Effects and transitions

Choosing Tonal Range from Output menu to display shadow, midtone, and highlight regions in image.

Specify a color or range of colors to adjust

The Secondary Color Correction property specifies the color range to be corrected by an effect. You can define the color by hue, saturation, and luminance. The Secondary Color Correction property is available for the following effects: Luma Corrector, Luma Curve, RGB Color Corrector, RGB Curves, and Three-way Color Corrector.

By specifying a color or range of colors using the Secondary Color Correction, you are isolating a color correction effect to specific areas of an image. This is similar to making a selection or masking an image in Photoshop. For example, you define a range of colors that selects only a blue shirt in an image. You can then change the color of the shirt without affecting any other areas of the image.

1Select the clip you want to correct in a Timeline panel and apply either the Luma Corrector, Luma Curve, RGB Color Corrector, RGB Curves, or Three-way Color Corrector effect.

2In the Effect Controls panel, click the triangle to expand the Luma Corrector, Luma Curve, RGB Color Corrector, RGB Curves, or Three-way Color Corrector effect.

3Click the triangle to expand the Secondary Color Correction controls.

4Select the Eyedropper tool and click the color you want to select in the Program Monitor. You can also click anywhere in the workspace to select a color, or click the color swatch to open the Adobe Color Picker and select a color.

5Do any of the following to increase or decrease the range of colors you want to correct:

•Use the + Eyedropper tool to extend the color range, and use the – Eyedropper tool to subtract from the color range.

•Click the triangle to expand the Hue control, and then drag the Start Threshold and End Threshold sliders to define the color range where the correction is applied at 100%. Drag the Start Softness and End Softness sliders to control feathering, which determines whether the boundaries of the color range are sharply defined or soft. You can also enter the Start and End properties numerically using the controls below the Hue control.

Note: The hue defined by the sliders can also be changed by dragging the upper or lower hue bands.

A B C D

Hue control

A. Start softness B. Start threshold C. End threshold D. End softness

•Use the Saturation and Luma controls to specify saturation and luminance properties for the color range to be color corrected. These controls fine-tune the range of color specification.

Last updated 1/16/2012

Effects and transitions

6(Optional) Choose Mask from the Output menu to view the areas selected for adjustment. White represents areas that allow 100% color correction, and black represents areas protected (masked) from color correction. The gray areas allow partial application of the color correction. This Mask view updates as you make further adjustments to the Secondary Color Correction controls.

Choosing Mask from Output menu to display selected areas (white) and protected areas (black).

7 Use the following controls to specify how a color correction is applied to a color or range of colors:

Soften Applies a Gaussian blur to the selected area generated by the Secondary Color Correction controls. The range is from 0 to 100, and the default setting is 50. This control is useful for softening the application of the color correction to selected areas so that it blends with the rest of the image.

Edge Thinning Thins or spreads the edge of the selected area generated by the Secondary Color Correction controls. The range is from –100 (thin, sharply defined edges) to +100 (spread, diffused edges). The default value is 0.

8Select the Invert Limit Color option to adjust all colors except the range that you specified using the Secondary Color Correction controls.

More Help topics

“Luma Corrector effect” on page 358

“Luma Curve effect” on page 359

“RGB Color Corrector effect” on page 360

“RGB Curves effect” on page 361

“Three-Way Color Corrector effect” on page 363

Replace a color

If you need more control than the Color Replace effect offers, use the Secondary Color Correction controls in the RGB Corrector, RGB Curves, and Three-way Color Corrector. These controls let you apply changes to a single color or a range of colors.

1In a Timeline panel, select the clip you want to adjust so it appears in the Program Monitor.

2If you want to replace a color in the displayed clip with a color in another clip in your project, open that other clip in the Source Monitor.

3Apply the Color Replace effect to the clip you want to adjust.

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Effects and transitions

4In the Effect Controls panel, click the Setup icon for the Color Replace effect.

5In the Color Replace Settings dialog box, move the pointer over the Clip Sample image so it becomes an eyedropper, and then click to choose the color to be replaced. You can also click the Target Color swatch and select a color in the Adobe Color Picker.

6Choose the replacement color by clicking the Replace Color swatch and selecting the color in the Adobe Color Picker.

7Broaden or reduce the range of the color you’re replacing by dragging the Similarity slider.

