Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction : Adobe Premiere Pro Tutorial

Comments

Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Grant Willis

I just wanted to say thanks for creating these tutorials. I have found them really informative. I have been experimenting with the techniques you have been describing and have posted this video http://vimeo.com/19322060 on Vimeo showing the results I achieved. If you have a moment to watch it, I would love any feedback on things you can see that I could have improved further on? Mabye any comments you might have might make a good subject for a further tutorial on colour correction in Premiere CS5? I would love to learn more!

Anyway - thanks again for your efforts. They have been well worth it!

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@Grant Willis
by Andrew Devis

Hi Grant
Thanks so much for sending the link across I really enjoyed watching it and sent it to the team at Neat Video who also enjoyed it :o)

The difference is very marked and I always found my eye looking to the right as it looked so much more vibrant and real! Great job!

As for improvements ... over all I don't have anything to say it was great. If I had to make one comment then maybe at times the colour correction was just a little bit too strong - but that said it was only on the odd shot and not really that noticable if I didn't have the original right next to it!

As for more tutorials, I do have a couple in mind on more colour correction/grading tools but they are down my list a little so I may not get round to them for a while - so, watch the space.

Just so you know, I have put a couple of advanced Neat Video tutorials (basically 1 long tutorial split into 2) on the Neat Video website. This covers the more advanced techniques for getting a good noise profile as well as some sharpening tools.

Thanks once again for the link and for posting it, I just wish I was there rather than in dull and overcast England!!

All the best
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

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@Andrew Devis
by Grant Willis

Thanks for your reply. I have just watched your Neat Video tutorials too. Now I think I have to go back to another of my films and revisit how I did that to see if I can improve it further!

Your tutorials are truely a valuable resource on the Internet!

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@Grant Willis
by Andrew Devis

Thanks Grant
To be honest I fell into this by accident! I'm an Adobe certified trainer and where I live there isn't a great deal of training to be done at the moment, so I looked at possibly training Camtasia 7 and bought a copy on the back of supposed interest in me being a trainer only for it to all fall appart! So, I decided to put Camtasia 7 and my knowledge to good use on the internet and ended up on the Cow.

And, as there still aren't a great deal of training jobs around at the moment, appart from the few projects I need to do for different people, I will keep doing the tutorials until I have covered most aspects of PP and quite a lot of AE as well.

But that said, I really appreciate your feedback to know that what I'm doing is of value.

Kind regards
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

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@Grant Willis
by Andrew Devis

Hi Grant
Wanted to let you know that I've just uploaded two more ppro color correction tutorials after your recent comments. Not sure when they will go live, so keep an eye open for 5 & 6 soon.

All the best
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction> the VECTOR SCOPE
by Cris McRae

Thanks for explaining Color Correction in Premiere Pro. In the past I would have taken a clip over to AE for that job.

The Vector Scope in Pre Pro has 2 boxes unlike the Vector Scope in AE, which has one. What is the box closest to the center for. How do you interpret what it means to a color safeness. Does it mean under saturated??

Is going beyond the box out of broadcast safe or is anything within and beyond the box in the danger zone. Can you please fully explain?

One more thing. You mention the skin color line. I take it that footage must have a large screen area of skin or the focus of the shoot must be a person for that to have any importance or does it have other uses? Do the other lines on the Vector scope have any meaning/uses or do they just separate color zones?

Maybe you could do an entire video on the vector scope. I imagine for the majority of us who are self taught, the vector scope is a "what the hell is this" item.

Thanks again

Thanks
Cris is Bliss
C.I.B. Visual Productions/K3 Films
Rough Luxury Records

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@Cris McRae
by Andrew Devis

Hi Cris

Thanks for your question.

The vectorscope in PP is actually the better one to use as PP is calibrated for video output for broadcast systems whereas AE isn't as precise! So, if you can keep your video in PP for colour correction it may be a better choice. That is not to say that AE won't give good results, just that the calibration of things in PP is specific for good video while AE deals with a wider range of applications which may not need the same precision.

The vectorscope in PP is calibrated for 75% bars which means (as I understand it) that when the colours reach 75% max intensity they will hit the center target in the top box of the two boxes in the vectorscope which is the box I work with. You can change the view in the vectorscope to 100% intensity to show a full CHROMIANCE (colour) range for video and this will use the inner boxes so that when you hit the target in the middle of the box with 100% intensity video you are at the maximum you should be. In short, stick to 75% intensity dislay and don't go above the cross in the centre of the outter most of the two boxes.

The vectorscope deals with CHROMINANCE or colour and so if you have black and white images or low colour images you will find that the vectorscope displays much closer to the center.

