About color correction and adjustment, About color spaces – Adobe After Effects CS3 User Manual
Page 243
AFTER EFFECTS CS3
User Guide
238
Edit a gradient
A gradient is defined by color stops and opacity stops. Each stop has a location along the gradient and a value for color
or opacity. The values between stops are interpolated. By default, the interpolation is linear, but you can drag the
opacity midpoint or color midpoint between two stops to alter the interpolation.
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To add a color stop or opacity stop, click below or above the gradient bar in the Gradient Editor dialog box.
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To remove a stop, drag it away from the gradient bar, or select the stop and click Delete.
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To edit a stop’s value, select it and adjust the Opacity value or use the Adobe Color Picker controls beneath the
gradient editor controls.
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To choose a gradient type, click the Linear Gradient or Radial Gradient button in the upper-left corner of the
Gradient Editor dialog box.
Note: Use the Style property to choose a gradient type for the Gradient Overlay layer style.
About color correction and adjustment
When you assemble a composition, you often need to adjust the colors of one or more of the layers to correct their
colors. Such adjustments can be for any of a number of reasons. Some examples:
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You need to make it seem as if multiple footage items were shot under the same conditions so that they can be
composited or edited together.
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You need to adjust the colors of a shot so that it seems to have been shot at dusk instead of noon.
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You need to adjust the exposure of an image to recover detail from the over-exposed highlights.
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You need to enhance one color in a shot because you will be compositing a graphic element over it with that color.
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You need to restrict colors to a particular range, such as the broadcast-safe range.
After Effects includes many built-in effects for color correction. See “Color Correction effects” on page 387.
The Color Finesse plug-in included with After Effects includes excellent color-correction tools. For more infor-
mation, see the Color Finesse documentation in the following folder: Adobe After Effects CS3/Additional
Documentation/Color Finesse 2.
The Camera Raw plug-in can be used to correct and adjust still images in JPEG, TIFF, and various camera raw
formats.
John Dickinson provides visual aids on his website that illustrate how to use the Curves and Levels effects for color
adjustments:
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See also
“Introduction to Camera Raw” on page 86
“Broadcast-safe colors” on page 250
About color spaces
A color model is a way of describing color using numbers so that computers can operate on them. The color model
used within After Effects is the RGB color model, in which each color is described in terms of amounts of red, green,
and blue light added together to make the color. Other color models include CMYK, HSB, Y'CbCr, and XYZ.