8Select the Solid Colors option to replace the specified color without preserving any gray levels.

More Help topics

“Color Replace effect (Windows only)” on page 378

Remove color in a clip

To quickly remove color in a clip, apply the Black & White effect from the Image Control bin of the Video Effects bin.

1Set up your workspace for color correction.

2Select the clip in a Timeline panel and apply either the Fast Color Corrector or the Three-way Color Corrector. See also “Apply effects to clips” on page 279.

3In the Effect Controls panel, click the triangle to expand the Fast Color Corrector or the Three-way Color Corrector controls.

4(Optional) Select the Show Split View option if you want to view a before and after comparison of your adjustment in the Program Monitor. You can specify whether the split view is horizontal or vertical by choosing from the Layout menu. You can also adjust the relative proportion of the before and after views.

5(Optional for the Three-way Color Corrector only) Do any of the following:

•To restrict your adjustments to a specific tonal range, choose Shadows, Midtones, or Highlights from the Tonal Range menu. Choosing Master applies adjustments to the entire tonal range of the image. If necessary, use the Tonal Range Definition controls to define the different tonal ranges. You can choose Tonal Range from the Output menu to view a tritone preview of the tonal ranges in the Program Monitor.

•To restrict your adjustments to a color or range of colors, click the triangle to expand the Secondary Color Correction controls. Define the color or color range by using the Eyedropper tool or slider controls, or enter numeric values. See also “Specify a color or range of colors to adjust” on page 324.

6Scrub the underlined text or enter a value lower than 100 for the Saturation control. You can also click the triangle to expand the control so you can drag the slider.

Mix color channels in a clip

1In the Effects panel, click the triangle to expand the Video Effects bin, and then click the triangle to expand the Adjust bin.

2Drag the Channel Mixer effect to the clip in a Timeline panel.

Note: If the clip is already selected in a Timeline panel, you can drag the Channel Mixer effect to the Video Effects section of the Effect Controls panel.

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Effects and transitions

3Decrease or increase a channel’s contribution to the output channel by doing any of the following to a source color channel:

•Scrub an underlined value to the left or right.

•Click an underlined value, type a value between –200% and +200% in the value box, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).

•Click the triangle to expand the Channel Mixer controls, and drag the slider to the left or right.

4(Optional) Drag the slider, scrub the underlined text, or type a value for the channel’s constant value (Red-Const, Green-Const, or Blue-Const). This value adds a base amount of a channel to the output channel.

5(Optional) Select the Monochrome option to create an image containing only gray values. This option achieves this result by applying the same settings to all the output channels.

More Help topics

“Channel Mixer effect” on page 355

Isolate a single color using Color Pass

The Color Pass effect lets you isolate a single color or a range of colors. Adjustments are made in a dialog box showing the Clip Sample and Output Sample. You can also adjust the Color Pass effect properties in the Effect Controls panel.

If you want to color correct a single color or range of colors in a clip, use the Secondary Color Correction controls in the Color Correction effects.

1Drag the Color Pass effect to a clip.

2In the Effect Controls panel, click the Setup icon for the Color Pass effect.

3In the Color Pass Settings dialog box, do one of the following to select the color that you want to preserve:

•Move the pointer into the Clip Sample (the pointer turns into an eyedropper) and click to select a color.

•Click the color swatch, select a color in the Adobe Color Picker, and then click OK to close the Adobe Color Picker. The selected color appears in the Output Sample.

4For the Similarity option, drag the slider or enter a value to increase or decrease the color range to be preserved.

5To reverse the effect, so that all colors except the specified color are preserved, select the Reverse option.

To animate this effect, use the keyframe features in the Effect Controls panel.

More Help topics

“Color Pass effect (Windows only)” on page 378 “Specify a color or range of colors to adjust” on page 324

Adjust edges, blurs and brightness using Convolution presets

You can control the fine details of blurring, embossing, sharpening, and other effects by applying the Convolution Kernel effect or one of the convolution presets based on it. Convolution Kernel, and the presets based on it, overlays a matrix of numbers onto a matrix of pixels. You can set the values for each cell in the matrix using sliders in the Effect Controls panel, and you can use keyframes to change these values over time. To achieve a desired effect, it is often easier to apply one of the convolution presets and to modify it, than to apply and modify the Convolution Kernel effect itself.

Last updated 1/16/2012