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Color Balancing – more specific/less about the technical
Almost everything I read about color balancing discusses the technical controls, then concludes with something like, “…then adjust for a pleasing color…” or “…adjust for good skin tones, rich deep blacks, and clear whites…”
Of course, “nice color” is an opinion, and I often find my stuff looks a LOT less pleasing/nice later on when I play it as a final product. I’ve worked my way through Roland’s excellent tutorial on color-correction (well, part one of one/two parter) and several other tutorials on color correction.
Any suggestions on learning the ‘less-technical side’ of color balancing?
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1 Reply
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Most of my experience is in printing but the principals are the same.
My first step is setting my highlight and shadow. This is where you are picking the lightest and darkest areas of your image and setting them to target values. Generally I’m targeting for a highlight near 90-95% brightness and a shadow near 5-10% brightness. Don’t use a specular highlight for your measurement (like the shine on a chrome bumper) but instead look for the lightest area that still has decernable details.
Next I’m looking for a neutral grey. If I’ve got an area in my image that should not have much or any color cast (like a cement sidewalk, dull grey metal, or a grey shirt for example) I use this as a reference to adjust my midtone values to make this area close to neutral.
Finally I am looking for “Memory” colors like green grass, blue sky, and flesh tones. If you sample a couple of points and look at your readings you can get a general approximation of what moves to make. A general rule of thumb is blue sky should have a hue reading in the low 200’s (210 or so) Green grass has a hue near 90 degrees. and Flesh tones are in the high 300’s or just over zero.
A couple more points to consider:
If you are filming with a camera that auto adjusts the white point and/or auto adjusts the exposure you will end up chasing these moves in post trying to balance an ever shifting color. I usually turn these options off.
If you can get a reference monitor to view your footage on it will make corrections much easier – you can do it “by the numbers” but most people are more comfortable adjusting somewhat by eye.
If you cannot get a reference monitor make yourself a short sample and view it on your final output. Once you have some reference footage you are happy with you can keep these as reference items that you can measure values from and match new footage to.
Color correction is about half art and half science – the more you correct the better you will be able to “see” what has to be done.
-Scott Kacey
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