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manuelh88395848
manuelh88395848
Participant
May 7, 2019
Question

Fast color correction tips (primary & secondary) for my project

  • May 7, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 301 views

Hello,

I need advice on my project about color correction part. I have two different characters with different color skin (one is white skin other is black skin) and I'm aware that every of them need to be treated differently. I pulled of the key successfully, and everything looks good for that part and I need to incorporate them colored into the ambient of dark blue.

I'm using for my project Lumetri color for every character, but I want to be sure that I did all important steps that will allowed me that my character will be look like part of the scene. I read a lot of theory about primary & secondary cc and I think that I understand order of operations. But as you know every situation is different and I just want to be sure that I done this part good.

For example for primary color correction part: fix exposure, adjust whites-adjust blacks, saturation, white balance, color temperature etc.

I did all steps, but still not sure if I did job good. What is the most important scope which I need to watch in this part? RGB parade, right?

What's the difference between adjusting highlights and whites ? I still dont understand the difference. What is difference between shadows and blacks ?

Do I need to use WB every time ?

My clients wants from me to make pop out black person from darker background, so I tweak many settings until I got something which is brighter (I put a lot of whites value, but I tried to not exaggerate that, I tweak a little shadows and blacks too), but still dont know how to be sure that I did this part right, you know. I am lacking color correction expirience, but I will learn it a lot of more in the future. I got better results, but maybe some settings are incorrect now.

Can i hear your point of view, what is best to do in to make a pop black skin character on primary CC, and how to pop white skin character on primery CC properly? What sliders are the most important to tweak if I look the caracter just pull off the key (so we talk about first stage still - primary CC) ?

Do you have some fast CC tips on my case please ?

The second stage is how to make all characters feels more like a part of the scene. I watched many tuts where for this task is used Levels but separately every channel of RGB, or use color curves RGB (I tried this approach to use more blue channel and I put its value higher, because BG is dark blue), it looks better, but need more advices how to do this part better.

What is your approach?

Thank you guys!

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Christian.Z
Community Expert
Christian.ZCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 7, 2019

Hey Manuel,

Hope the following would be of any help.

What is the most important scope which I need to watch in this part?

1- Waveform (Luma) to make sure your blacks and whites are not clipping, and that your exposure and saturation range is as you want it to be

2- RGB Parade is helpful for white balancing and tinting

3- Vectorscope HLS is a second line of defense for exposure and saturation

4- Vectorscope YUV is to make sure your colors are withing broadcast standards and not over saturated.

What's the difference between adjusting highlights and whites ? I still don't understand the difference. What is difference between shadows and blacks ?

If I try to explain, I might confuse you even more. The best think is to see it for yourself using a 0 saturation image (Black and white) while looking at the Waveform (Luma) scope.

In short, Highlights and Shadows expands or shrinks the tonal range, while White and Blacks moves the tonal range brighter or darker.

Do I need to use WB every time ?

It really depends of your shot, and what are you trying to achieve, but I would say you might need to use it more often that you will not.

and lastly for this last bit, there is rarely a universal approach for something, it all comes down to the exact shot you have in front of you, the different variables surrounding it, and the desired result. Each scenario has it's own approach when it comes to settings.

However the basic steps can be universal. Such as in a scene that has 1 white person and 1 black person, you create an adjustment layer and you apply 3 Lumetri effects on it. One for global, One for the white person (masked) and one for the black person (masked). What I do, is that the global effect also have the 2 characters roughly masked out, so any changes to it will not affect the characters, but only the scenery. And this way I have more control over my humans with the other 2 masks (Hint: the new PP update allows you to rename the Lumetri effects, and be able to select which effect you want to work on from the Lumetri panel)

Finally the color grading or "Look" is done on another adjustment layer, after that my color correction is finished on the first adjustment layer.

    manuelh88395848
    manuelh88395848Author
    Participant
    May 7, 2019

    @Christian.Z

    Hi Christian.

    I am very grateful for the comment and it seems to me that I was just looking for something similar.

    I am aware that color correction and color grading are science by itself, but for that reason I mentioned that I just need some quick tips, to be sure that I am on right track at least. I have plan to invest all my time studying CC and color grading, but for now, I have some basic  theory expirience which isn't enough in this case.

    I will try to read all of these which you had written above and comment it more for few days. Of course, I would be using lumetri color separately on every character. I will try to learn to understand more how to read whole types of scopes, and maybe it will be good guide for me where I am, because I think that there aren't exactly rules, but we shouldn't allow ourself some kind of clipping in shadows and hightlights especially.

    Do you have some tips how to do better integration in the scene all of these characters (dark blue background). What should be some of approaches toward this problem, because I mentioned some techniques which I saw on YT above, but still want to know some new approaches toward same thing?!

    Have you wonderful day!

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