Is White Balance the first step in Color Correction?

[Media Editor]

Should the first step in Color Correction be adjusting the White Balance?

Title edited by Mod

[Peru Bob]

Short answer:

Yes.

[Media Editor]

Thank you

[R Neil Haugen]

I used to always work white balance first. But most pro colorists teach correcting tonal issues first. Which seems weird I know.

In practice I've found that starting by setting saturation to 0 and adjusting white and black points and getting a clear image tonally, THEN going to white balance/color cast issues does work better with most media.

Next ... "white balance" tools only address the white point (easily shown in either RGB Parade or Waveform scopes)  ... so any change has more effect in highlights than mids and almost no change in shadows.

So you need to determine if a simple white point change will do or if you have a) an overall color cast or b) a cllorccast in shadows and different one in highlights.

The solution to each is a very different process.

Neil

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Michael,

I was taught to adjust tone before adjusting any color balance. Focus on the contrast range. When you're done with that, you address the colors. I also profess this in the color correction chapter in my book. White balance is one of the first tasks in adjusting color tones, though. Sets a baseline.

Thank You,

Kevin Monahan

[Ann Bens]

The other week i attended an online color correction course by Joost van der Hoeven, and he taught me:

White and Black (is that Tone, Kevin?) first then start at the top and work your way down (in Lumetri) but skip Exposure.

[R Neil Haugen]

Lumetri's "Black" tool in the Basic tab is pretty busted, I've been through that with Francis Crossman & he agrees. You have very little contol with it, and it can quickly give you this odd J-shaped figure in testing with a gradient ramp. And the tool to begin with is basically a 'door' swinging from about 20IRE, either on "up" compressing dreadfully the darkest 20 values or on "down" stretching them horribly to crush most.

And has little effect above there. Which is why I've asked this to be replaced with either an Offset function like SpeedGrade had (everything goes up or down same amount) or a Lift control similar to Resolve, which is the opposite of the White control. This would give a proportional change to the black/shadow/highlight the same as a straight-line curves adjustment grabbing the black point. Which is of course what a White point adjustment does on the other end.

So I have that Black mapped to my Elements panel, I do use it occasionally for a slight adjustment, but ... not so much.

I used to NEVER use the Exposure control. Patrick explained it to me, and I still thought it strange ... "up" is similar to grabbing an RGB Cuve tool at about 65IRE and pulling straight up. "Down" is like taking the White point of the RGB Curve and pulling it down. Seemed weird.

But on a job a while back, it actually was about the fastest way to keyframe shots with exposure changes during the shot ... and that job had a LOT of exposure changes during shots! So I've ended up getting both familiar with it, and ... rather comfortable.

Sometimes I'll use the midtones Luma slider for midtone corrections, sometimes I'll use Exposure. Slightly different effects, and actually a nice addition to the tool box.

Neil

[Media Editor]

I have experimented with Davinci Resolve for Color Correction. I posted this question: How useful is the Offset for Color Correction in Davinci Resolve. This is one of the responses I received:" To give you an example, star wars: the last jedi and green book where done primarily with offsets (95% of the corrections). He  also states:  "I can do a whole movie with just offset and a bit of contrast."

[R Neil Haugen]

I loved SpeedGrade partly for the base of that app with Offset. Sg was OGG, versus Resolve which is LGG.

Offset/Gamma/Gain; Lift/Gamma/Gain.

Yes, in Resolve you can get to an Offset tool but the general assumption of the app is working in LGG. I can understand the simplicity of understanding operations in LGG ... the Lift and Gain tools are simply inversions of each other.

Offset, as a tool that affects everything exactly the same, seems odd at first. But it's amazing how often you can nearly instantly correct both color casts and color balance issues with moving one or two channels in Offset.  Ah well.

Neil

[Media Editor]

The majority of my videos are shot outdoors with a HD Camcorder, GoPro or a Drone. I do not need to do much Color Correction.