Secondary Color Correction Primer - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 198

T I P
Those of you with the
ability to do custom shapes
do not need to add a lot
of points. Adding lots of
points slows down the
processing time because
the computer has to track
every one of those points.
It also makes moving all of
those points trickier, even
though in Color and many
other applications you can
move groups of “lassoed”
points together.

Fig. 5.49

In Color, when you are in the Vignette area and select “User shape”
from the Shape pulldown menu just below the Vignette check box, you
are instantly transported to the Geometry room where you have a lit-
tle larger image to work with to set your points. Just start clicking on
the image of the lion in the Geometry room UI to create your shape
( Figure 5.50 ) . When you get back to almost where you started, choose
“Close Shape” from the button to the right of the lion image.
Once your shape is drawn, use the “Attach” button at the top right of
the UI to have the shape “attached” to your secondary correction. This
step is necessary because you can choose multiple saved or created shapes
to attach to your correction.
Then you can go back to the Secondary room and soften the edges of the
shape so that there is not a hard edge to the garbage matte. You can see the
difference in the cleanliness of the matte by viewing the matte in the right-
hand (non-UI) monitor while toggling the Vignette check box off and on.
The discernable difference in the final image is actually quite small.
Remember that the original secondary correction without the garbage
matte was to darken the lion and pump up the saturation. In small areas
under the lion and in the eaves of the roof, this also darkened those areas
and brought up the green cast. With the garbage matte in place, those areas
are fixed. Was it worth the effort for the minimal gain? Only you and your
client can say. I suggest that you try to make your qualifications as clean
as possible, but sometimes your schedule and budget will not allow it. You
can certainly see the difference when you toggle between the shots with
and without the garbage matte, but if you edited the non-garbage matte
version into a show, then put in a second shot and then cut back to the
garbage matte version, there is no way anyone would see the difference.