Apple Color 1.0 - Manual (Page 36)

36 Chapter 2 Color Correction Workflows
Each room gathers all the controls pertaining to that particular step of the color-
correction process onto a single screen. The rooms are organized in the order of a
typical color-correction workflow, so you can work your way across from the Primary
controls, to the Secondary controls, Color FX, Primary Out, and finally Geometry as you
work on each shot in your project.
 Setup: All projects begin in the Setup room. This is where you import and manage
the shots in your program. The grade bin, project settings, and application
preferences are also all found within the Setup room. For video colorists, the project
settings area of the Setup room is where you find the Broadcast Safe controls, which
allow you to apply gamut restrictions to the entire program.
 Primary In: Primary color corrections affect the entire image, so this room is where
you make overall adjustments to the color and contrast of each shot. Color balance
and curve controls let you adjust colors in the shadows, midtones, and highlights of
the image. The lift, gamma, and gain controls let you make detailed contrast
adjustments, which affect the brightness of different areas of the picture. There are
also controls for overall, highlight, and shadow saturation, and printer point (or
printer light) controls for colorists used to color timing for film.
 Secondaries: Secondary color corrections are targeted adjustments made to specific
areas of the image. This room provides numerous methods for isolating, or
qualifying, which parts of the image you want to correct. Controls are provided with
which to isolate a region using shape masks. Additional controls let you isolate areas
of the picture using a chroma keyed matte with individual qualifications for hue,
saturation, and luminance. Each shot can have up to eight secondary operations.
Furthermore, special-purpose secondary curves let you make adjustments to hue,
saturation, and luma within specific portions of the spectrum.
 Color FX: The Color FX room lets you create your own custom effects via a node-
based interface more commonly found in high-end compositing applications, similar
to Shake. These individual effects nodes can be linked together in thousands of
combinations, providing a fast way to create many different types of color effects.
Your custom effects can be saved in the Color FX bin for future use, letting you apply
your look to future projects.
 Primary Out: The Primary Out room is identical to the Primary In room except that its
color corrections are applied to shots after they have been processed by all the other
color grading rooms. This provides a way to post-process your images after all other
operations have been performed.