Tonal Range

[DevonH]

Hey All,
As I went through the Lynda FCPX color editing training today, the instructor talked a lot about tonal range. I understand the concept as a whole, and I understand that Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows are what it consists of. What I don't understand is what is typically in the Midtones and Highlights (aside from white).

Could anyone lend me a hand? I've did do some searching, but didn't come up with any results.

 

[bbalser]

Do this, in FCP, create a liniar gradient that is totally black on the left, totally white on the right, and look at a Waveform scope.
Make a radial gradient that is totally white in the center, totally black outside, and look at it on a Waveform scope.
Examine various gradient shapes and patterns (in black and white grayscale, no colors) in a Waveform scope.
What I teach my students is that at first, desaturate every image you look at in a Waveform scope first, and you'll start to learn to recognize Blacks, Mids, and Highs.
When you start learning color grading, it's difficult to separate out chorma (color) information (for which we use a Vector Scope) from luma (brightness) information (for which we use a Waveform Scope). These exercises I've found help my students to "see" images in these two different ways.

Also, look at a linear gradient with black on the left, white on the right as before. Think of the Blacks or Shadows as covering from the darkest dark on the left to about 2/3 the way across to the brights, and it tapers off to that point, having less and less influence as it reaches that 2/3 point. The Whites or Highlights control will effect from the very right side of total white, to about 2/3 the way to the blacks on the left in the same way. The Mids control effects the center 2/3 of the spectrum, tapering it's influence off in the same way.

If you seriously want to learn about color and grading in video, I very highly recommend Alexis Van Hurkman's Color Correction Handbook, it's the best on the market.
http://www.amazon.com/Color-Correct...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325368298&sr=1-1

Hope this helps.

 

[DevonH]

Thanks Ben, incredibly helpful response! I'll go do that in a few.