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Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Make Your Gray Skies Blue in Final Cut Pro

It’s not unusual for your skies to be washed out. This is often a problem, because video doesn’t offer the same dynamic range as film (the difference between darks and highlights). Fortunately, Final Cut Pro allows you to isolate the color correction, so you can achieve a fix just to the problem area.

1 Apply the Color Corrector 3-way filter, and access the filter’s visual controls.

2 Using the Select Color eyedropper in the Limit Effect controls, select the desired color you’d like to keep.

3 Click the key icon to view the matte. Use the Select Color eyedropper while holding down the Shift key to add to the matte. You can click in the Viewer or Canvas window.

4 Finesse the matte by adjusting the Width and Softness sliders for the Chroma, Saturation, and Luma values in the Limit Effect controls. When the desired color is clearly selected, there will be no holes in your matte. Also, adjust the Softening slider to improve the matte. You may get a better matte by using fewer limiting ranges.

5 Click the key icon twice to toggle back to View Final.

6 Adjust the color balance wheels and saturation of the shot.

You may need to add a second color corrector to finesse the scene or isolate another problem area.

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