Creating Looks - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 402

Preset Looks in Apple's Color
Apple's Color—and many other applications—have this same ability to
create preset looks and apply them at the touch of a button. Most of the
preset looks that were delivered with the initial release of Color were cre-
ated by Bob Sliga, who is featured in this topic. Bob and I also cohosted
DVD training series together for both Apple Color and DaVinci Resolve
for Class on Demand. There are also fantastic preset looks available from
third-party vendors such as Graeme Nattress, who sells a collection of
effects nodes that works in Color. Many of the colorists who are experi-
enced Color/FinalTouch users highly recommend the Nattress plug-ins,
which come not only with the effects nodes themselves, but also with
entire prebuilt process trees. Sliga also sells a collection of looks for Color
called “Scone Looks,” including primaries, secondaries, and ColorFX for
Apple Color, plus a new series of Powergrades for DaVinci Resolve.
Film Processing Looks
Many of the highly desired looks that colorists are asked to do actually
mimic chemical film processes. We briefly touched on cross-processing,
and we'll take a deeper look into the electronic “reproduction” of the
skip bleach and bleach bypass looks later in the chapter, but the follow-
ing looks give you a quick overview of some of the ways that various
film processes can affect the look of an image. The following images are
not color corrections, but motion picture film processed chemically in
various ways. Understanding how these processes affect the look of the
image will help you build your “visual vocabulary.” Because directors
of photography are frequent collaborators with colorists, understanding
what these processes do to the image will help you communicate better
with them.
Often times, DPs will choose to attempt to reproduce these looks elec-
tronically in color correction sessions instead of applying them chemi-
cally, because these chemical processes are somewhat risky to apply as
they can't be “undone,” and although Kodak educates film makers in
how to execute and utilize these processes, it does not recommend them
due to the inherent dangers of developing film in ways that were not
intended.
Cross-processing creates higher contrast and saturation and distorts
colors in sometimes unexpected ways ( Figure 10.7 ) .
“Pushing” film—which overdevelops the negative—is used in com-
bination with underexposing the negative to increase contrast and add
grain ( Figures 10.11 and 10.12 ) . In color films, it also creates lifted, blue
shadows and a color imbalance. It is also possible to “pull” process film,
which is essentially the exact opposite of push processing.