Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
channel that had attributes that would address the missing elements of
the bad channel. Sometimes this causes some whacked-out color shifts.
The goal here is to try to make the picture look more normal than what
you started with. Channels is really only a last-ditch attempt to fix bad
technical problems for me. If you have access to Channels or an RGB
Mixer, as in Resolve, and want more information on how to use it prop-
erly, I would suggest checking out one of the many Photoshop color
correction topics, such as
Photoshop Color Correction
by Michael Kieran.
There is an entire chapter on blending channels in that book. Photoshop
offers a much greater capability to blend many different channels using
options beyond those available in Avid Symphony, Color Finesse, and
Resolve.
After Effects also has a similar color correction tool called Channel
Mixer that can be found at Effects > Adjust > Channel Mixer. The Chan-
nel Mixer defaults to having the red channel be 100 percent red, the
green channel be 100 percent green, and the blue channel be 100 percent
blue. You can also combine each color channel with one of the other two
color channels by percentage or you can choose the Constant (“Const”)
option with specifies the amount of the input channel to be added to the
output. Color can't do this type of correction, but there is a channel mixer
plugin for Final Cut Pro that does this.
Printer Lights
There is another option on several color correction systems, including
DaVinci Resolve, Apple Color, and IRIDAS's SpeedGrade. You can choose
to alter the color the way the film industry has done it for decades: with
Printer Lights. This is
not
going to give you a lot of control.
Basically, this approach turns your highly specialized, finely tuned
digital color correction workhorse into an analog processor that harkens
back to the dawn of color film: changing the color correction of scenes
with a paper tape reader (
Figure 4.71
)
controlling the relative light levels
of the red, green, and blue printer lights that create the film print from
the negative. This additive color timing of a film print uses printer points
or printer lights from 1 up to 50 for each channel. Typically the printer is
set up to the “default” exposure of 25 red, 25 green, and 25 blue, which
is right where Color's default levels are set. To raise any given channel,
you lower its numerical value. If you want to raise the overall brightness
of a scene, you lower all three color channels evenly. There is no ability
to change relative levels for each tonal range. Of course, in SpeedGrade
and Color you can combine the use of printer lights with any other tools
in the system.
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