To deal with skin colour I use a little trick. I set up the reference monitor as the vectorscope and then I add the four or eight point garbage matte to the clip I am working on and use the points to reduce the visible area of the screen to that of the flesh or skin only. That way, the vectorscope will only show information which is relevant to the area displayed (you can do much the same in AE by using the region of interest feature).

By doing this you can adjust for the skin tones and then remove the garbage matte knowing that your skin tones are correct and you weren't confussed by the other colours in the clip.

As for a tutorial, I do plan to do one soon! In fact, now that I have had a request from you I may try and do it this week although it may take a week or so before creative cow puts it up. Presently, I have plans for doing between 30 and 40 more tutorials for PP!! So watch this space.

Thanks again for you question, I hope this helps
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Kadshah Nagibe

thanks tim for explaining it. I downloaded the demo version of colorista I'll be playing around with it for the next few days.

-kaj

http://sweetproductionmedia.com

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Ann Bens

I love Magic Bullet Looks, been using it ever since CS4.

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Andrew Devis

Hi Kadshah

Thanks for you question, but to be honest I don't know! I haven't ever used Magic bullet (although I do use other red giant plug-ins) so I don't really know what they do! I do all my colour correction in PP and, if you are carefull, you can also use the colour tools to give you stylistic colour changes as well.

TO do that, make a master sequence and put all your other sequences into that then, make one more sequence and call it something like 'Master Colour' and drag the first sequence into that. This way, all your sequences are seen as one piece of footage and you can use your colour tools to apply a colour wash over the whole thing for that special edge!

Sorry I can't help with the plug-in question, but I do know you can download magic bullet and try it out without having to pay. It will render with a watermark, but it will also give you the opportunity to try it out.

Hope this helps and happy colour correcting
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Kadshah Nagibe

sorry i meant to say Magic bullet Collorista

-kaj

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Tim Kolb

Colorista (actually for CS5, you'll need Colorista 2) is a great color corrector.

It's major differences when compared to Adobe's "on-board" tools would probably be:

1 Colorista uses a camera metaphor for many of its adjustments...think "exposure" as opposed to "luma level"...that sort of thing.

2. Colorista has a special wheel (not the typical color wheel arrangement, though it has those too) where you can grab points on the "vectorscope" and move them...which I often use if I have a person on camera who's skin imaged a bit flush (reddish), I'll grab the red marker and drag it around the wheel, crowding it into orange, maybe I'll even drag orange a bit to move it out of the way...and the reds in the image now are actually more toward amber...and the subject no longer looks like they're blushing.

3. Colorista has an on-board spot mask and you can make both primary corrections and secondary or spot corrections, delineated by the mask, so you make primary and secondary corrections with one effect application whereas Adobe's color correctors are dedicated to primary, full image or a spot correction (they call it secondary), and you have to apply a color corrector to the clip multiple times if you want a primary pass AND a secondary pass...

4. there is also a beautiful little feature for softening detail, which I use all the time on faces...again along with primary and secondary correction...one pass.

I'm sure there are other areas as well...I have aspects of Adobe's color correctors I like...

The Tone range definition allows you to stratify the ranges any way you want...

They run Cuda accelerated, which is nice.

There is a little less procedure necessary to identify a color value range for a secondary correction on Adobe's CC filters...of course they aren't as sophisticated as Colorista either...

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Andrew Devis

Hi Alex

Thanks for the question, it is always best to be as clear as possible. The sliders are connected to the wheels. But, only the wheel mentioned in the dropdown will be affected by the sliders, so if the H sliders are chosen, then only the H wheel is affected and so on.

Hope this helps
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Alex Udell

Hey Andrew,

thanks for this.

In your explanation, does that mean that the sliders for S,M,H are completely independent of the wheels or that only the wheel that corresponds to the currently affected sliders would have an visual effect?

Alex

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Kadshah Nagibe

Andrew thanks for taking the time in creating these easy to follow color correction tutorials I've learned a lot from them. I have a question about third party color correction program. It seems I can do all my color correction tweaks within PP5 so what advantage if any would a color correction tool such as Magic bullet looks make in comparison with PP5?

-kaj

http://sweetproductionmedia.com

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Ann Bens

Magic Bullet Looks is not a color correction tool but a color mood setting tool.

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Andrew Devis

Thanks Ann

Thought it might be but never used it myself. Have you used it and, if so, is it good?

Thanks again
Andrew

... because it's all about stories ...

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Re: Color Correction 4: Secondary Colour Correction
by Kadshah Nagibe

thanks.