Colour & Colour Correction techniques

[ciencin]

I've been playing around with color correction to try getting different feels for shots, ie messing with curves and levels in AE, its easy enough to experiment with curves but is there tutorials on how to achieve best looks with them or how to create different film looks?

I seen pretty good color correction done with Magic Bullet preset but since its kind of pricey is there ways of getting similar looks without it?

Also what do they mean by "crushing blacks"?

Thanks

 

[bimdas]

a good way to learn how to do your own presets in curves and levels is to take screen grabs from different films and then try and match the colors with your own footage. If you break it down to shadow mids and highlights, it makes it easier. Its even easier if you color correct in each rgb color channel individually to make them match (for example you view your source and target image in red channel, only adjust the red channel in levels/curves, until the shadows, mids and highs match, then go onto the next channel).
Then use secondary corrections targeting the skintones to bring them back.
Crushing blacks means darkening your shadows to the point that they almost turn pure black and any shadow detail is 'crushed'.

 

[Jordan_S]

a good way to learn how to do your own presets in curves and levels is to take screen grabs from different films and then try and match the colors with your own footage.

Great idea!

 

[seejay1031]

DV Rebel Guide by Stu M. This book will explain it all when it comes to using AE for film like post. It also includes a free plugin that makes levels much more intuitive. You won't spend $30 better.

 

[aravance]

Also what do they mean by "crushing blacks"?

Crushing blacks means setting the lowest luminance point to zero. If you open up any sort of color correcting program or look at a Waveform Monitor, you want some of the pixels touching the 0 IRE. The more you crush the black, the deeper black you will get and it can make for better contrast.

You should always crush the blacks first, then raise your highlights to touch 100 IRE and then adjust the mids for tone. That's basic overall color correction.

 

[oneinfiniteloop]

CYou should always crush the blacks first, then raise your highlights to touch 100 IRE and then adjust the mids for tone. That's basic overall color correction.

This is misleading. Makes it sound like you should always "crush the blacks" when doing "basic color correction", which is simply not true. Crushing the blacks is a stylistic choice, and, IMO, has become a trend and buzzword like every other trend/buzzword combo before it. The detail in the "blacks", i.e. shadows, can be very valuable to creating a tone and feel for your film. The human eye perceives that detail, as well as detail in the highlights, more than some would like to let on.

 

[milksac]

Crushing the blacks is a stylistic choice, and, IMO, has become a trend and buzzword like every other trend/buzzword combo before it..

The problem is with the language. Oftentimes people will say "crush the blacks" when they really mean "adjust the setup level" or "lower the blacks". What "crush the blacks" really means is to push the blacks down beyond the normal level. Semantics aside, I do agree that far too many users are heavy handed when adjusting the black levels.

Regarding the color correction/grading, Steve Hullfish wrote an excellent book on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Technique-Digital-Color-Correction/dp/0240809904

Color Finese is AE's strongest built in tool for color correction - wfm/vectorscopes, secondary correction and a bunch of other fun things to do with color.