Should I do Color Correction after exporting/encoding from Premiere Pro or before?

[dreamsound2]

There was a similar thread from 'Thehadgi' recently here, so this would be a follow up to that thread (http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?297743-Newbie-looking-for-workflow-advice)

I'm new to color correction, do mainly music videos for YouTube and feel comfortable with my editing workflow (http://youtube.com/coloredfusion) I'm just looking to improve my videos, never done any color correction before and I'm trying to get started with something basic. All the tutorials I've tried following so far seem pretty advanced for my level. I'm a musician more than a video guy.

With that in mind, I have Magic Bullets but when I run it on Adobe Premiere after editing/mixing the clips, it slows down the whole video. Making it really hard to make changes.

The main question is: Should I encode/export the video FIRST in .mov and then open the video in Adobe After Effects for further processing?

Is After Effects a lot more efficient than Premiere for Color Correction? I've tried doing some moving titles on Premiere but I felt really limited on those options. I'm wondering how limited I am with Premiere in other areas. I'm thinking purchasing and learning Adobe After Effects will be worth the time and money for my projects.

What easy-to-use plugins are there with presets that will automatically enhance the colors?

Thank you guys, any advice would be HIGHLY appreciated, I've been reading non-stop for the past three hours and I still can't find any straight answers.

 

[Jim Simon]

Magic Bullet is notoriously slow to render and play back. That's just the way it is. That's why you do CC last, when you don't need to make any more changes. Exporting out first will impose limitations that aren't necessary. For your basic needs, stick to doing this inside of PP and just set up your renders/exports to run while you do something else.

 

[Bruce Watson]

First thing you do is run out and get yourself a copy of Van Hurkman's Color Correction Handbook. It's not over your head. It's an extremely easy read, and it'll explain color correction and grading so that you'll know where to do what in your workflow.

EDIT: as Jim says above you need to learn how to read and use the scopes, at the very least a waveform monitor and a vector scope (both available in PPro). And the book I reference teaches you that and a lot more. The vast majority of people can get by with just the standard tools available in PPro. In particular, the three-way color corrector. Very powerful tool once you learn it.

 

[Liam Hall]

There are very good grading tools in the effects pane. Get to know the RGB curves and the 3-way colour corrector for starters and learn what the video scopes mean.

 

[drapeama]

I'm new to color correction [...] The main question is: Should I encode/export the video FIRST in .mov and then open the video in Adobe After Effects for further processing? [...]
Is After Effects a lot more efficient than Premiere for Color Correction? [...]
I'm thinking purchasing and learning Adobe After Effects will be worth the time and money for my projects.[...]
What easy-to-use plugins are there with presets that will automatically enhance the colors?

1) I'd say you should do all the color correction and "match" the clips BEFORE editing the final cut of your video. That's what I do.
2) After Effect is the Photoshop for video. So, yes, it's more powerfull than Premiere. Sure, you can have all the basic tools needed in Premiere to achieve color correction. I process my videos in After Effects and then edit in Sony Vegas. Best workflow to me since a couple years.
3) If you plan to work your clips a lot, do some animations, add some titles and basically do a lot more than just "editing" videos together, then yes it would worth it.
4) There's a lot. But I (personally) would recommend you to use the existing plugins that comes with Premiere or After Effects (Curves, Levels, Hue&Saturation) and make your own "looks" with them. Then, select the plugins in the pannel (all of them highlighted) and choose Animation > Save Animation Preset:

Then you'll have one preset with all the selected plugins that will apply when you'll drop it on a video. That's what I do, and I have my own presets to work with. I don't like having a "look" that everyone else can "use" in their videos. I prefer to create one that match the mood/feel of the video I'm working on.

There are very good grading tools in the effects pane. Get to know the RGB curves and the 3-way colour corrector for starters and learn what the video scopes mean.

I second that. If you can't do something good out of Levels, Hue&Saturation and Curves, then you most probably won't do anything better using presets from external plugins, imho.