Secondary Color Correction Primer - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 196

Many directors of photography complain that the budget isn't there
to pay them to sit in with the colorist for the transfer to act as a guide to
ensure the integrity of the final image. Often they are already working on
the next project when it's time to color correct their footage. Sometimes
all that the DP has time for is a phone call to the colorist. There are sev-
eral applications designed to provide a technical link between the DP and
the colorist. Kodak has a software system that a production can license to
allow the DP to do some basic “look creation” on the set and then deliver
that image to the colorist as a guide. IRIDAS has a similar system.

D e f i n i t i o n
director of photogra-
phy (DP): The person on
the set responsible for the
look of the footage. Some-
times it's the same as the
camera person, sometimes
it's also the person that
lights the scene, but the
usual role for the director
of photography is to serve
as the liaison between the
director and the rest of the
camera and lighting crew
in achieving the desired
look of the shot. The
director of photography is
sometimes also the person
responsible for direct-
ing the colorist to either
maintain and protect the
look that was created on
the set or to enhance it in
some way. The director of
photography is also some-
times referred to as the DP
or DoP or cinematographer.
When trying to relight
a scene using spot correc-
tion, user-defined shapes
are very important because
they can be shaped the
way a pool of light might
normally fall. Using these
tools, you can remove spill

Color Vector with Window or Vignette

Sometimes it is impossible to qualify something with a color vector isola-
tion alone, and that is where the third method comes in, which is a com-
bination of the color vector isolation assisted by a vignette (in Color) or a
Window (in Resolve).
Let's go back to the first image we tried in this chapter, the Art Institute
lions. Load the “art_institute_lion_proper” clip into your color correction
application. Now try to select the lion again with a color vector isolation
or if you saved your isolation from the first example, then load it up.
The best isolation that I could come up with looked like Figure 5.47 .
Notice that the lion was pretty well selected, but I also selected some
of the grayish-green pedestal that the lion is standing on as well as some
grayish-green tones in the steps, under the arches and in the eaves of the
building. In the first example, we corrected the lion without further qual-
ifying the isolated areas, and we were able to do our corrections without
damaging the rest of the image too much.
In this exercise, we want to get a much cleaner key, and the only way to
do that is to add a garbage matte to that will key out the rest of the isolation

(a) (b)

Fig. 5.46 (a) This is a matte created from luma of MAR115H1 from Artbeats. Notice the unwanted highlight areas lower on the Marines'
clothing. (b) This is the same matte with a garbage matte applied so that only the portions of the luma matte above the yellow line will be
used for the qualification.