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Using Color Correction FiltersLike editing, color correction is an invisible art. It's an essential part of post-production that can have a significant impact on a show, but it's not a high-profile part of the process. Final Cut Express introduces an improved set of image-quality measurement and color correction tools that make it feasible to complete a broadcast-quality finished product without leaving the Desktop.At the most basic level, you can use these tools to ensure that the video levels in your finished program don't exceed broadcast-legal limits. If the video in your program already looks good, careful color correction can make it look even betterif you have exposure problems or intercut shots that don't match, color correction can salvage your show. You can also use color correction tools to completely transform the look of your footage or to create an illusionone example is "day for night," an old movie trick where scenes shot during the day are printed very dark to simulate night lighting.This section provides a brief overview of the tools and the basics of working with the Color Correction filter interface, but it does not delve into the complexities of color correction (there are entire books written on the subject). You should supplement your reading with Chapter 31 of Apple's Final Cut Express Help PDF, a 20-page introduction to the principles of color correction and the protocols governing the operation of Final Cut Express's color correction tools. Be sure to use the full-color PDF version of the manual; any demonstration of color correction technique is severely handicapped when it's presented in grayscale. The PDF version of the manual is available from FCE's Help menu.
The Color Correction filter suiteYou'll find five filters in FCE's Color Correction filter folder (Figure 16.8 ). Some of the filters are general-purpose color correction tools; others have special applications. It's common to use more than one filter type on a single color-corrected clip. Figure 16.8. These five filters make up FCE's color correction suite. Some, like the Color Corrector, are general-purpose color correction tools; others, like the Desaturate Highlights filter, have special uses.
Using the Broadcast Safe filterThe Broadcast Safe filter is a quick fix you can apply to any NTSC or PAL video in your program. The filter offers a menu of presets (Figure 16.9 ) designed to clamp any illegal luma or chroma levels in your clip to within legal limits. The default setting should work well for most clips, but if you want to tweak the settings yourself, you can choose the Custom setting, which enables the individual luma and chroma level controls. The filter displays NTSC or PAL broadcast-safe presets based on your sequence settings. Figure 16.9. The Broadcast Safe filter offers a menu of presets designed to clamp illegal luma or chroma levels in your clip to broadcast-legal limits. The filter's default settings work fine in most cases. |
Monitors and Color CorrectionA properly calibrated broadcast video monitor is an essential tool for accurate color correction (and most other post-production tasks). Use the best broadcast video monitor you can afford. Follow the procedures outlined in Apple Knowledge Base article 36550, "Final Cut Pro 3: How to Calibrate Your Broadcast Monitor" (available online at the Apple web site), before you color-correct your first clip. You should not color-correct based on the color you see in the image areas of the Viewer or the Canvas. |
Anatomy of the Color Corrector tab
The Color Corrector filterone of the five filters available in FCE's Color Correction filter folderfeatures graphical onscreen controls in addition to the standard numeric controls found on the Filters tab of the Viewer. The visual controls appear on their own Viewer tab after you apply the Color Corrector filter (Figure 16.10 ).
Figure 16.10. The Color Corrector filter's visual controls appear on their own tab in the Viewer.
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- Color Corrector Viewer tabs: The filter's visual controls appear on their own Viewer tab. If you have multiple copies of the Color Corrector filter applied to the clip, a separate numbered tab appears for each copy.
- Numeric button: Click this button to switch to the filter's numeric controls on the Filters tab.
- Enable Filter check box: Check to enable this filter. Uncheck to disable the filter.
- Copy Filter controls: The Copy Filter feature (Figure 16.11 ) is one of the secret weapons of the Color Corrector filter. Once you have color corrected a representative shot in your sequence to your satisfaction, you can use the Copy Filter controls to copy your filter's settings to other clips in your sequence with a single mouse click.
Figure 16.11. Use the Copy Filter controls to copy your filter settings to other clips in your sequence with a single mouse click.
