Color Correction Fundamentals

[TheRoadKiller]

I'm editing a feature film and had a meeting with the other assistant editors yesterday. It seems they had a different idea of how CC should be used than what I've known. I'll explain our two theories, and I'm wondering which one is more professional.

SO say we both edited the same shot, which has a very redish hue and highlights.

I would apply a 3 way CC and balance everything to the proper highlights, mids, and shadows. Then, I would apply another 3 way CC and alter the colors and raise the contrast. I would do the same thing in the program Color, using the secondaries to adjust the colors.

The other editor would apply one 3 way CC filter and strictly only one 3 way cc. He would then adjust the colors to add color and contrast, and would adjust the colors based on the colors he thought looked good for the scene, in comparison to my technique of using the first CC to simply get the correct values. If he used Color, he wouldn't use any secondary Color Correction, just the first tab and maybe apply a filter like film grain.


So, I'm a bit confused. The argument he made was that second layers of Color Correction blurred the pixels, which you don't want to do. But if 2nd CC's blur the pixels, then why are their 4 tabs of the 3way CC in the Color app? Which theory is correct, or are we both a bit off?

 

[NoahK]

Hehe- no it doesn't "blur the pixels." That's a kinda tech sounding argument to get around what sounds like you know more about good color correction than your friend there. But at the end of the day- whose look does the client prefer?

Noah

 

[yoclay]

I'm editing a feature film and had a meeting with the other assistant editors yesterday. It seems they had a different idea of how CC should be used than what I've known. I'll explain our two theories, and I'm wondering which one is more professional.

SO say we both edited the same shot, which has a very redish hue and highlights.

I would apply a 3 way CC and balance everything to the proper highlights, mids, and shadows. Then, I would apply another 3 way CC and alter the colors and raise the contrast. I would do the same thing in the program Color, using the secondaries to adjust the colors.

The other editor would apply one 3 way CC filter and strictly only one 3 way cc. He would then adjust the colors to add color and contrast, and would adjust the colors based on the colors he thought looked good for the scene, in comparison to my technique of using the first CC to simply get the correct values. If he used Color, he wouldn't use any secondary Color Correction, just the first tab and maybe apply a filter like film grain.


So, I'm a bit confused. The argument he made was that second layers of Color Correction blurred the pixels, which you don't want to do. But if 2nd CC's blur the pixels, then why are their 4 tabs of the 3way CC in the Color app? Which theory is correct, or are we both a bit off?

The Color workflow is designed a bit differently. The primary-in room is for your first corrections, primarily contrast, white and black points and general color corrections based on your scopes. As contrast will affect color and create shifts, you need to lay this first aspect down before moving on. The secondaries are for isolated corrections, often using garbage masks (vignetting an HSL selection to individually correct it), grain, blur, etc. are added to these 2 previous rooms in the FX room with nodes, and then finally a general compensating correction is made to the whole shebang in Primary Outs. This latter is also good for returning to make final adjustments based on a clients requests after viewing.

Secondaries do not automatically blur pixels, unless of course you want to do that.

The Color workflow is cumulative, meaning that it will work on top of the the corrections already made in the previous rooms. So you build your grade in stages (rooms), unlike Davinci where the order can be constructed in any way you want. The only exception to this is HSL selection which will only select values from the original source image, you cannot isolate values further on top like in Photoshop using the + or - key when selecting.

Correcting in your original editing application is more for quick general CC work, Apple Color becomes more important if you are moving into grading (stylizing your work). The process is also non-destructive, therefore your source image remains unaltered and an XML is applied on top of it.

 

[TheRoadKiller]

The Color workflow is designed a bit differently. The primary-in room is for your first corrections, primarily contrast, white and black points and general color corrections based on your scopes. As contrast will affect color and create shifts, you need to lay this first aspect down before moving on. The secondaries are for isolated corrections, often using garbage masks (vignetting an HSL selection to individually correct it), grain, blur, etc. are added to these 2 previous rooms in the FX room with nodes, and then finally a general compensating correction is made to the whole shebang in Primary Outs. This latter is also good for returning to make final adjustments based on a clients requests after viewing.

Secondaries do not automatically blur pixels, unless of course you want to do that.

The Color workflow is cumulative, meaning that it will work on top of the the corrections already made in the previous rooms. So you build your grade in stages (rooms), unlike Davinci where the order can be constructed in any way you want. The only exception to this is HSL selection which will only select values from the original source image, you cannot isolate values further on top like in Photoshop using the + or - key when selecting.

Correcting in your original editing application is more for quick general CC work, Apple Color becomes more important if you are moving into grading (stylizing your work). The process is also non-destructive, therefore your source image remains unaltered and an XML is applied on top of it.

That sounds good. Is CC and grading in FCP also non-destructive? Yeah, I learned that the contrast should be adjusted first, and then in the Primary I adjust to balance the RGB using the scopes in Color. So now, If I want to change the colors from the original, the primary out is the best way to apply grades? Could you change the colors using secondary and then change them again in out? Like if I wanted to make the highlights a little warmer, but then I also wanted to make everything blue for day for night or something.

Also, I'm working with the HVX200 1080/24pa mode, I heard that it's a good idea to change the DVCPRO HD to apple pro res 10 bit when sending the sequence from color back to Final Cut Pro. Is that a good idea or not nesc.? Thanks