Tips & Tricks

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30 Second Color
Correction Tricks in
Final Cut Pro
by Charles Angelis, Final Cut Cafe

Using Artbeats stock footage is an excellent way to

enhance the storytelling value of your production. A
common myth exists that says stock footage gives
your production a cookie-cutter look. The important
thing to understand is that any footage (shot by you
or by others) can give your production a cookie-cutter
look unless the shots have been color corrected. In
this tutorial I will show you how to breathe life into
your stock footage in Final Cut Pro using techniques
that take only 30 seconds. In this tutorial, I will use
only two filters, the Color Corrector 3-Way and Bright-
ness and Contrast filters found in Final Cut Pro.

Applying color correction is largely a personal affair.

You are trying to match one shot with another while
creating a unique look. In this example, I found the
original to have too strong of a blue cast. I also felt
Figure 1: Artbeats clip A013-C174. Top image is before, bottom image is
our characters blended in with the water too much. after the color correction was applied.

I began by increasing the white

values in the Color Corrector 3-Way
filter. This brought emphasis to our
characters by increasing the lu-
minance of the white shirt. It also
increased the shine on the boat,
helping to separate our characters
and the boat from the background.
Next I decreased the black levels to
give the shot a richer feeling. This is
commonly referred to as crushing the
blacks. Detail is taken out of the dark-
er, shadowy parts of the frame and
the end result is a shot that appears
to have more depth to it. Increas-
ing the mid tones came next. This
brought back more detail after having
decreased the blacks and added tex-
ture to the water. Lastly, I decreased
the saturation so the dominant color
in the frame, blue, would have less
strength in the overall look.

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Figure 2: Clip AGG-FH117-51 is from AQUA Geo Graphic, part of the

Artbeats FootageHub, left image is before, image to right is after color cor-
rection.

In this shot, I wanted to bring out

more detail in the manta ray and
have it appear to pop out of the
frame, bringing the viewer’s atten-
tion right to the manta ray. This
time I started by decreasing the
blacks first. I only lowered the black
value a little so as not to remove all
detail from the sea creature. Then
I increased the mid tones to help
separate the manta ray from the
burst of light in the background.
After that I shifted the hue towards
blue to give the water a more tra-
ditional ocean look. Increasing the
saturation was a natural next step,
making sure not to take it too far. I
was going for realism here. To help
the manta ray stand out from the
background, I used the Brightness
and Contrast filter to increase the
contrast by a value of 5.

The end result is a shot that has

more clarity. The foreground and
background also separate well.
This is essential in directing your
viewer’s attention to certain areas
of your frame.

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Figure 3: Artbeats Clip ASC134; left image is before, image to right is after
color correction.

My goal this time was to create a figure 4

more intense or edgy shot. The origi-
nal gave me the feeling of fall and I
wanted to give it a bright and warm
summer feeling to it. I started by
increasing the mid tones to brighten
the image, especially the sky and the
sand. I then decreased the blacks for
a more edgy look and to increase the
detail in the water. Bumping up the
saturation just a little gave my sky
that nice summer blue without going
over the top. Increasing the satura-
tion also improved the coloration of
the boat, which helps your viewer’s
line of sight travel from the boat to
the man walking on the beach. I still
found the image to be too cold for
summer. I shifted the hue towards
the yellow/green side of the spec-
trum. The yellow added the warmth I
was looking for and the green en-
hanced the nature colors.

I then used the Brightness and Con-

trast filter to increase the contrast
by a value of 10. This further defined
the edges of the trees and the distant
hillside in the background.

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Figure 4: Clip MD-FH101-38 is from Glory Film Co., part of the Artbeats
FootageHub, left image is before, image to right is after color correction.

This shot speaks heat to me. I wanted

to maintain that while improving on
the haziness apparent in the shot.
I increased the mids to brighten up
the sand and the camel. To balance
this out and to add richness to the
shadows, I decreased the blacks quite
a bit. Making drastic adjustment in
color correction usually involves a
give and take relationship. The more
I decreased the blacks, the more I
increased the mids to achieve the
balanced look I was going for. Take
a close look at the camel’s neck and
decoration. You will notice an in-
creased level of definition and rich-
ness in color. The image appears to
have higher contrast, but we only
used one filter to achieve this look.

At this point the sand was a little too bright for me.
I wanted it to be bright, but I did not want the high-
lights to be blown. I decreased the whites just a little.
Take another close look at the sand. You’ll notice that
by increasing the mid tones as much as I did, it got rid
of the unnatural orange hue in the sand. The end re-
sult is an image that places the viewer’s frame of mind
in a hot summer desert location.

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Figure 5: Clip NZV-FH101-19 is from NZ Video Productions, part of the

Artbeats FootageHub, left image is before, image to right is after color cor-
rection.

I took a different direction for this figure 4

shot, to illustrate how quickly you can
change the mood of your frame. I
wanted to establish a sense of ur-
gency as your viewer looks down the
path of sheep running towards them.
I started by increasing the whites to
give the sheep a harder light, which
makes them look like they are moving
faster. Then I increased the mids to
bring up the brightness of the lawn,
fencing and background. I decreased
the blacks to decrease some of the
shadow detail in the sheep and to
increase the perception of depth.

I used a careful balancing act when

adjusting these three values. After
initial adjustments, I would move the sliders for each
value, one after the other, to achieve a slightly rug-
ged, bleached look. The final touch came from shifting
the hue towards blue. This brought a sense of cold-
ness to the frame. Where there is cold, there is fear.
This adjustment in hue was a little more than minor.
It was enough to skew the overall feeling this frame
evoked.

Look at the before still and then look at the after. Do

the sheep appear to be running faster towards you in
the after than they appear in the before?

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Figure 6: Artbeats clip AR105; left image is before, image to right is

after color correction.

To close this tutorial, I thought I

would touch base with our roots,
black and white. This time I wanted
to give it an old sepia look. But
instead of applying the Sepia filter
in Final Cut Pro, I chose to use the
same filter we have been concen-
trating on in this tutorial, the Color
Corrector 3-Way filter. This method
is often quicker than applying color
correction and then adding a second
filter to achieve the sepia look.

The original shot looks a bit soft,

so I chose to liven it up a little by
decreasing the blacks. I then in-
creased the mids dramatically to
bring out the sky, the dirt ground
and their dresses. I decreased the
whites to ensure I could still see some detail in their
pleated skirts. Lastly, I shifted the hue towards the Charles Angelis, an Apple Certified
yellow/orange spectrum. This combination brought a Trainer, is a video post-production
realistic sepia look to the shot. Often, people try to specialist and video production
add sepia tone to their shots and end up making them teacher. He heads the Digital Me-
look too artificial. A careful blend of hues can give you dia Career-Tech Pathway at the
the realistic look of faded film dyes. New San Juan High School in Citrus
Heights, CA (an Apple Authorized
Training Center for Education) and
works as a freelance video editor
with over a decade of experience
editing national television series,
documentaries and corporate video.

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