The Wonders of Color Correction with Kdenlive.
When I started making videos I had no concept of color correction, and it wasn't something I even thought of.
Partially because the majority of my video isn't recorded with a lens/sensor.
This footage is way too orange or red.
Before I experimented with color correction I'd have probably just given up for the night, and re-recorded it another time with better lighting/color.
But here is what we can do with Kdenlive:
The only tool being used here is Lift/Gamma/Gain.
Basically we're lifting the deep blues, really lifting the Gamma more in the direction of teal/green, and then moderately increasing the gain slightly in the neutral/blue.
The result is footage that is still usable, and I think has a little bit of style.
Truthfully I should have had brighter lighting.
Cameras: Logitech C922-Pro Stream to Hero 8 to Pixel 7
In the beginning of making my videos the only camera I had to work with was my Logitech 922-Pro webcam. Even with 1080p the video quality isn't worth it really. I ended up getting a GoPro Hero 8, and a bunch of overpriced gear tied to their products which I kind of regret now.
The biggest drawback: GoPro's batteries get hot and expand. And then they changed them for the Hero 9. Not to mention the footage from the GoPro results in huge files.
But the GoPro footage was the first I ever did color work on.
If you're recording yourself you NEED to be able to the shot, or it's gambling.
With the Hero 8 I bought their Media-Mod for mounting the other overpriced accessories, and the flip up camera so I could see myself while filming.
And all the while I had Android phones with decent cameras, but the selfie-cams are not the same quality as the main phone camera.
Droidcam OBS
This was the game-changer.
An Android app AND plug-in for OBS Studio that lets you use either camera on your phone as a video source in OBS Studio.
Meaning I can see what I'm recording, get better quality, AND much smaller video file sizes because they're being encoded through OBS.
On top of that, OBS is recording my studio microphone as the audio track.
With GoPro I Dreaded Recording The Video/Dialogue intro/outros
When I would record with the GoPro I had to also have the computer recording audio .wav files via Ocen-Audio.
Then add the GoPro's audio-video files into my project and sync them up with the studio-quality audio recordings.
Even worse: The GoPro & computer would end up drifting out of sync.
I'm not sure exactly which one is at fault.
The GoPro's huge files are split up into 4GB files on the SD-card's file system. That could be the culprit.
Meaning you couldn't just align the audio waves and be done with it.
You'd have to determine when they went out of sync, and do a cut and re-sync those smaller segments.
This meant a Video track with it's audio track, and then the high-quality audio track. Cutting those into chunks lined up, and grouped together.
And THEN muting the one track and doing all of the actual editing where you're removing all of the dead air or worthless takes.
So using the GoPro was not only a waste of money, but it generated hours of frustration and extra work.
That resulted in dreading doing the video recordings, and putting them off in favor of making most of the video just audio/graphics/recordings.
I honestly think the Chinese brand Insta360 probably puts GoPro to shame.
I'm super close to finished my next video.
I've worked on it for a week and a half.
It's currently 10 minutes long, or exactly 18,465 rendered frames
5 layers of video, and 2 layers of audio.
It's more of a grind than people think.
I should have done a channel about politics, or games or movies or something lol.
I've not gone too far down the video rabbit hole. I know you can spend a lot on cameras and lights. My camera is fairly crap and I've had issues with audio sync. I need to play with OBS Studio as it may let me do multiple cameras for drum videos. There new PC should have the horsepower. The open source tools are pretty good.
Yes, and I should mention that my Logitech C922 camera CAN give a good picture but you need a ton of light.
Oh also, the more powerful computer will definitely help.
OBS can be demanding on hardware.
OBS pretty much revolutionized recording/broadcast. Most of the content creators we see today wouldn't exist without it.
It's like the software version of The Video Toaster which was built with the Amiga computer in the late 80's early 90's, but those cost over $10 grand and that was considered cheap if you were a TV station or a studio with an actual budget.
If you capture your camera(s) & audio into OBS Studio you shouldn't have any sync issues.
My issue was recording video(and audio just for lining up) on the GoPro with it's SD card. Because I couldn't find a way to get the GoPro's video onto my computer. There is a complicated way, but I've never attempted it.
Newer models may make that easier.
The way most people with a budget do video today is with a decent Canon/Sony/Nikon etc that also records video. And in THAT scenario you need a piece of hardware with a HDMI input, or a capture card.
Although there may be some models with a USB capable of video streaming.
I too am a video maker. Full amateur to be fair. I used to make tons of vids. Played with all kinds of styles. Never really got as far as color correction. My style has always been raw. I certainly know the under realized grind you speak of. I dont get too finicky any more…but i used to. For a while i was doing a lot of my sketch comedy ideas here on vid. It’s been a while since I’ve made one though. last year I’ve just been busy AF. But recently got free and so hope to get back to experimenting.
The brain is funny though…i have this self imposed guilt or hesitation feeling…like before i make anything new i need to clear out all these unfinished ideas eating up space on my hard drive. I keep threatening in my own brain to just do a bunch of raw video releases just to clear stuff out. But self flagellation hasn’t led to anything yet 😜
I use lumafusion to edit. i love the physical manipulation of it. all my edits are done with my fingers on the screen… some how it feels more real. i tried some other editing tools but i get lost in the drop downs and i just want to touch it and go. im just impatient. give me ease or give me death.