the Last of the Mohicans" because they oroginally are very dark by default. I want to ask you: what is the best method to improve brightness, contrast and color vibracy for such films (They are slready in SDR)?

Thank you.

I hope you can answer.

All the best.

Regards

[Selur]

Hmm,... there is no general 'this is the best for everything'.
You probably will have to try what works best with your source.
Personally, I would probably:
a. if the source is too dark try whether I can boost the brightness using either Retinex (source needs to be cropped and you probably need to adjust the settings) and/or Levels(Gamma=...) and/or Tweak(Brightness=...).
b. saturation can be boosted through Tweak, GLSL Saturation and sometimes Grayworld
c. Using TimeCube and using a custom LUT (Hybrid does come with a 'color' subfolder which has some example LUTs) could also produce nice results.
d. You can also try the "HDR to SDR" filters
=> it always depends,..

Cu Selur

[4K@60FPS]

Thank you.

I will try different methods to see what works. Thank you.

[Selur]

Also adjust the settings of the HDR to SDR filters, there is no 'this is the way to color grade HDR to SDR' for this, settings should be adjusted per clip.

Cu Selur