advice on color correcting a blah shot

[Tom Wolsky]

How are making it black and white? Not sure how you’re making color changes to a black and white image.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[David Roth weiss]

This is show business Danielle… Please show us what the heck you’re talking about.

Creative Cow has the capability to include a still or even moving video in any post. If you want us to take the time to help you, please take the time to learn to use the tools here so we can actually provide you with the help you seek.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Danielle Duguay]

I made it black and white by desaturating in color corrector 3 way

is there another way to do it?

thanks!

[Tom Wolsky]

Filters>Image Control>Desaturate. I answered you also on the Apple forum.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[David Roth weiss]

Danielle,

Notice in the Parade scopes below that your original image is confined to the very center of the scope (i.e. no blacks, and no whites), and and covers a very narrow band as well (i.e. very limited tonal range between the brightest and darkest colors).

Meanwhile, the image I corrected (using the 3-way CC filter) now has blacks at 0 (that’s actually black) and whites at 100 (that’s really white), and the tonal range between them has been expanded as well (that’s mids) to create a image that’s much truer and much more dynamic.

This is the very basis of all color correction… You have to be able to do this in B&W first… Color often just disguises the underlying basis of an image, as all images are really B&W, some just have color added.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Greg Ondera]

So I am learning here too, and want to hear what others have to say. I have not done this myself in any program but I have turned color photos to black and white in Photoshop and the only way to get great results is to work with the red channel, like the way old black and white cameras necessitated, like using the red filters over the lenses in olden days. This pops out the texture of black and white and adds depth. So I wonder if the same process would work for video. First increase the red saturation, then desaturate completely. It seems like this should work more than changing the color parade in 3 way color correction. What do you think?

Greg Ondera
http://www.Plexus.tv
http://www.SurgeonToday.org

[Michael Gissing]

Red channel in video is the noisiest. The green channel is the cleanest.

My advice is to use Color primary to get a good contrast, secondaries to get the face to pop from the background using an HSL key and also a vignette around the face. The same can be done using limit effect HSL keying in the 3WayCC. Rich Harrington did a video tutorial a while back that showed the procedure. Once you have a nice grade, then either use the desaturate filter in FCP or in Color FX room.

You could also use another 3wayCC to desaturate which also lets you add a bit of extra contrast if required.

[Jeff Greenberg]

Yeah, there is another way to desaturate – and it’s what Greg and Michael allude to.

You can desaturate by taking all the color out of a picture. You can also desaturate by remapping one color channel to all three.
Try going to the Effects>Video Filters>Channels>Channel Mixer
(Let’s take green and use that – if you want, you should be able to try the red or blue as comparison)
Under the Red output, change Red-Red to 0 and Red-Green to 1 (you just put the red information into the green channel)
Under the Blue output, change the Blue-Blue to 0 and Blue-Green to 1 (you just put the blue information into the green channel)

Since it sources the color from the same channel, you’ll get a very different looking black and white picture.

Best,

Jeff G

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