Improving Color Correction Skills??

ryan brown

ryan brown

lOwEr CaSe Member
Just wondering if anyone could help me improve my Color Correcting skills. I'm using FCP 5, and I'm alright at it, but I want to improve.

How do you guys do it?

Are there any training books, or better yet, videos that are worth it? "advanced color correction for FCP" ??

What's the best way to do it in FCP?

thanks in advance

-brown
 
First, you need to start with a calibrated monitor, that is the most important step. I don't much, if any, in FCP, but when I need a quick job done I'll grab the 3 way color corrector filter and use that, usually with a gamma or levels filter.

There is a Advanced Color Correction and Effect in FCP 5 that is written by Digital Film Tree & Alexis Van Hurkman which is a good book I've skimmed through.

I like to take plates from my favorite movies, or the ones I'm trying to emulate, and use them as a reference to grade to. Again, a monitor is very important because if you have it calibrated right you can compare your shot with theirs and see where you're at.

It also doesn't hurt to take a vew traditional art classes, especially on color theory, etc... Training your eye is the best tool you have.
 
is there tutorial on basic of color correction on the web.
thats book is also not available in singapore
 
oneinfiniteloop said:
First, you need to start with a calibrated monitor, that is the most important step. I don't much, if any, in FCP, but when I need a quick job done I'll grab the 3 way color corrector filter and use that, usually with a gamma or levels filter.

There is a Advanced Color Correction and Effect in FCP 5 that is written by Digital Film Tree & Alexis Van Hurkman which is a good book I've skimmed through.

I like to take plates from my favorite movies, or the ones I'm trying to emulate, and use them as a reference to grade to. Again, a monitor is very important because if you have it calibrated right you can compare your shot with theirs and see where you're at.

It also doesn't hurt to take a vew traditional art classes, especially on color theory, etc... Training your eye is the best tool you have.
Click to expand...


Thank you for the reply...

If you don't use FCP for color correction, then what do you use? another editing program, or is there a specific program just for CC?

does after effects have any CC abilitie's?
 
I go between After Effects 6.5 Pro which comes with Color Finesse from Synthetic Aperture and shake. In AE, you can do anything you want with levels, curves, and hue/saturation. Using eLin or v7 allows you to work in float, which is where I prefer to do CC. Recently I've been learning/using shake because that is where I do most of my comping, and there is a really cool color grade macro that lets you pick 3 areas of a ref. frame (shadows, midtones, highlights) and then you can adjust the amounts, etc for your working plate.
 
Using FCP's tools (3 Way Color Corrector and Color Corrector) you should be able to do a find job. The book oneinfiniteloop recommended is excellent, as is Advanced Editing and Finishing Techniques in Final Cut Pro HD. The one he recommended deals specifically with CC while the Advanced Editing and Finishing Techniques in Final Cut Pro is just what it proports to be. The Apple Training Series can't be beat for their tutorials!
 
Practice practice practice

Every piece of footage and framegrab you can find; drop it into your NLE and practice, practice, practice
 
Here are three grabs from a video I'm working on. I did a quick grade in FCP and Shake so you can see the difference. I, by no means, am a professional colorist, but this will give you an idea of what the different programs CC tools can result. I am going for a semi-saturated, vibrant look for the video, so I guess you can use that description as a baseline.

(please right click and download)

1. Original, with no CC, rendered out of Shake as a TIFF.
Link

2. CC in Shake with the Color Grade macro. I downloaded a high res grab from Constantine and sampled my shadows, midtones, and highlights from there, and tweaked to taste.
Link

3. CC in FCP using 3 Way Color Corrector. This was a really quick job using the Shake CC as a reference plate. I basically pushed the highlights up into the magenta's a little, then pushed the midtones towards a more orangish hue, and the shadows to a slight deep blue. I increased the overall saturation to have more "punch", but all in all this was a very quick job (a few minutes) to get a close match.
Link

Personally, I think the Shake plate has a little more punch in it, but I could have spent more time in FCP to achieve the same look. Basically, it's up to you and the tools to get good results. Feel free to download the original and play around if you wish, maybe post the grab when you're down. Again, these are all quick and dirty jobs, with no serious correctional work done yet. I was just trying to develop a basic look.
 
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Jack Daniel Stanley said:
Yeah I think I would have used a little more opacity in the grabs :grin:
Click to expand...

oh man! you are the best :grin:

I'm currently doing my CC'ing in color finesse with after effects, but I'm wondering whats the advantage to using shake? If any at all.
 
but there is a "method" that i've seen glimpses off but don't understand totally, thatd doesn't involve plugins etc.
which is basicallu
1) placing the video in a layer over itself and making the top layer black and white -- and then I think changing the composite mode to screen. (this simulates bleach by pass I think)
2) and then some how using a third layer with a slight blur which makes things glow (but no idea how to composite)
3) and then I think a final selective gamma layer, but again no idea how to composite.

I saw a making of where they said "we do a layer like this and this and this" but didn't say how they were compositing them or anythging
 
Sorry, they were working last night, here are direct links.

Original

Shake

FCP

Let me know if they aren't working, I don't understand why last night they were fine and today they're broken.

(Right click and download please)
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
but there is a "method" that i've seen glimpses off but don't understand totally, thatd doesn't involve plugins etc.
which is basicallu
1) placing the video in a layer over itself and making the top layer black and white -- and then I think changing the composite mode to screen. (this simulates bleach by pass I think)
2) and then some how using a third layer with a slight blur which makes things glow (but no idea how to composite)
3) and then I think a final selective gamma layer, but again no idea how to composite.

I saw a making of where they said "we do a layer like this and this and this" but didn't say how they were compositing them or anythging
Click to expand...
That method is outlined in the Hullfish and Fowler book (which is an excellent overview of CC theory and general practices, BTW). You use one high contrast slightly blurred B&W layer as a mask and project another layer down through it ontop of yet a third layer of the same thing. This way you can maintain pretty accurate control of CC hitting the highs by adjusting the top layer alone, while using the bottom layer to hit the mids and lows. Their example shows warm highs and cool mids/lows at the same time IIRC -- it's a very cool look (no pun intended).
 
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Awesome... thanks for all the replies. I'll definitely take all the advice seriously, and look into every option here to see which works best for me. I have been using the 3-way out of final cut for the past year or so, and it works fine, but I think I'm lacking the knowledge to do a pro job. That's next on my list.

-brown
 
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