Is there an easy way to adjust color and brightnessof video in blender, and are there plug-ins that allow you to do this. Can this be done on the actual video or must it be done in 3-D. I’m making a music video in the video I shot happens to be a bit too dark, and need some color correction. what would be the correct and or easiest way to do this.
Well, there’s basically two options, one of which is to use the VSE and the other the Nodes editor.
The former involves elementary stuff and I would say that it provides a quick and dirty trick. You can adjust the brightness using the filters panel (F10–>sequencer buttons). As for the color correction, I’m not aware of any available plug-ins (at least none is listed on the wiki effects page and the plug-ins resource page).
The latter offers more options and, consequently, more control over both the brightness and the color correction process. Start here:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Composite_Nodes/Types/Color
‘Brightening up’ under exposed video will make the noise in the dark area’s more visible so you may not like the results.
If you can re shoot the video and get a decent exposure, far better to expose to the right and darken in post.
Curves can be a bit unwieldy, the 3 way colour balance filter in the VSE or in Nodes and VSE if you use 2.5 may be more comfortable. It works on the Lift Gamma Gain principle.
There are ways you could try to limit the damage, maybe mask the areas you don’t want to affect and then apply the ‘correction’ to the unmasked areas only with a wide feathering.
If your subject moves about the frame perhaps make a key framed mask to move with the subject.
Thank you for your adviceI have tried the node editor but I don’t believe that I have done it correctly, I had an input node I said that to video told it to render a few frames then I connected it to a RGB node and a viewer node. Nothing showed up in the viewer. I repeated the process and change the RGB to a node VSE node still no image. I must be missing something, the only thing I can think of is that I did not render the video completely first I just put all the clips together and made a meta of it.
In the viewer node? or UV Image Editor, have you got it set to Viewer Node or Render Result?
Have you got the Image node set to movie, does the image node preview the video?
If not are you sure the movie is loading? What does the terminal/console say?
I repeated the process and change the RGB to a node VSE node still no image.
Lost me there. 
I must be missing something, the only thing I can think of is that I did not render the video completely first I just put all the clips together and made a meta of it.
Have you got ‘Do Composite’ activated. Nodes won’t render out without that.
I am completely new to thisand don’t know the proper steps or sequence.:spin:I’ve had the program for about two weeks and have used it maybe about five times so I’m not sure where to go or what to do yet. I am reading articles and looking at videos on YouTube but there is no YouTube stuff dealing with that and I don’t possess enough good working knowledge of the program for the articles that I read to make complete sense to me. Unfortunately I need a step-by-step walk-through.:oBut I’m going to go back and try and figure it out again. Thank you for your help
This seems strange to me but it may not seem strange to youI can go to the individual clips where I had them saved with a node editor connected to another node then a viewer node and see what I’m doing. That works fine, but I can’t get the entire sequence from the sequencer to the input node so I can effective with the other nodes. This may not be a bad thing in the long run, because a couple of the clips need a different amount of brightness and contrast. So I guess I will try it that way. Hopefully that works I haven’t actually done it yet. If there is an easier way, just let me know.
Its not you, its blender. The VSE is the end of the render chain, so 3D comes first, nodes second then vse last. Soooo you cant feed sequencer into comp nodes. but you can feed scenes into nodes then feed compositor nodes into VSE.
But for overall sequence lift you will have to render out VSE seq first, then bring that back in for Node goodness.
That’s what I was thinkingbecause I was able to see the individual shots, but not the entire sequence. With the individual shots even when I set it to movie I would see the first frame but could not get it to play the entire clip. Is that normal or am I doing something else incorrectly. One of the earlier post told me to render as do composite, I believe I did that but I will check when I go back into it later. Thank you for your help I truly appreciate it.
No render output node in sceenthis is the error message I’m getting as I’m trying to output the video sequence that I’ve made. How do I correct this little problem. Hopefully it is just a little problem. I am also confused by one thing I am able to load individual images and used the nodes to see them just fine and adjust them the way that I want. I can also load the video and see the first frame of it and adjust that just fine as well. What I can’t do is actually play the video, there doesn’t seem to be a play button. That in itself wouldn’t be a big issue, I just want to know if I’m not doing something correctly.
No play back as such just play the timeline from VSE (nothing similar in Nodes however). Nodes need a Comp out at the end or result.
Try setting up in the Compositer Movie Input then output to File. Using all your export as ffmpeg. I just rendered to scenes using the setup.
(Make sure you uncheck Sequencer on the Default page)