In This Chapter
No matter how well your source footage was shot, there’s always room to clean up and adjust the look of it in post. Whether you’re trying to fix a poorly exposed shot, trying to match clips to make them look like they were shot in the same location, or altering the color and contrast as a storytelling technique, manipulating the appearance of your footage is a significant part of the post-production process.
Final Cut Pro has a unique color correction workflow that combines automatic color balancing (based on analysis), color matching across shots, and an unconventional new interface called the Color Board that allows you to make manual adjustments to color, saturation, and contrast.
There are also a large number of prebuilt “looks” that you can apply to your shots in a single step. Some of these are video effects, and some are presets in the Color Board.
One of the key aspects of the optional footage analysis in Final Cut Pro is a determination of the relative contrast and color temperature of your source footage.
By finding the lightest and darkest parts of the shot in each of the color channels, the software can automatically stretch the contrast to give a shot a sharper, cleaner look. This also serves to neutralize a shot’s white balance, removing unwanted color casts or erroneous hue shifts (caused by incorrect camera settings or poor lighting environments). This magic is called color balance, and it’s built into every clip in FCP.
Still, any automatic correction is bound to have limited usefulness, and this is no exception. There will always be shots where the Color Balance setting makes it look worse or removes a particular look that you spent hours on set perfecting. Fortunately, you can easily try the automatic correction and, if it’s not to your liking, disable it.
To take advantage of the automatic color balancing, your clips must be analyzed. This can be done when importing clips, or it can be done later.
The Color Balance setting in the Video Inspector indicates whether the selected clip has been analyzed .
• In the Video section of the Import Files dialog, select the “Analyze for balance color” checkbox .
1. In the Event Browser, select the clip or clips you want to analyze, and do one of the following:
• Choose Modify > Analyze and Fix.
• Right-click the selected clips, and choose Analyze and Fix from the shortcut menu.
The Analyze and Fix dialog opens .
2. In the Video section, select the “Analyze for balance color” checkbox, and click OK.
The analysis begins in the background.
• Select the clip, and do one of the following:
• Click the Auto Enhancements menu in the toolbar, and choose Balance Color.
A check mark will appear next to the menu item when Balance Color is enabled .
• Press Option-Command-B.
• Open the Video Inspector, and in the Color section, click the activation checkbox next to Balance Color .
The image’s color is “balanced.”
• Select the clip, and do one of the following:
• Click the Auto Enhancements menu in the toolbar, and choose Balance Color .
The checkbox will disappear.
• Press Option-Command-B.
• Open the Video Inspector, and in the Color section, click the blue activation checkbox next to Balance Color to deselect it .
The Color Balance effect is removed.
One of the most common color correction tasks is to change the look of one shot to match that of another shot. This can help make a sequence seem more coherent or provide a subtle but essential clue to a viewer that two scenes take place in the same setting (even if they were filmed in completely different locations).
1. Select the clip in the Timeline, and open the Video Inspector.
2. Position the playhead over the clip on a representative frame .
This will be the frame you will use to judge the new color settings.
3. Do one of the following:
• In the Color section of the Inspector, click the Choose button in the Match Color parameters.
• In the Auto Enhancements menu in the toolbar, choose Match Color.
• Press Option-Command-M.
The Match Color window opens. The Viewer shows a two-up display with the current shot on the right and a black frame on the left .
4. Skim through the project until you find the frame you want to copy the color settings from .
The skimmed clips appear on the left side of the Viewer.
5. When you find a frame you want to match, click in the Timeline.
The right side of the Viewer updates to show how your clip will look with the new color settings applied .
6. When you’re satisfied with the new look, click the Apply Match button in the Match Color window.
The color settings are applied to the clip.
• Click the blue activation checkbox for the Match Color parameter in the Color section of the Video Inspector.
The Match Color effect is disabled. You can reenable it, and it will remember its last settings, or you can click Choose again to select a new match color.
Using the Color Balance and Match Color settings can improve the look of your shots, but they’re pretty limited in terms of applying creative and dramatic visual style.
Of course, you can use the manual color correction tools to create an unlimited variety of looks and styles, but that takes some time and skill.
In between the auto settings and full-manual control are the variety of preset color correction settings that are like fully baked “looks” you can apply with a single click.
There are two different types of color settings that fall in this category: effects and presets.
The Effects Browser contains many video effects that are nothing more than color correction settings. This includes all of the effects in the Looks category and many of the effects in the Basics category. Many of these effects have adjustable parameters you can use to further customize the results .
For more on applying and modifying effects such as these, see Chapter 14, “Video Effects.”
The other group of one-click settings is the preset list in the Color Board window. These presets modify the controls in the Color Board; so if you want to customize one after you’ve applied it, follow the instructions in the “Manual Color Correction” section of this chapter.
