Auto color and temporal smoothing

[wsomersma2000]

Hi,
I shot some video underwater without any filters. The auto color tool seems to do the best job at somewhat restoring the natural colors but as the video plays the auto color adjustment varies and creats a flickering effect. I want to try the temporal smoothing but cant figure out how to set it. There doesnt seem to be a slider available that I've seen in screen shots of earlier versions.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Steve Grisetti]

Since Adobe moved the Auto Color effect to the Adjustments panel in version 11, I'm not sure you can do temporal smoothing anymore. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're doing.

Have you tried manually adjusting your colors or color temperatures rather than using the Auto Color tool?

It's very hard to give you any specific advise without seeing your footage, of course, and seeing how much correction it needs and how much this color correction varies over time.

A more powerful tool for fixing color is the Three-Way Color Corrector in the Video Effects. It would allow you to keyframe your various color correction levels over the course of your clip.

But, again, it's hard to say since I'm not sure what you're trying to correct. Do you have much experience with color correction?

[wsomersma2000]

I havnt been able to get results that are as nice as autocolor with the manual adjustments but I guess I will have to try those again.

The temporal smoothing is odd since it is still mentioned in the manual. If you use autocolor and then click on the text at the top of the clip, an autocolor (also motion and opacity) dialog box appears and you can select temporal smoothing but I cant find out what that does or how to change the values.

A sample video is on Vimeo with ID 54521944

It doesnt have much red as a result of being filmed underwater without filters or lights.

[Steve Grisetti]

Are you sure you're using version 11, wsomersma?

I can't find the Auto Color video effect. The only Auto Color I'm aware of is a setting on the Adjustments/Color panel.

[wsomersma2000]

I do have version 11.
I select the clip.
Then "adjust"
Then expand "Color"
"Auto Color" is button that I can use.

After that at the top of the clip is the name of the clip. Followed by Opacity:Opacity with a small triangle. If I click on the triangle a box appears with motion, opacity and auto color. If I select aoto color, one of the options is "temporal smoothing". I can select it but it doesnt seem to do anything.

[Steve Grisetti]

It sounds like you're working on hybrid effect -- Auto Color isn't quite an effect (so you can't adjust it in the Applied Effects panel) and it's not entirely an adjustment either. So you're not going to be able to adjust temporal smoothing for it. (Well, you CAN. But it involves adding keyframes on the timeline -- and it's probably not going to be the adjustment you're looking for. Basically, when you set the drop-down menu on your clip to Auto Color/Temporal Smoothing, the horizontal line that goes through the clip is your Temporal Smoothing level -- which you can raise, lower or keyframe.)

As I said, I think in version 11, you'll be much better off using a Video Effect (in particular, the Three-Way Color Corrector) or a manually applied Adjustment rather than Auto Color. Though, as I said, it's hard to be specific since I can't see your video and I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to do.

[wsomersma2000]

Thanks Steve. I did spend some more time with manual color adjustments and came up with some pretty nice results. Mostly by boosting up the red in the video.

[Steve Grisetti]

Great news, wsomersma!

[RJ Johnston]

You can gain access to "Auto Color - Temporal Smoothing" by selecting that item from the drop-down list on the clip on the timeline. I haven't had time to see if it actually has any effect. You need to be keyframming the "Color" adjustment settings, after which "Auto Color" properties will be populated in the drop-down list.

Temporal Smoothing.jpg