Histogram in Premiere CS6?

[Airwolf]

While color correcting and grading footage in premiere, i'm trying to learn to grade at more of a broadcast/film standard, and not at the over-exposed or crushed blacks web standards. However, I can't find any kind of histogram or scope within premiere cs6 that will show me if my highlights are blown out. I'm sure its there, I'm just not seeing it, and my internet research has not pulled up much. Help please?

Thanks,

 

[capt chuck]

You are right, there is a scope. Open you clip in the source monitor then use the pull down in the source monitor that initially says "composit video" to switch to another view such a audio, alpha, or wave form monitor.

 

[Bruce Watson]

While color correcting and grading footage in premiere, I'm trying to learn to grade at more of a broadcast/film standard, and not at the over-exposed or crushed blacks web standards. However, I can't find any kind of histogram or scope within premiere cs6 that will show me if my highlights are blown out.

Change your workspace to Color Correcting. That's Window...Workspace...Color Correction, or just Alt+Shift+2. Look down at the lower right corner. You'll see a reference monitor window set to the default (Waveform monitor or possibly Vector Scope, it's been so long I don't remember). Click on the button (second from right) in the upper right of that panel to see all the possible things you can do with (or change) the reference monitor. In particular, note that you can undock it. After undocking it, you can resize it to make it big enough to be really useful.

Forget a histogram. You'll get way more useful information out of the waveform monitors. And the Vectorscope is indispensable when color correcting. At least for me. You can also get a lot of information from the RGB parade, etc.

Have a look at some of the Andrew Devis tutorials over on Creative Cow. There's a fair amount there on color correction. Have a look too at the Van Hurkman book. Both highly recommended.

The workflow I've found works best for me is to work from the most general to the most specific. First thing I do is set the black and white points (wave form monitor) and contrast using a luma curve correction. Then I use a three way color corrector to get rid of color casts (vectorscope). I'll use another three way color corrector to make secondary corrections as needed. But that's just me, everyone finds a personal workflow that works best for them.

To do really good work you'll need a monitor that can show you the proper workspace. If you're only doing youtube, anything that can show you sRGB will work out OK, if you've calibrated it. For anything that will be shown on a TV (DVD, Blu-ray) you'll want something that can show you Rec.709. That will almost certainly be a TV or a production monitor. There are very few (Eizo) computer montitors that can show you Rec.709. Sad but true.

In any case, the tools are all there in PPro. You'll just have to dig around and find them, then learn how to use them. Easier said than done, but powerful tool take some time to learn. No way around it.