Digital Color Correction startup

[Leo Ganzon]

Hi All VFX wizards & Colorists,

I’m currently trying to learn in depth color correction but don’t know where to begin. My tool of choice is after effects, but I feel I still lack the basic knowledge a colorist must have.

I basically know when a video color is bad & how to make it a bit closer to normal color, but transforming that normal color to eye candy is something I really haven’t attained.

Can somebody point me to where I can learn the basics, what makes good color – good, & if possible making it eye candy.

Thanks.

Leo Ganzon
Fulltime Preditor

[Chris Wright]

this may sound weird but before you delve into beautiful tones and highlights, I recommend you understand color ranges, color models, color gamut, bit depth, video compression, and most of all, color management. What good is color correction, if it all changes once it leaves After Effects and goes to another software program, DVD or uh, FCP. Not to mention even your computer monitor has to be calibrated at gamma 2.2 which most Mac people don’t have as standard, hence the fun world of incompatibility. Googling color space lists them all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Color_space