Secondaries with the Pros - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 252

Fig. 6.75 Data for the inside of the secondary. Note the numbers under the color wheels.
key so that basically half of the image is black and half is white. Then he
selects to work on the outside of the selection, which is the black part of
the qualification. He brings both gain and gamma down. “By creating
a luminance key, I've kind of created some contrast naturally without
even raising the whites. I didn't make the blacks black. I just darkened
the gammas down and pulled the luminance value of that down. So now
I can actually go back and choose inside and kick him back up [bringing
gain up]” ( Figures 6.73 - 6.75 ).
Use a Secondary to Soften Skin Tones
One of the important skills for a colorist is to be able to soften skin tones
and beautify the people in a shot. This task goes beyond color correction
because it also involves creating a blurred, softened skin tone that is then
keyed through using either a simple qualification of skin tones or a skin
tone qualification combined with a garbage matte to protect other similar
colors or flesh tones in the same shot.
Bob Festa walked me through one of these corrections using the
footage of the “sleeping_woman.” Other colorists explored this same
image, showing various techniques from day-for-night to “relighting.”
It creates some unique challenges for colorists, so it's a great tutorial
shot. My good friend, veteran Denver-based director of photography
Rich Lerner, shot this image. We've pulled the shot out of context and