Color Finesse, histogram and sharpening

[Shian Storm]

Try using the levels adjustment instead. I stopped using color finesse a few years ago, and only use levels and curves to do color correction. (Levels will give you a histogram.)

While finalizing the composites for ‘The Cell 2’, I was tasked with creating 4 different looks for each scene using After Effects. I did so by applying multiple instances of levels, curves, tint, and hue/saturation and then created animation presets for these so they could be applied to clips individually or as an adjustment layer.

While I don’t have permission to show you that footage, I can show you how those same techniques are used along with masks to create some interesting looks for this music video footage shot with an HVX200

https://outsidethesystem.com/shian/video/CC-musvid.mov

With both levels and curves you have control over each color channel, but the default is RGB so you have to select which channel to tweak from the drop down menu.

[Bob Currier]

Are you referring to the Color Finesse preview on your computer monitor, or on an external video monitor?

If the computer monitor, try changing the “Use Old Style Gamma” checkbox in the Color Finesse preferences General tab.

Also note that Color Finesse does not use AE’s color management, so if that is turned on you in AE you will see a display mismatch.

[Obligatory plug: For a histogram (and much more) when using any plug-in/effect, check out our Test Gear product.]

Bob Currier
Synthetic Aperture

[Charles Boileau]

Thanks! I’ll try both options and I’ll see what works best.

Charles Boileau

[Jonas Jensen]

I have run into this same problem. I’ve been grading footage shot on a HVX200 in AE using Color Finesse, but when I exported it, it looked pale and had very low contrast, when previewed on an actual tv-screen.

So I went back and checked out the color profiles in AE. It turns out, that the footage is encoded with Rec. 709 and therefore it seems to make sense to setup the AE project accordingly. This gives me an AE preview that much closer resembles the output on tv.

However when using Color Finesse, the aforementioned difference in contrast surfaces. So I get it. CF doesn’t support the AE color management. But how then, am I supposed to solve my problem?