Basic Color Correction Techniques for First-Time Editors

When you import a video footage into your editing software and realize something important, raw footage never looks like what you thought it would look like in your head. The clip looks flat or the colours are washed out, each clip has a different shade of light. That's why colour correction is so important. For the novice editor, mastering a few basic colour correction techniques can give you an edge in transforming raw footage to make it appear balanced and professional. Not many people realise that Colour Grading isn't just for advanced editors of blockbuster films or for commercials. In fact, just adjusting the colours an editor uses can add tremendous value to any video regardless of whether the video is professionally produced, using only simple changes can dramatically improve the video quality. As a result, modern video editing schools and many computer courses now include colour correction as part of their core curriculum because they want to teach new editors how to create a cohesive look or feel without using complex or expensive equipment. Understanding What Color Correction Actually Means In order to understand how to use colour correction it is vital that one understand the reason for colour correction. The intent of colour correction does not intend to create stylized or dramatic content - but rather to correct flaws in footage such that it displays as natural and consistent, without having had to correct it. When a new editor is working on their video for the first time, they may notice several common problems in the footage such as: dark clips and/or an overall blue or orange look to the clips and/or a lack of consistency across different angles from the same scene in different clips. Colour correction can help to provide a means to correct the above mentioned issues through the adjustment of variables (i.e. brightness/contrast/white balance and/or colour temperature). Most of the current editing software used in most professional video production courses offer sliders to provide access to the Variables used in Colour Correction. Even small adjustments will create a noticeable improvement in the overall presentation of any piece of footage. Start With Exposure and Brightness The first thing that needs to be done to pdfs by editors is to address the exposure of the images. If an image has a dark exposure level the image will lose any detail that is important. In contrast, if the image has a bright exposure, the bright areas of the image will appear flat and look washed out. When adjusting the brightness of an image to increase the overall brightness until the image appears sharp, check to make sure that the very bright areas of the image, also referred to as "highlights," are not blown out (i.e., too bright). Then adjust the contrast of the image to give the image some "pop" and add depth. Adding contrast separates the light and dark areas of the frame, creating more strength in the final footage. When practicing interior design for the first time at school, the students learned that fixing the exposure first made it effortless to make the other color adjustments because once you fixed the exposure of the image, all of the other color adjustments flowed much more naturally. Fixing White Balance for Natural Colors Another very common issue with raw video is white balance. Indoor lighting sometimes causes videos to have a very yellow appearance and, in comparison, outdoor shots will look much more blue due to the way light behaves. The white balance can be corrected to return to a more natural color to the scene. Editing programs generally allow the editor to adjust both the temperature and tint of an image in order to bring the colors in an image closer to how the human eye sees them by warming up or cooling down the image slightly. Although it may seem like a small adjustment, proper white balance is a key aspect of professional video editing. Even beginner editors in editing classes quickly realise the value of having correct white balance and how it creates a more realistic look in their videos. Simple Color Adjustments Every Beginner Should Try Novice video editors can make simple additional improvements to polished video once the exposure and white balance have been set. These are basic adjustment techniques that are taught in many beginner video editing courses: Increase saturation to enhance the richness of colors from the video footage: Correct shadows to bring out details that are otherwise lost within darker areas of the footage. Reduce brightness on highlights that are represented by extremely bright areas in the footage to reduce the harshness associated with these bright areas. Utilize the color wheels to ensure that the skin colour of individuals appear healthy with regards to overall colour balance. Each of these small adjustments do not require a great deal of advanced technical knowledge on behalf of the person performing the adjustments to video footage using these few available tools. In fact, very often someone who is a non-technical type of learner would be extremely pleased to find out how quickly their video editing could be improved by using just these few tools and techniques as part of their overall video editing training. Why Learning Color Correction Is Valuable Gaining an understanding of colour correction is about more than just improving the quality of your videos. Learning how to correct defects with regards to lighting and colour gives you the confidence to make creative decisions as a newer video editor. These are the two main benefits of joining a structured video editing course as opposed to having to adjust the sliders on your video editing software at random. Rather than just adjusting sliders with no justifiable reasoning, students will learn the reasons behind each of their adjustments. Additionally, through learning from various pieces of footage, they will develop an effective professional video editing process. Depending upon the person, anyone outside the technical field should be able to learn how to do these easier than they think. Through using step by step as a guideline and getting constructive feedback from the instructor on your projects, this allows you to learn the process more easily. Final Thoughts The first thing to know about color correction as an inexperienced video editor is that it can feel really overwhelming at first, but in actual fact, it’s one of the most gratifying elements of the video editing process. When you are able to create a high-quality video by performing only four basic color correction tasks (exposure adjustment, contrast adjustment, white balance adjustment, and some simple adjustment of your video’s overall color balance), your videos will look far better than they did prior to your corrections. The best way to get started with color correction is to concentrate on making your video look natural instead of trying to add excessive style to it When you continue to correct your video’s colors for an extended period of time through practice and repetition, these corrections will become automatic for you Eventually, through attending a video-editing course, a computer training program, etc., you will have developed a sufficient amount of experience to feel confident enough that mastering color correction will be one of the most important milestones toward becoming a skilled and original video editor.

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