Color Correction for Digital Video: Using Desktop Tools to Perfect Your Image (Paperback)

Use color to improve your storytelling, deliver critical emotional cues, and add impact to your videos. Beginning with a clear, concise description of color and perception theory, this book shows you how to analyze color correction problems and solve them-whatever NLE or plugin you use. Experienced editors and colorists in their own right, the authors also include the wisdom of top colorists, directors of photography, and color scientists to deliver this insightful and authoritative presentation of the theory and practice of color correction.

Optimize the quality of your video with a working understanding of the essential color correction concepts and power-user tips. Learn how to use waveform monitors and vectorscopes as creative tools to analyze your images. Then get your hands dirty with step-by-step explanations of how to employ the entire desktop toolkit including hue offset wheels, color curves, histograms, and luma ranges. Tutorials provide an array of correction techniques and give you experience working through the diagnosis and correction of color problems with your own tools. Primary and secondary spot correction and day for night are only a few of the techniques you will practice while discovering how to improve the color, tonal range, and look of your footage so that even non-uniform, poor-quality video can be seamlessly incorporated into a beautiful, effective, finished piece.

The companion CD-ROM includes graphic files for the tutorial projects, software tools, plugins, and full-length interviews with renowned experts.

Table of Contents

Reviewers' Comments

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Role of the Colorist

• Video-to-Video Color Correction
• Telecine Color Correction
• From Color Corrector to Colorist
• Datacine
• Phantom Telecine
• Diplomacy
• The Future

Chapter 2 Color Theory

• Perception of Color
• Source Light
• Modifiers
• Detectors
• How Eyes Work
• The Two Kinds of Vision
• Additive and Subtractive Color
  • Color Spaces
  • Space vs. gamut-What's the difference?
  • Stimulus-specific color space
  • Device-dependent color space
  • Video color spaces
  • The Y factor
  • Y, R-Y, B-Y
  • YUV (Y,U,V)
  • YCbCr
  • YPbPr
  • YIQ
  • Bit depth
  • Beyond the 8-bit standard
  • Subsampling

Chapter 3 Perception

• Color Dynamics
• Color and Culture
• Viewing Environment

Chapter 4 Analyze This-Your Monitor

• Monitor Environment
• Setting Up Your Monitors

Chapter 5 Using Scopes as Creative Tools

• Choosing Your Scope
• Waveform Monitor
• Chip Chart and Waveform Monitor
  • Tutorial-Minimizing the chrominance of the chip chart
• A Wave of Waveforms
• Vectorscope
• Info Palettes
• Summary

Chapter 6 Histogram

• Analysis
• Clues
• The Zone

Chapter 7 Colorist's Palette

• Tonality Rules!
• Basic Black
• How to Get to 100
• Gamma Quadrant
• Tool Time
• Level Playing Field
• Hue and Hue Offset
• Luma Ranges
• Curves
• Secondary Color Correction
• Spot On

Chapter 8 Common Corrections Tutorials

• Improperly Exposed Video
• Bright and Flat
• Casting for Colors
• On the Fence
• Skull and Crosshairs
• That's Blue

Chapter 9 Advanced Corrections

• Secondary to None
• Simple Spot Correction
• Advanced Spot Correction
• The Look
• Day for Night
• Music Video 101
• More Experiments

Appendix A Software and Plugin Capabilities

• Avid
• Avid|DS
• Boris
• Digital Film Tools
• GenArts
• 3Prong
• Final Cut Pro
• Premiere and Wintel Plugins
• After Effects
• Color Finesse Plugin
• Discreet Logic

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

What's on the CD-ROM?