Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 1338)

• Balance all the shots in a scene to match: Most edited programs incorporate footage
from a variety of sources, shot in multiple locations over the course of many days,
weeks, or months of production. Even with the most skilled lighting and camera crews,
differences in color and exposure are bound to occur, sometimes within clips meant
to be combined into a single scene. When edited together, these changes in color and
lighting can make individual shots stand out, so the editing appears to be uneven. With
careful color correction, all the different clips that make up a scene can be balanced to
match one another so that they all look as if they’re happening at the same time and
in the same place, with the same lighting.
• Correct errors in color balance and exposure: Accidents can happen in any shoot. For
example, you may have forgotten to white balance your video camera before shooting
an interview in an office lit with fluorescent lights, resulting in footage with a greenish
tinge. Final Cut Pro color correction filters give you an exceptional degree of control
over the color balance and exposure of your clips, allowing you to fix these kinds of
mistakes. In many cases, such accidents can be minimized, if not eliminated, through
the careful application of color correction filters.
• Achieve a “look”: The process of color correction is not simply one of making all the
video in your piece match some objective model of black, white, and color tones. Color,
like sound, is a property that, when subtly mixed, can result in an additional level of
dramatic control over your program.
With color correction, you have control over whether your video has rich, saturated
colors or a more muted look. You can make your shots look warmer by pushing their
tones into the reds, or make them look cooler by bringing them into the blues. You
can decrease the contrast of your clips, pulling details out of the shadows, or increase
your contrast for a harsher look. Such subtle modifications can alter the audience’s
perception of the scene being played, changing the mood of your program. Once you
pick a look for your piece, or even for an individual scene, you can use color correction
to make sure that all of the shots in the appropriate scenes match, so that they cut
together smoothly.
• Create contrast or special effects: Color correction can also be used to create contrast
between two scenes for a more jarring effect. Imagine cutting from a lush, green jungle
scene to a harsh desert landscape that’s much more in the reds and yellows. Using
color correction, you can subtly accentuate these differences. You can also create more
extreme effects, such as manipulating colors and exposure to achieve a day-for-night
look. You can even selectively target a narrow range of colors to alter or replace only
those color values, turning a red car blue, for example.
1338 Chapter 79 About Color Correction