View source for VLC HowTo/Adjust image settings

{{howto|adjust image settings including brightness and contrast|nosort=yes}}
{{see also|Documentation:Video and Audio Filters}}

== Graphical ==
Graphical approaches are the easiest but also the most variable because you have to look in different places depending on your [[interface]]. What this approach will do is globally change the hue, brightness, contrast, saturation or gamma for ''every'' video you play in VLC, perhaps for color-correction purposes. If you want to play a single video with different image settings, you should look at the [[command-line]] approach.

Older versions of VLC required different steps (VLC versions <= 0.9.0 used [[wxWidgets Interface]]).
'''Modern VLC installations for Windows and Linux use [[Qt interface|Qt]], Mac installations use the OS X interface.'''

=== Qt Interface ===
# In the menu bar, select "Tools" and then "Effects and Filters".
# Select the "Video Effects" tab and then "Essential" subtab.
# Tick the "Image adjust" checkbox and move the slider for the setting you want to change.
# Hue, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, and Gamma may be adjusted.
Changes take effect immediately for every video.

=== OS X Interface ===
# Go to the "Extended controls" panel.
# Select the "Video" section and then "Adjust Image" subtab.
# Tick the "Enable" checkbox and move the slider for the setting you want to change.
# Hue, Contrast, Brightness, Saturation, Gamma, Opaqueness may be adjusted.

== Command-line ==
A command-line approach will run VLC with adjusted hue, brightness, contrast, saturation or gamma for ''one session'' (the adjustments will not be preserved later). To learn how to get a command-line, see [[command-line interface]].

The module you will be working with is [[Documentation:Modules/adjust|adjust]]. As given by <code>vlc --module adjust</code>:
<pre>
      --contrast <float [0.000000 .. 2.000000]> 
                                 Image contrast (0-2)
      --brightness <float [0.000000 .. 2.000000]> 
                                 Image brightness (0-2)
      --hue <float [-180.000000 .. 180.000000]> 
                                 Image hue (-180..180)
      --saturation <float [0.000000 .. 3.000000]> 
                                 Image saturation (0-3)
      --gamma <float [0.010000 .. 10.000000]> 
                                 Image gamma (0-10)
      --brightness-threshold, --no-brightness-threshold 
                                 Brightness threshold
                                 (default disabled)
</pre>
The defaults are 1.0 for contrast and brightness, 0 for hue, 1.5 for saturation, 1 for gamma.

You can make a video (or still image) 10% brighter with:
 vlc --video-filter adjust --brightness 1.1 <file>
and make a video (or still image) black-and-white with:
 vlc --video-filter adjust --saturation 0 <file>
And this works too:
 vlc --brightness 1.1 <file>
 vlc --saturation 0 <file>

=== Permanent changes ===
You cannot save your preference for adjusted image settings with VLC (VLC doesn't seem to have any field that "remembers" your preferences).

You can, potentially, stream the video through a filter using the above method to an output file, and overwrite the original.

In other words, to make foo.ogv 10% brighter you adjust foo.ogv:
 vlc --video-filter adjust --brightness 1.1 foo.ogv
And then save the result into foo.ogv.tmp (sorry, I don't have a command line for this), saving over foo.ogv.

Now when you play foo.ogv the video will be brighter.

{{VSG}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Image}}