Despite 360 camera manufacturers are breaking the limits to get higher dynamic range,
some light conditions are still challenging for most of the devices nowadays.
This time I show you my tricks how I fix the blown out skies in post-production.
A clear sunny day is the best
for shooting in 360 outdoors,
but sometimes we can’t schedule shooting like this, waiting for the ideal weather conditions.
Anyhow, a clear blue sky with a small Sun spot looks the best on the screen.
Or when it’s totally cloudy
We can also have nice exposure setups
with an evenly cloudy sky
without having strong shadows on the ground.
But one of the worst situations is a sunny sky with soft clouds come and go.
The thin clouds increase the bright area in the sky, just like a softbox in front of a spotlight.
And as the Sun shines through the cloudcracks it’s getting even worse.
In such a case a huge part of the sky can be blown out.
It can be quite disturbing, but the point is that it ruins the atmosphere of the scene
grabbing too much attention
to that particular part of the 360 video.
So I found out a solution
which works fine in many cases
Of course not in every single case. But I show you a couple of them.
First here you can see
this rowing video shot with One X
You might say, it’s okay, with a great dynamic range,
no strong lights,
but let me show you the original footage.
Here you can see how the Sun looks like straight out of the camera.
There’s a big blind spot in the sky, and switching to 360 preview it’s even more noticeable.
Actually most of the sky is totally blown out in the main direction of our 360 space.
But let's see another example.
It seems like a nice balanced shot for the first sight.
We can definitely see the Sun and the reflection of the highlights on the water surface.
And it looks quite natural.
But here is the same scene before post production.
It’s almost the same situation like before.
The clouds act like a huge softbox in front of Sun, making the area of the highlights so huge.
In such cases I try to correct these problems and not to hide them completely.
I mean, having a small overexposed spot around the sun is always natural.
I only want to hide that “softbox” effect.
Switching between before and after,
the correction is quite flashy.
But I think, for the first time you couldn’t see it so clearly,
and in 360, the manipulation is not noticeable at all.
There are only two important steps to have such a result:
I have to isolate and mask out the effected part of the sky, then to replace it smoothly.
First I duplicate the video and copy it right above the original footage.
Then I draw a rough mask around the Sun with quite a big mask feather.
After that I’m searching for a plugin, called “Offset”.
Modifying the first attribute
I can shift the image left or right.
Of course, in this case, I can see it moving only inside the mask I created.
And now I have to search for the best clouds to replace the blown out area with.
The point is that the clouds on the upper layer are also moving with the camera,
so it won’t be a static mask,
and it looks more natural this way.
I have to be careful to mask out the trees on the horizon
and be sure that there are no trees in front of the clouds on the new layer.
But as you can see, in such an easy case a simple round mask is enough.
But let’s see another example, when we have to play around with the mask.
I start the same way, duplicating the video and drawing a mask around the brightest area on the top layer.
This time I have to be careful with the plants and other objects, so I modify the shape of the mask.
Then I apply the Offset plugin and search for the best clouds again.
It would be unnatural if I hide all bright area, so I just correct it a little bit.
I can try setting up lower opacity, or playing around with blend modes.
In this case I prefer the Darken mode.
Even more I can blend this part better with some color grading.
I add Colorista to this layer, but of course you can use Lumetry colors or simple curves, too,
to lighten up these dark clouds and match them better to the image.
As you can see, the final result looks quite natural, especially looking at the reflexion on the water.
I don’t hide the Sun at all;
I just bring some details to that area.
Then if you have more complex moving shots, you can play around with animating the mask.
In this case the Sun is quite near the ground, so it would be harder to hide it so much.
On the other hand, I have to pay attention to the reflections on the water.
First I duplicate the layer and create a mask,
First I duplicate the layer and create a mask
and then I apply the Offset plugin and move the clouds over the affected area.
This time we have to play around with the shape of the mask again,
and as you can see, now we have an object in front of the Sun.
A pylon crosses the highlighted area.
So besides drawing a tricky mask,
we have to animate it a little bit.
At least, if we want to keep that pylon on its place.
Another option is to mask it totally out, but now, I want to keep the scene as natural as possible,
so I draw and animate a mask around that pylon, using keyframes.
Fortunately, I don’t need so much keypoints.
I only create two of them:
one on the begging and another one when the pylon stands right in front of the Sun.
Then finally, maybe I make the mask a little bit smaller, keeping the sky a little bit more natural.
This way it looks fine.
It’s not an extreme sky replacement, but finally I got rid of the ugly white area above the Sun.
So here you can see the first and easiest example before and after.
Here is the second one
And finally here you can see the third one with a little bit tricky and animated mask.
I hope you liked these small tips, and you will use them to make better 360 contents
And if you liked this video, please thumbs up,
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See you soon guys
