hue angle vs. balance angle

B

Bruce Watson

Veteran
In PPro CS6, Three Way Color Corrector effect, the shadows, midtones, and highlights sections all have both a hue angle selection and a balance angle selection. They seem to do similar but different things, so I'm a little confused. When should I use one, and when the other?
 
So... it's not obvious then. This is all I get from the PPro cs5.5 manual (where the heck is the cs6 manual?):

"Highlights/Midtones/Shadows Hue Angle Controls the hue rotation in the highlights, midtones, or shadows. The default value is 0. Negative values rotate the color wheel to the left and positive values rotate the color wheel to the right.
Highlights/Midtones/Shadows Balance Magnitude Controls the amount of color balance correction as determined by the Balance Angle. The adjustment can be applied to highlights, midtones, and shadows.
Highlight/Midtones/Shadows Balance Gain Adjusts brightness values by multiplication so that lighter pixels are affected more than darker pixels. The adjustment can be applied to highlights, midtones, and shadows.
Highlights/Midtones/Shadows Balance Angle Controls the hue translation in the highlights, midtones, or shadows."

Light blue color is mine just to highlight what we're talking about here. Doesn't exactly say much, does it?

My question is -- what do these two things actually do, and what do you use them for?
 
Hue angle rotates all the colours in the image -- in other words it changes the colours to different colours. So a 120 degree rotation would make all the reds green, all the greens blue, and all the blues red.

Balance changes the amount of each colour. Pushing the balance to red makes the reds redder and the cyans less cyan-y. Balance angle is just the direction you're pushing in; balance magnitude is the amount.

If you want to compensate for bad lighting, or warm up something that was shot in clouds, I'd say it's the balance you want. I'm not sure what the hue angle would be used for (except wacky music-video effects).

Hope this helps...
 
Ann Bens said:
For CS6 help hit F1.
Click to expand...

I'm aware of F1. Not as easy to find things with this "new and improved" help system as the old PDFs. And doesn't answer this question, at least not that I could find. Which is why I resorted to the older CS5.5 PDF. Which didn't answer the question either. Which is why I resorted to the forums. And got a useful answer from AtticusLake. Which is how the forums work.
 
unadog said:
Here's a 7 minute video "tutorial" on the "Redesigned Three Way Color Corrector." Should answer most of your questions.

http://www.video2brain.com/en/lessons/redesigned-three-way-color-corrector


There is also written documentation on the Adobe web site for Premiere Pro if you need more info. CS6 PDF Help files are supposed to be available in June.
Click to expand...

Oh come on now. Read the question, watch the video. Then you'll know the video doesn't answer the question. Then read the reply above about my findings on the documentation you redundantly call out. Sigh...
 
OK, apologies. I guess once you understand something to a certain extent - even vaguely in my case - you don't hear exactly what is said in an explanation. You add to it what you already know.

I think this detailed explanation of how the color wheel maps to the Vectorscope might help you visualize what you are affecting using each part of the wheel. The link is to the 3rd of 3 pages.

You might have to read through it a couple of times, and follow along in PP, but I think it will explain what the wheel represents:

http://provideocoalition.com/index....amlining_color_correction_in_premiere_pro/P2/



I agree with you that the description of the color wheel you posted above from 5.5 is almost meaningless. Unfortunately, it is reprinted verbatim in most books about PP.

Quick explanation of what I posted origionally (just before bed, late at night.): I am making a huge investment in learning CS6 inside out over the next 4 months. On my editing machine, I went to look up information on the 3 way control. I watched a few different video's that helped me to undetstand it better. I also found some Help pages more specific to CS6.

Hope that helps. I saw that you asked the same question at Adobe forums, with not too much of an answer there as of yesterday. I assume you also know the main PP Help page, but this is where I usually start:

http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro.html

Cheers! Good luck.
Michael
 
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I just found this as a link on the first page that I posted.

This is a "game" that asks you to match first the fully saturated hue (the outer circle of the wheel, or hue "angle"), then the hue and saturation (inner postions of the wheel, hue "balance" and "magnitude"), etc.

I think this will help to get an intuitive "map" of what the wheel represents. The explanation of how to play the "game" was a little abstract at first, but if you click through and play the it should make more sense:

http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/shullfish/story/color_correction_practice_game/


I belive that the control is based on a HSL color model - "Hue, Saturation, Lightness."

In that geometric model, the "Hue" - what many call "color" - corresponds to an "angle." The hue at the outside of the wheel is fully saturated. The same angle always refers to different saturations of the same "hue". Like south means - well - always going in that direction.

My eyes glaze over when we talk about the actual coordinates and the X,Y,Z scales though ...


Just found this too:
hue - a number representing an angle on the color circle (a rainbow of color represented in a circle). This is what we typically think of when we think of a “color”.

saturation - how pure the hue is. A pure color is 100% saturated, while grays are unsaturated.

lightness - how light or dark the hue is. White is 100% lightness, while black is 0% lightness.

To pick a color using HSL, first choose the hue you want to use. Red is 0 or 360°, green is 120° and blue is 240°. Then decide how saturated and light or dark you want it.
 
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Here is a verbal explanation that is slightly better than the other ones I have seen:


To adjust the color balance, do any of the following using the color
wheel:

* To change all the colors without affecting the gain or magnitude, rotate the outer ring. Rotating the ring to the left, rotates all colors towards green.
Rotating the ring to the right, rotates all colors towards red.

* To shift the colors towards a target color with gain and magnitude adjustment, drag the Balance Magnitude circle out from the center towards the
color you want introduced into the image.

The farther you drag the Balance Magnitude from the center, the introduced color is more intense. Drag the
Balance Gain handle to fine‑tune the intensity of the Balance Magnitude adjustment. You can make the adjustment very subtle.
 
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