8.3

Guiding Principles for Color Correction
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23 Color Correction Techniques
This chapter provides an introduction to color correction techniques. It suggests some general
principles to keep in mind when you are assessing footage and making color corrections, and
then presents examples of corrections to shots with typical color problems.
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Guiding Principles for Color Correction
• Examples of Color Correction Problems
Guiding Principles for Color Correction
One useful way to think about the color correction process is to define the overall goals of the
process. Another, slightly more practical and detailed, is to break down the typical color
correction workflow into clearly defined stages of adjustment. The following topics use these
two approaches to provide you with a set of guiding principles for color correction.
Goals of Color Correction: Restoration and Adaptation
You can think of color correction as having two main goals:
• Restoring the original look of the scene.
• Adapting the look of the scene to meet the demands of the project.
In some cases, color correction is complete when you have met the first goal. Often, however,
there is some departure from the restored look to achieve shot-to-shot consistency or to convey
creative concepts. So when you apply color corrections to any particular shot you usually have
two different contexts in mind: the original scene at the time the camera captured it and the final
situation of the shot within a program that has particular creative or communicative aims.
Restoring the Original Look
The first task in color correction is to restore the original look of the scene, that is, to make the
image match as closely as possible what an observer standing beside the camera would have
perceived when the scene was shot.
This is important because viewers typically have little tolerance for images that have unrealistic
color values. For example, when a skin tone departs from our normal expectations of what skin
should look like, we notice. Even when the final image is intentionally a distortion of reality, it is
useful to restore the original look before you make subsequent alterations.