hey guys tom here from fxhome by artlist if you're making any type of content then i'm
sure that you always want your image to look as consistent as possible you don't want the
colors to shift when you go from one angle to another it just looks weird so before you start
stylizing and grading your footage you need to first color correct it so everything is
set up and ready to go film colorists process the image so that everything is looking as
natural and unprocessed as possible so basically how you actually captured it in camera the way
the human eye sees it if you will and for you vfx artists out there this process can optimize the
footage so it's ready and you can integrate your assets fast to sum up the process so to sum up the
process here's how color correction works first you're going to choose a frame that shows as much
detail in color and light as possible then you're going to set the white balance using anything that
is within frame and if you've watched our white balance explained video then you would know to
hold up a sheet of white paper or card just to get that information before you start filming
then we're going to fix the tones using the ansel adams exposure chart and our scopes we're gonna
color match if we need to adjust anything and then finally apply a lut or start color
grading so that's the summary and sounds pretty straightforward so let's go into a bit more detail
look up tables otherwise known as luts are a great way for you to quickly fix or even grade some of
your footage though they're usually applied after correction has occurred that being said if you're
on a camera like the blackmagic pro or perhaps a gh5 many of these cameras do come with a lut that
automatically adjusts your camera's image all these let's do is process your image so
it's ready for further correction and also color grading it gets the black and white values in the
correct space so everything looks as you intended to capture it but let's say that you don't have
a lookup table to work with how can you start correcting your footage so the first thing that
we're going to do is select a frame that sums up the image perfectly if you're using something like
a color card or a clapper board then holding that before a take can show a range of colors so you
can start matching everything up if you don't have one of those then just go through your footage
and try and get the best possible answers so you can see all the blues the reds greens everything
that you're going to need once you have your frame selected now it's time to set the white
balance the white balance should be set in camera first this is just a additional process to make
sure that everything is where it's supposed to be so after the white balance we then go into first
exposure and then we go into color we need to essentially control the shadows mid-tones and
highlights and the best way to monitor these is by using scopes luckily hitfilm has a workspace
that is intended for colorists so if you go up to workspace then you can actually find the colorist
workspace and this will open up the scopes for you this feature is not available in hitfilm express
but you can download the add-on or try out the hitfilm pro demo if you are curious and want to
learn so when it opens up you'll be presented with graphs let's quickly go through the type of graphs
that are available in scopes first we have our waveform now this is going to be the thing that
we actually start measuring our exposure with with this graph we can make out our exposure as well as
the rgb values red green and blue the parade is the division of the rgb values so it's separated
red green and blue so you can see that if they're evenly spread out then we have the vectorscope now
this one looks a little bit chaotic but what this is doing is spreading out all the different colors
so you can see which one has a higher saturation then finally we have the histogram which is very
similar to one that you might find on a camera all they do is monitor the division between the
highlights and shadows so you want everything kind of being in the center so because we want to focus
first on exposure we're going to use the waveform so the waveform goes from 0 to 100 at 0 it's black
that is where we want our black values to be whereas 100 is where we want our highlights
to be so the light behind me for example that should be a hundred because it's the brightest
thing in the shot if you're using 16 or 32 color bit then you'll actually have a little bit more
it should go from minus 20 to 120 but the same principles apply so where do you set your levels
for exposure well if you're unsure then ansel adams is the man to thank he made up a exposure
chart which you can use to make sure that your image is hitting the right marks all that we're
going to be doing is converting it over to fit our waveform so zone 1 is going to be 10 zone 7
is going to be 70. it's basically times it by 10. we can all do math right so for example
zone 7 seems to be the correct exposure for pale skin like myself so we want to make sure that that
is exposed to correct mark using a mask around the particular feature is a great way to make
sure that you are hitting those marks plus there may be so much going on in your scene that you
want to focus solely on one area if you feel like you need to adjust it then simply add a curves
effect or maybe a levels then start bringing in the shadows highlights and then the mid tones and
again the curves is divided with a grid that you can also kind of break down into different stages
once you feel happy with how your exposure is looking then it's time to move on to color we
first set the white balance so that is great but what you want to do is now monitor the color tones
and you can do that by using the vector scope and also the parade before you start going with
a stylized moody grade what you first want to do is make sure that everything is evenly balanced so
with the vectorscope you want everything to kind of be gathered around the center and evenly spread
out we don't want anything going too far out it's here on the vectorscope that you'll notice a small
line this is the suggested range for skin tones so if you're unsure of what sort of color range
you want your skin tones to be at that is the line that you need to try and match up to so once again
mask the area and then try and balance it to fit on that line or in the parade you want
everything to kind of be a nice consistent level you need to bear in mind what your image is if i
held up my hand to the camera then there's going to be a lot of red in in that area because it's
it's my hand but what you want to do is keep everything evenly balanced for now if you find
that your image has all the data gathered in the center and you can't really make out which
direction things are going in then i would suggest applying a hue and saturation effect
and then just cranking up the saturation until you can make things out it's here in the hue and
saturation effect that we can actually adjust and change some of the tones so you can introduce a
little bit more red or maybe perhaps a little bit more green once you find that everything is evenly
balanced on your scopes then it's time to apply a lookup table and everything should just click
into place the lut effect also has a strength feature so you can actually dial in how strong
you want that look to be once you have everything applied then it's time to make further adjustments
using similar methods so hue and saturation or maybe even the color wheels if you feel brave
and start tweaking the image again to make sure that your skin tones are in the right place and
you have the look that you want now this isn't a copy and paste job you need to then go to your
second clip and then do the process again color correction is a long process but i can guarantee
if you put the time into it your sequences and content will look consistently gorgeous that's
it for today's video but if you have any tutorial requests or techniques and processes that you
want more information on then please do leave us a comment down below be sure to subscribe
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the notification bell i've been tom from fxhome by artlist and i'll see you in the next video