Correcting Shots - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 290

I'm attacking the midtones again right away because it's an
opened-up image.

- Greg Creaser, freelance colorist

“I'm attacking the midtones again right away because it's an opened-
up image. I mean there's a lot of range in there. Midtones are going to
be fine for the brunt of it. He's looking a little cool to me. Let's give him
a little more flesh tone back somewhere in there. The highlights may be
a little bit hot. There's a couple ways to attack that. We could pull them
down here,” he says, referring to the highlights in primaries. “Then pull
the mids back up. Not much we can do with that hotspot. That would be
another key situation. Or you maybe wanna throw a shape in there to
knock it down if your eye is getting drawn to it. If we wanna little more
bite in there, we can dip the blacks a little bit more. I think this image can
handle it. Bring the mids back up just a little bit.
“Now let's check out before and after. It's just kind of normalized. I'd
like to see a little more bite to the image, but I'd be a little afraid of the
hair going away. Sometimes, if I'm grading a film [for DI], I'd use a pixel
picker to see where we were in our 10-bit data. Since we're working in
HD, I would leave it where it is or we'll get ghosting in the blacks, which
is what would happen if you force it too far. I like it.”
Creaser cuts back and forth between the source and his correction.
“We lessened the contrast just a little bit and gave it a normal look.
They're in the shadow, so they wouldn't have a lot of contrast here”
( Figures 7.40 and 7.41 ).

When you're working on film, you can be a little more bold on things.
But if you're working in 8-bit video, you have to watch it.
- Greg Creaser, freelance colorist

I ask Creaser what clues or hints that he's seeing in the picture to
decide what an image should look like. He responds. “He's in the shadow,
even though he's lit, of course. It'd be flat light because he's not getting
any kick from highlight of the sun. So the first place to attack this would
be lessening the contrast, because I felt it to be a little bit too much in the
original. It doesn't look correct that way. I mean, if you were standing
there looking at this guy, would it be that contrasty? I don't think so. So
you back it out just a little bit and it looks a little more natural. And we
didn't kill it and we took the blue out. When you're working on film, you
can be a little more bold on things. But if you're working in 8-bit video,
you have to watch it.”