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Hi everyone, Grant Kay here for the Smoke Learning Channel.
I was recently asked some questions regarding some of behaviour in the colour warper.
This was specifically concerning the mid-tones trackball.
How do I use it and why it always displays a zero value after any adjustments?
Well this is not a bug and the behaviour is quite normal.
In this video, I hope to answer all these questions.
So it does not really matter where you access the colour warper.
This could be a Timeline FX in the sequence or as a colour warper node in ConnectFX.
The behaviour will be the same.
For example, here I have a shot with a colour warper applied to it.
Now I’ll use the highlights and shadows trackballs to tint the colours of the image.
When I adjust either of the trackballs, you will notice that the values are permanent.
This is because the values you adjust for highlights and shadows are absolute.
This happens because you can’t define what are highlights and shadows
within the luminance range of this image.
Using these trackballs, you can grade either the dark areas or light areas of the image.
And that’s it.
The mid-tones trackball is very different and actually more flexible.
The mid-tones trackball adjusts using relative values unlike the highlights or shadows trackballs
that adjust with an absolute value.
I realize that it all sounds confusing at first.
So to get your head around the mid-tones trackball, you use it in tandem with the RGB Histogram display.
Firstly, focusing on the RGB Histogram display,
you see the image’s luminance spread out from black to white.
The default RGB colour curves run horizontally through the histogram.
So if I drag and adjust the mid-tones trackball,
the RGB curves will bend and adjust to tint the luminance of the image.
So up to this point, the mid-tones adjustments has affected the entire image.
What makes the value in the mid-tones trackball relative
is that you can define an area of luminance where the mid-tones will tint the image.
Coming back to the RGB histogram, you will see two mid-tone triangles below the graph.
Adjusting these triangles allows you to define the area of luminance
where the mid-tone adjustments will be applied.
So when I adjust the mid-tones trackball again,
you are grading an isolated luminance range in the image.
This is really handy to affect colours based on the brightness.
A big point to remember
is that the colour warper allows you to grade the chroma or colour of an image
without affecting its luminance or brightness.
This is something that most people are probably unaware of.
The results you get in the colour warper will be different to the colour corrector.
The colour corrector is more traditional in the sense that colour correction
affects both the luminance and chrominance when grading the image.
Now coming back to our example.
If I push the mid-tones triangles to the full luminance range of the image,
when I adjust the mid-tones again,
you will note that the original mid-tone adjustment is offset with any other changes.
This flexible control can lead to some interesting and creative grading.
So remember that the values of the mid-tones trackball
will always be zero because it is never a definitive value.
And all the information concerning the mid-tones trackball can be read in the RGB histogram.
So hopefully this has given you a bit more insight into the colour warper and the mid-tones trackball.
Comments, feedback and suggestions are always welcome and appreciated.
Thank you for watching and please subscribe to the Smoke Learning Channel for future videos.