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Table Of Contents
- Color User Manual
- Contents
- Color Documentation and Resources
- Color Correction Basics
- Color Correction Workflows
- Using the Color Interface
- Importing and Managing Projects and Media
- Creating and Opening Projects
- Saving Projects and Archives
- Moving Projects Between FinalCutPro and Color
- Reconforming Projects
- Importing EDLs
- Exporting EDLs
- Relinking QuickTime Media
- Importing Media Directly into The Timeline
- Compatible Media Formats
- Converting Cineon and DPX Image Sequences to QuickTime
- Importing Color Corrections
- Exporting JPEG Images
- Setup
- Monitoring
- Timeline Playback, Navigation, and Editing
- Video Scopes
- Primary In
- Secondaries
- Color FX
- Primary Out
- Managing Corrections and Grades
- The Difference Between Corrections and Grades
- Saving and Using Corrections and Grades
- Applying Saved Corrections and Grades to Shots
- Managing Grades in the Timeline
- Using the “Copy to” Buttons in the Primary Rooms
- Using the Copy Grade and Paste Grade Memory Banks
- Setting a Beauty Grade in the Timeline
- Disabling All Grades
- Managing Grades in the Shots Browser
- Using the Primary, Secondary, and Color FX Rooms Together to Manage Each Shot’s Corrections
- Keyframing
- Geometry
- Still Store
- Render Queue
- Calibrating Your Monitor
- Keyboard Shortcuts
- Setting Up a Control Surface
- Index
28 Chapter 1 Color Correction Basics
Contrast
Contrast adjustments are the most fundamental, and generally the first, adjustments
made. Contrast is a way of describing an image’s tonality. If you eliminate all color from
an image, reducing it to a series of grayscale tones, the contrast of the picture is seen
by the distribution of dark, medium, and light tones in the image.
Controlling contrast involves adjustments to three aspects of an image’s tonality:
 The black point is the darkest pixel in the image.
 The white point is the brightest pixel in the image.
 The midtones are the distribution of all tonal values in between the black and white
points.
White
Black
Mids