You can also save your own presets to this list. If you use the Color Board to create a look or a style that you want to reuse later, you can save them to the Preset list.
Saved presets retain settings made in all three Color Board panes: Color, Saturation, and Exposure.
1. Select a clip in the Timeline, and open the Video Inspector.
2. In the Color section of the Inspector, click the Show Correction button at the right edge of the Correction 1 parameter .
The Color Board opens.
3. Click the gear icon in the lower-right corner of the Color Board .
The Color Board presets list appears .
4. Select a preset from the pop-up menu.
The preset is applied to your clip .
1. Adjust the Color Board settings based on the instructions in the following “Manual Color Correction” section.
2. Click the gear icon in the lower-right corner of the Color Board.
The Color Board preset list appears .
3. Choose Save Preset.
The Save Preset dialog appears.
4. Type a name into the Save Preset dialog, and click OK .
The settings are saved to the list as a preset .
All those automatic settings and preset corrections are fun and easy to employ, but the real power of color correction lies in making manual adjustments in the Color Board.
The Color Board has three panes: Color, Saturation, and Exposure. All three follow the same basic rules and workflow: There are four pucks in each pane. The pucks represent the settings for the shadows, midtones, highlights, and a global setting. By dragging the pucks, you assign a value to that range of the image .
For example, to add yellow to the highlights, drag the Highlights puck toward the yellow section of the Color pane. Similarly, to remove saturation from the shadows, drag the Shadows puck downward in the Saturation pane.
Dividing the image into these three ranges of brightness provides a surprising amount of precise control over the image, allowing you to perform different adjustments to each range simultaneously.
It’s important to understand what portion of the image each puck affects. In fact, all three pucks have some impact on the whole image, but each puck’s influence is heavily weighted in different ways.
In figure , the blue line represents the Shadows puck, which has significant influence over the darkest areas of the image, and the influence tapers off in the brighter areas. The Highlights puck is represented by the green line, which has minimal influence over the darkest areas but great influence over the bright areas. The Midtones puck (shown in red) affects the middle of the graph the most, and its effect tapers off toward both the brightest and darkest parts of the image.
The important things to take away from this is to understand that all three pucks will affect the whole image and that their influences overlap.
You can (and likely will) adjust multiple pucks simultaneously in each pane. The art and craft of color correction often involves dragging one of the pucks in one direction and tempering the effect by dragging another of the pucks in an opposing direction.
For example, you might drag the Shadows puck toward Cyan but drag the Midtones puck toward Red (which will remove Cyan). In this way, you carefully limit the cyan adjustment to just the darkest shadows.
It is wise to adjust your exposure before making any changes to the color of your image. Our eyes are much more sensitive to slight changes in contrast (the difference between the light and dark areas of the image). Often, fixing the contrast may make color changes unnecessary.
In general, nearly every image can benefit from stretching the contrast—that is, making the dark sections darker and making the light sections lighter. If you go too far, you risk losing detail in the highlights and shadows of your image. But if you stretch contrast properly, it has the effect of wiping a layer of grime off the screen.
1. Select a clip in the Timeline, and open the Video Inspector; then, do one of the following:
• In the Color section, click the Show Correction button next to Correction 1 .
If any corrections have been applied, the Show Correction button appears in color (as shown in ).
• In the Auto Enhancement menu in the toolbar, choose Show Color Board .
• In the Timeline clip’s Adjustment popup menu, choose Color Adjustment .
• Press Command-6.
2. Click the Exposure button to open the Exposure pane .
3. Drag the Shadows puck down until the darkest areas of your image appear black .
There is great latitude here in terms of the look you desire. You must decide how much detail you want to retain in the shadows.
4. Drag the Highlights puck up until the brightest areas of your image appear white .
Again, use your own discretion. You don’t want to make skin tones (like those shown in ) or a yellow wall appear pure white, but if there’s anything in the image that can be brightened without losing too much detail, go for it!
5. Drag the Midtones puck up or down to control the overall tone of the image .
6. Optionally, you may want to drag the Global puck up or down to make a broad adjustment to the entire clip .
Remember to move your playhead around a bit within the clip while you are making corrections. Beware of making one frame look perfect at the expense of the rest of the shot.
Once your contrast is looking good, you can begin adjusting the color and saturation of your image.
The Color pane of the Color Board works differently from the Exposure pane. You can drag each of the pucks anywhere at all on the board. Drag above the middle line to add a color, and drag below the middle line to remove a color .
The color displayed in the board indicates the color you are affecting in the image. Dragging farther away from the centerline in either direction (up or down) adds or subtracts more of the color.
