Primary Color Correction: Color Control Primer - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 76

(a)

(b)

Fig. 3.2 (a) The red channel is low, the green channel is actually almost correct, and the blue channel is
elevated with the highlights very clipped. (b) To the right of the Primary Color room are two or three tabs.
The first tab is Basic. The second is Advanced and the third (possible) tab is RED.

Remember that the Lift controls are for controlling the bottom of the
waveform—the shadows. Looking at the image on the RGB Parade, the
shadows of the red are very close to being correct. They could come down
a very little bit. The green channel is about three times as high in the
blacks in the red channel and the blue channel is about three times as
high as green. When you are done with your corrections, the red channel
should have the least change and the blue channel should have the most
( Figure 3.3 ).
The results for my blacks correction look something like Figure 3.3 .
Note that the blackest chip, in the middle of the blue channel, is still
fairly elevated, but if I lower the lift any further in the blues, the chips
on the sides start to crush. With the blacks balanced, now you can set
the highlight balance. Using the same technique as setting the blacks,
use the red, green, and blue gain sliders to properly set the whites all to
the same level. The top red levels are 50 percent of where they should
be. The green channel is actually quite close to the correct level, but
still needs to come up about 15IRE, and the blue channels are very
clipped.

T I P
If you have a waveform
monitor that lets you zoom
in or expand the scale of
the waveform monitor,
zoom in on the bottom of
the waveform when bal-
ancing blacks and zoom in
on the top when balancing
highlights.