Selective color/desaturate all except red

[Tero Ahlfors]

I’d guess that it could be done with Avid’s own color correction tools. Have you tried those?

[Łukasz Stolarski]

Thanks for your response. I’ve read it’s possible but what if I wanted to key that effect? I did it once in Boris Continuum Complete and that’s why I’m trying to find the same solution. The video has to be black and white with a red T-shirt a man is wearing but then the T-shirt slowly loses saturation as well.

I did it once with green lights, I wish I could remember how…

Thanks for trying to help.

[William Busby]

You can do this quick and dirty in Avid and it usually gives pretty decent results after a little tweaking.

EX:
V1 desaturate your clip to b&w
V2 place a copy of the original clip (in color)

V2 apply Avid’s chroma key filter & sample the red color with the eye dropper tool. Activate “invert” in the effect editor & tweak to taste using gain control, soft, spill suppression, etc.

[Łukasz Stolarski]

That’s the solution, I thought about that but wasn’t sure about details. This way I can key the effect 🙂 Thank you very much.

Some additional thoughts – I’ve discovered that I did it two years ago using color pass in Adobe Premiere, not a BCC filter. I’ve just found that old project (I burn all projects without footage on DVDs) and that’s how I know. It’s funny that such a simple effect (just three clicks in Premiere) doesn’t exist in BCC and Avid, that you have to go around, waste time etc. Even though I’ve learned to like Avid, I still claim it sometimes is a huge timewaster and is lacking simple solutions for simple problems. But again, it has some really great features.

Thanks again! Solution found.

[William Busby]

Glad I could help

[Steve Pankow]

In the good old days you’d farm out your effects work to effects specialists and use your Avid just for cutting. If not already over, those days are rapidly coming to a close. Some days it feels like Avid hasn’t figured that out yet.