Unlike with exposure, there’s no “correct” order in which to adjust the pucks in the Color pane. It really depends on the image you’re correcting and what you’re trying to achieve.
1. Select a clip in the Timeline, and open the Video Inspector; then do one of the following:
• In the Color section, click the Show Correction button next to Correction 1 .
• In the Auto Adjustment menu in the toolbar, choose Show Color Board.
• In the Timeline clip’s Adjustment popup menu, choose Color Adjustment.
• Press Command-6.
The Color Board opens.
2. Click the Color button to open the Color pane .
3. Drag the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights pucks to adjust the color to create your desired effect .
When a puck is selected, the info area below the board shows the numerical value of the color setting .
Remember to move your playhead around a bit within the clip while you are making corrections. Beware of making one frame look perfect at the expense of the rest of the shot.
4. Optionally, you may want to drag the Global puck to add a tint to the entire clip.
Color and saturation are tied together very closely. In fact, adding more color by dragging one of the pucks in the Color pane toward the top or bottom of the Color Board does effectively increase the saturation of that color.
However, sometimes you want to adjust the overall saturation of the image. The Saturation pane facilitates this and allows you to also limit your adjustments to the shadows, midtones, or highlights.
1. Select a clip in the Timeline, and open the Color Board.
2. Click the Saturation button to open the Saturation pane .
3. Drag the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights pucks up to add saturation to that range of the image, or drag them down to remove saturation from that range .
4. Optionally, you may want to drag the Global puck up or down to raise or lower the saturation for the whole clip.
• Click the Return to Video Inspector button in the upper left of the Color Board, or press Command-6 .
• Click the Reset button for the pane you want to reset .
The pucks in that pane are reset to their default positions.
1. Close the Color Board.
2. In the Color section of the Video Inspector, click the Reset button for the correction you want to reset .
All panes of the Color Board are reset to their default (neutral) settings.
All of the techniques described thus far are what considered primary color correction. This has nothing to do with the idea of primary colors (that is, red, green, and blue). Rather, primary correction refers to adjustments that affect the entirely of an image.
In contrast, secondary correction refers to changes that are limited to a portion of the image, such as the sky, a character’s skin, or an area of the frame masked by a shape. The term secondary refers to the fact that these corrections are typically done after primary corrections have been made.
By masking certain areas of the frame, you can apply different corrections to the different parts of the scene; you can make the sky bluer, the grass greener, and the skin tones skin-tonier. In fact, major motion pictures employ this technique on every frame of every movie. There’s no reason that Andrew Garfield’s skin should get the same adjustment as Judy Greer’s. And neither should get the same look as the Swamp Thing does! Using secondaries, actors can be tweaked to make them look their best—and now, in Final Cut Pro, you can bestow your own actors with the same indulgence.
You can employ as many corrections as you want, and each one can be limited using a color mask, shape masks, or both.
You create color masks by choosing a specific range of colors in the image, such as the blue of the sky, or the color of a person’s skin. Once that area has been identified, you can make adjustments using the three panes of the Color Board, and those corrections will be limited to that selected area.
1. Select a clip in the Timeline, and open the Video Inspector.
2. Click the Add Correction button to add a new correction .
A new correction is added to the Color section of the Inspector.
This step presumes you’re using Correction 1 to perform whatever primary color adjustments your shot requires.
3. Click the Add Color Mask button for Correction 2 .
A mask row is added to the correction, and the pointer changes to an eyedropper (once you hover over the Viewer) .
4. Click the color you want to select, and optionally drag to select a range of color .
A circle appears under the pointer to show the range of colors selected. Any similar colors throughout the image are automatically selected, and the rest of the image is temporarily displayed in black-and-white.
When you release the mouse, it appears that your selection has been lost, but it has not; it’s just that you haven’t made any changes in the Color Board yet, so you can’t see any change in the Viewer.
5. Click the Show Correction button for Correction 2 .
The Color Board opens.
6. Make adjustments in the Color Board as described in the earlier “Manual Color Correction” section .
The adjustments are limited to the color range selected .
7. Return to the Video Inspector, and adjust the Mask Softness slider .
You can also redefine the selected color by repeating step 4 after you’ve made the corrections in step 6.
• Click the mask name in the Color section of the Video Inspector, and press Delete.
The color mask is deleted. If you had any corrections applied, they will now be applied to the entire image.
In addition to color masks, you can identify a portion of the image using a simple shape (oval or rectangle). The idea is the same as with the color mask—identify an area in the image, and the corrections you apply are limited to that selected area.
You can create multiple shapes in the same correction to color correct a noncontiguous selection.
1. Select a clip in the Timeline, and open the Video Inspector.
2. Click the Add Correction button to add a new correction .
A new correction is added to the Color section of the Inspector.