- Copy from 2nd Clip Back: Copies settings from the Color Corrector filter that is applied two clips upstream from the currently selected clip and pastes the settings into this copy of the Color Corrector filter, replacing any previously applied settings. If the source clip has no color correction filter, this control is dimmed.
- Copy from 1st Clip Back: Copies settings from the Color Corrector filter that is applied to the first clip upstream from the currently selected clip and pastes the settings into this copy of the Color Corrector filter, replacing any previously applied settings. If the source clip has no color correction filter, this control is dimmed.
- Copy to 1st Clip Forward: Copies the settings of this Color Corrector filter into the next clip downstream in your sequence. If no Color Corrector filter is present on the destination clip, FCE applies one automatically.
- Copy to 2nd Clip Forward: Copies the settings of this Color Corrector filter into the clip located two clips downstream in your sequence. If no Color Corrector filter is present on the destination clip, FCE applies one automatically.
- Drag Filter control: Drag this button to another Timeline clip to copy the current Color Corrector filter and its settings into that clip.The tab's center section contains the filter's Color Balance controls and Level and Saturation controls, your everyday color balance tools.
- Color Balance control: Use the Balance control like a virtual trackball control. Click the dot at the center of the control and drag it across the circular face of the control to adjust the color balance of your clip. The center of the circle represents pure white; drag farther from the center to increase the saturation of your color shift.Hold down the Shift key while dragging to constrain the angle of the adjustmenta useful technique for adjusting the intensity of a color without shifting its hue.Hold down the Command key while dragging to gear up the control, increasing the magnitude of the color balance adjustments in response to your mouse movements. (This is the opposite of the Command-drag gear-down modifier implemented elsewhere in FCE, which enables precision adjustments.)
- Select Auto-balance Color eyedropper: Click the eyedropper icon; then click a color in your image that you want to match to the color you selected with the Hue Match controls. For more information, see "Hue Match controls" later in this section.
- Balance Reset button: Click to reset the Balance control to its default settings. Shift-click the button to reset the Levels and Sat(uration) sliders to their default values as well.
- Hue control: Click the outer edge of the Hue control's circular face and rotate the dial to make an overall adjustment to the clip's hue.
- Hue Reset button: Click to reset the Hue control to its default settings. Shift-click the button to reset the Levels and Sat(uration) sliders to their default values as well.
- Levels sliders: Use these sliders to make overall adjustments to the luminance levels in your clip. Click the tiny arrow at either end of a slider to nudge the value by a single increment.
- Whites slider: Use the slider to adjust the clip's maximum white level.
- Mids slider: Use the slider to adjust just the midtones in the clip, leaving any black or white areas untouched.
- Blacks slider: Use the slider to adjust the clip's minimum black level.
- Sat(uration) slider: Move this slider to make overall adjustments to the color saturation levels in your clip. Click the tiny arrow at either end of the slider to nudge the value by single increments. Moving the slider all the way to the left removes all color from the clip, leaving a grayscale image. Moving the slider all the way to the right will almost certainly push your color values into distortion, so use caution and check your work on your broadcast video monitor.
- Auto White Level button: Click to find the maximum white level in the current frame and automatically adjust the Whites slider to set the maximum white level.
- Auto Contrast button: Click to set Auto black and Auto white levels in a single operation.
- Auto Black Level button: Click to find the maximum black level in the current frame and automatically adjust the Blacks slider to set the maximum black level.
- Hue Match controls: Hue Match controls extend the function of FCE's auto-white balance controls, allowing you to adjust any color in your image to match the color you've selected as the match color. For more information, see "Hue Matching Controls" in Chapter 31 of Apple's Final Cut Express Help PDF.
- Select Match Color: Use the eyedropper to select the color hue you want to match.
- Match Color: This swatch displays the color you've selected as the auto-balance target color.
- Reset Match Color: Click to set the match color to white, the default setting.
