I went on a fall hike last weekend and, as usual, took way too many videos. The scenery looked amazing in person. Tons of red and orange leaves, mountain views, little streams, everything you’d expect from a fall hike.
Then I got home and watched the footage on my laptop… and yeah, it was kinda disappointing lol.
A lot of the clips were darker than I remembered, especially the ones under the trees. There was also some noticeable noise, and the footage I shot while walking was pretty shaky. Some of the leaves and mountain details just looked soft too. It looked fine on my phone, but definitely not as good on a bigger screen.
I played around with the exposure, contrast, and colors first. That helped with the darker clips, but I still wasn’t happy with some of the footage. I didn’t want to overdo the sharpness either because the leaves started looking really unnatural.
So I decided to try HitPaw VikPea AI Video Enhancer on a few of the worst clips. I mainly tested the Stabilize Model for the walking shots and the Denoise options for the darker footage. I also tried upscaling one of my 1080p clips, and I was honestly surprised by how much cleaner the small details looked.
What I liked was being able to preview the result before exporting. I could just test a few seconds, compare it with the original, and move on if it wasn’t making much of a difference.
I’m definitely not turning my phone footage into Hollywood footage or anything
, but it was enough to save some clips that I probably would have left out of my final video.
Now I’m putting together a little fall hiking reel with the best shots. Anyone else here edit their hiking footage after a trip? Curious what you guys use.