3. Click the Add Shape Mask button for the new correction .
A shape appears in the Viewer .
4. In the Viewer, move the mask by dragging in the center point, resize it by dragging any of the four control points, and rotate it by dragging the rotation handle .
The mask is customized to your liking.
5. Click the Show Correction button for the correction.
The Color Board opens.
6. Make necessary adjustments to any of the three panes .
The corrections are limited to the area specified by the mask .
• Drag the roundness handle to the left to make the shape more square, and drag it to the right to make the shape more round .
• Drag the outer ring around the mask to control the softness .
The farther away the outer ring is from the inner ring, the softer the edge of the mask.
• Click the Add Shape Mask button for the correction .
• Click the Toggle Shape Mask On-Screen Controls button for the mask whose controls you want to hide .
The on-screen controls for that mask are hidden in the Viewer.
• Select the shape mask under the correction in the Color section of the Video Inspector, and press Delete.
The mask is deleted.
If you have made adjustments in the Color Board for that correction and you delete the last mask, the correction will be applied to the entire image.
You can combine color masks and shape masks in the same correction. This allows you to select the intersection of the masks, which can be extremely useful in terms of limiting your selection effectively.
For example, if you were trying to select an actor’s face but didn’t want the correction to affect their hand that was also visible in the shot, you could use a color mask to select the skin tones (which would select both the face and the hand), then add a shape mask around the face, excluding the hand from the effects of the correction.
1. Add a color mask as described in the task on page 345 .
2. Add a shape mask as described in the task on page 347 .
3. Adjust the shape mask to overlap the portion of the color mask you want to include in the selection .
The resulting correction will affect only those areas selected by both masks.
Whenever you add masks to limit the effect of a correction, you have the option to apply different color settings to the area inside the mask and the area outside the mask.
By default, changes you make in the Color Board affect only the inside of the masked area, but you can make corrections to the outside as well. The result is two completely separate sets of Color Board settings, saved in a single correction.
This allows you to use one mask to create two corrections. For example, if you create a shape mask around the sky in a landscape shot, you can use the inside of the mask to increase the contrast and the depth of the blue sky, and you can use the outside of the mask to add a golden hue to the land.
1. Create a correction using a color or shape mask (or both) as described in the previous tasks .
2. Click the Show Correction button (or press Command-6) to open the Color Board.
3. Make the corrections as desired to the area inside the mask.
4. In the bottom of the Color Board window, click the Outside Mask button .
The Color Board is reset to neutral settings.
5. Make corrections to any of the three panes in the Color Board.
The settings are applied to the area outside the mask .
6. Click the Inside Mask button in the Color Board to make more changes to the correction inside the mask.
You can continue to switch between the inside and outside masks, making changes to both. Each set of changes is saved independently within the same correction.
Video scopes can be helpful when color correcting your images. They provide an objective perspective on the color and contrast values of your video. When looking at a video with a greenish tint, your eyes quickly get used to the color cast and your brain automatically corrects for the error.
Using scopes can help you see such errors, and also can allow you to compare multiple images in a more objective way.
There are three scopes: Histogram, Vectorscope, and Waveform monitor.
• Histogram plots the pixels of the image on a two-dimensional graph where the left side shows darker pixels and the right side shows lighter pixels. The more pixels of a particular color, the higher the bump in the graph.
The Histogram is helpful in determining how the brightness of an image (or of its individual channels) is distributed. This indicates overall contrast as well as potentially identifying if the image is over- or under-exposed.
• Vectorscope plots the pixels of the image on a graph where the more saturated the color, the farther away it appears from the center point, and the hue determines the angle .
The Vectorscope is helpful in determining if the image has a color cast or other type of hue-related problems. It can also show you how saturated an image is, as well as indicate the accuracy of specific colors, such as fleshtones.
• Waveform Monitor plots the pixels of the image on a graph where the vertical axis indicates the brightness of the pixels (higher is lighter) and the horizontal axis represents the horizontal placement in the image .
The Waveform Monitor can help you quickly identify the overall contrast level of an image, a well as identify specifically what areas might be under- or over-exposed.
• Click the Viewer Display Options menu and choose Show Video Scopes or press Command-7 .
The Viewer is split in half, and the left side displays one of three mathematical representations of the color and lightness values that comprise your video image.
Once the scopes are showing, you can choose among any of the three types of scopes, and for each of the three, there are additional settings available.
1. Right-click anywhere on the scopes, or click the Settings pop-up menu .
2. From the Display section of the pop-up menu choose the scope you wish to display .
1. Right-click anywhere on the scopes, or click the Settings pop-up menu .
2. Select the channels you want to display, or change other settings as desired, based on the specific scope.