Out in the field, you’ll often find yourself in a situation where the nicest-looking shot is extremely backlit. For example, an office interview scene with bright windows behind the subject can create a challenging shooting situation. The problem with strongly backlit shots is that they make it difficult for your audience to focus on what you want them to: your subject! Worse yet, you might not even realize how backlit your shot is until you begin the postproduction process.
This week, we’ll take a look at fixing a backlit shot from a recent music video shoot. Although it can seem that backlit footage is impossible to fix, we’ll show you some powerful tools and techniques to add to your toolkit that can help, including:
- Understanding what backlighting is
- Using scopes to verify your exposure, and detect a backlit shot
- Using Masks in Adobe SpeedGrade CC to compensate for backlighting
- Working with Tiffen’s Dfx plugins to relight and add texture to backgrounds
Be sure to check out this week’s episode so you’ll be prepared to fix any backlit shots that come up in your productions. And remember, each week’s episode is free for seven days, so invite your video and photography friends to check it out.