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Hi everyone, Grant Kay here for the Smoke Learning Channel.
In this video, we are going to look at balancing the black and white levels of an image
using the colour warper.
There are two scenarios I can think of where you would do this.
Firstly, you’ve received a shot that wasn’t correctly balanced in camera and you need to fix it.
The second scenario would be compositing two layers together
and you need to balance the foreground element to the background plate.
Please bear in mind that if you’re matching two cameras in editorial
or compositing two shots together, you could also try automated colour matching.
However this does not apply to the first scenario
where you just have a single shot and nothing to reference.
So we will use the interactive vectorscope inside the Colour Warper via ConnectFX.
If you would like to follow along,
please click the link in the YouTube description to download the media.
If you are watching the podcast version of this video,
then type the link displayed in your internet browser.
So here is a shot of a rubix cube in the sequence that has a bluish colour balance.
Select the segment in the sequence and press CONTROL+ TAB to bring up the FX ribbon.
Click CREATE CONNECTFX.
Now drag and drop a Colour Warper node from the ConnectFX node bin into the middle of the tree.
Double-click on the colour warper to bring up its controls.
Now let’s give this image a bit more room.
To get rid of the media panel, press 1+LEFT ARROW to toggle the panel either on or off screen.
Next press OPTION+1 to display the single view.
And if you don’t see the result of the Colour Warper, just press F4 to see the result view.
To the right of the image you will see the interactive vectorscope.
Holding OPTION and clicking on the vectorscope allows you to move it around.
Holding SHIFT and clicking on the vectorscope allows you to zoom in and out.
So the vectorscope is used to see the colour measurement in the image
and you will be able to see any plotted colours.
Let’s first balance the highlights or light areas of the image.
Click the PLOT button to enable the sampling cursor.
Now click and drag in the light areas.
Sample the colours that are closest to white.
You will see a solid circle shifting around the vectorscope
showing you that the brighter areas of the image which are shifting towards blue.
Black and white always sits in the center of the vectorscope.
So using the Highlights trackball,
drag it towards the yellows and the reds to shift the light areas of the image.
Watching the vectorscope, the solid circle shifts to the center
indicating how the sampled colour is being remapped.
Now let’s repeat the same process for the darker areas of the image.
Click the PLOT button for the sampling cursor.
And click and drag around the darker areas of the image.
As before the solid circle in the vectorscope indicates
that the darker colours in the image are leaning towards blue.
So drag the Shadows trackball towards the yellows and the reds to balance the black areas in the image.
Once you’ve finished tweaking the shot, you should have a neutral colour balance.
Now if you press F1, you will see the original front input.
To see the result again, press F4 for the result viewer.
You can toggle between these buttons to do a quick before and after.
And from this point, you can carry on grading your image towards the look you want.
Remember that you can exit CONNECTFX and copy this setup to the other shots in the sequence
if they all come from the same unbalanced source material.
I hope this functionality is useful in your daily production work.
Comments, feedback and suggestions are always welcome and appreciated.
Thank you for watching and please subscribe to the Smoke Learning Channel for future videos.