CHAPTER 6

Secondaries with the Pros

In the earlier chapters, we broke up color correction into various components or tasks, which makes sense when you are trying to learn something. In reality, these tasks are not performed in isolation, but in a more all-encompassing, holistic approach that includes revising work that was already done and fixing issues that actually developed throughout the color correction process.

Because of that, the following chapters, which are led mostly by our expert panel of colorists, will have a primary focus—such as secondary correction, or look creation—but will also include other elements—such as primary correction—or may jump into other elements of the correction, because that’s how the colorists actually worked on the images and to break the tasks up like in the previous chapters would be to take their entire thought process out of context.

I organized this chapter into two basic secondary concepts that we outlined in the previous chapter:

1. Vignettes (or spot corrections or windows)

2. Vector and luma qualifications (based on HSL values)

Both of these methods actually create mattes, inside of which the secondary correction is done.

Vignettes

One of the methods of secondary color correction is vignetting or spot color correction. In a DaVinci suite, it is called Power Windows. Whatever the term, the tools allow for the correction of a specific geographic portion of the image that is usually defined or qualified by a geometric shape or possibly by a user-defined shape that is created by combining geometric shapes or by the use of Bezier or B-spline curves (Figure 6.1).

Apple’s Color uses the term “vignette” to define any of these geographic corrections, but when most colorists are discussing vignetting, they don’t mean any geographic correction, but the specific act of darkening the edges and focusing the viewer’s attention on the middle of the screen (Figures 6.2 and 6.3). Sometimes the technique is done with a defocus vignette that blurs the outside edges instead of—or in addition to—darkening them.

Almost every colorist in this book used vignettes in their work, but many of them seemed almost a little embarrassed that they used them, although vignetting is a tried-and-true technique that you can see in practically any national TV spot on the air.

I asked veteran colorist Bob Festa of New Hat, a Santa Monica telecine boutique, about this aversion to vignettes.

“Well, I’m one of the original architects of one of the most abused techniques in color grading,” Festa explained jokingly. “The beauty of it is that in any given shot—if it’s done well—you can’t point to it and say, ‘That’s got a vignette on it.’ It’s a very subliminal, subconscious 3D thing. And quite frankly, I used it as recently as 20 minutes ago. I’m not going to let it drop.”

Fig. 6.1 The yellow and green lines in this window describe user-defined windows in DaVinci Resolve. Secondary color correction can be applied inside and outside of these shapes. Image courtesy of Seduced and Exploited Films from Kiss Me in the Dark.

Fig. 6.2 Source image without vignette, image courtesy of Artbeats.

Fig. 6.3 Vignetted image with very strong vignette effect, image courtesy of Artbeats.

For the colorists that used this technique in the sessions I watched, the vignetting clearly improved the final image, which I could confirm by disabling the secondaries with the vignettes in them.

It makes the image seem to have more depth to it. If there are big bland areas, like a gray sky, it gives more texture to it, and it focuses the attention where it’s supposed to be. Festa agreed with this assessment: “It’s clearly more filmic. Maybe it’s because early on in Pandora (Pandora’s grading system was called Pogle), people had to use square windows and a lot of people had a problem getting a good vignette with a square based window. But in the round, oval-based world, I have no problem making it work within the confines of safe action in a tasteful way.”

Fig. 6.5 Football image without vignette. Image courtesy of Artbeats.

Fig. 6.6 Football image with vignette. Image courtesy of Artbeats. This vignette is pretty strong and obvious for the purposes of being seen in print. This was created with an oval Window in Resolve, darkening mids and shadows outside of the oval.

Another colorist who is unapologetic for using vignettes is Chris Pepperman–formerly of NFL Films, now senior colorist at NASCAR–despite chiding from some of his colorist coworkers.

“They think it’s just darkening the edges. My idea of a vignette is: I don’t want you to see it. I’m using it as an option like a DP would. I’m using it as a lighting tool. That’s what I consider vignetting.” Pepperman continues, “Being able to help isolate your eye towards the specific product, person, or whatever you want in the picture. So that’s why I use it all the time. I use vignetting on everything that I do in my commercial work, whether it’s a square or a circle, or whether it’s a shape that consists of a combination of shapes. (DaVinci lets you combine geometric shapes in a variety of ways.) I always do it because when I look at a picture, I’m always trying to help what I’m looking at. If I was working on a picture of a beautiful mountain landscape, I would do the same thing. I would try to isolate, vignette the sky, and bring it down or the ground and bring it up. I’m just always using it because it’s just such a powerful tool for the colorist. Why wouldn’t you?”

Vignetting the Ultralight Flyover Scene

Craig Leffel, of Chicago’s Optimus, demonstrates this classic technique as part of his correction of the “ultralight flyover” shot (Figure 6.7). (You can follow along with these corrections by loading the tutorial scenes from the DVD into your color correction application or plug-in.) When creating these vignettes, some of the colorists chose to create the shape and leave the edges sharp while affecting the secondary or setting the shape and size of the vignette. This sharp edge made it very easy to see exactly how much they were affecting the image. Other colorists preferred to set the softness on the vignette’s edge before affecting any change so that they had a better sense for the way the correction would actually look when it was complete. Leffel puts himself in the first camp, saying, “I find it easier to change the shape before I change the softness of a vignette. But I’m kind of in both camps. It depends on what I’m trying to do. If I’m trying to do something that’s really extreme, then I don’t need to see it, but if I’m trying to do something subtle, or I’m trying to just fix something, the more subtle it is, the more I like to have less softness so I can see what I’m actually doing instead of assuming it’s working with the softness turned up. This one I’m gonna start hard just to see.”

Fig. 6.7 Source image courtesy of Randy Riesen.

Fig. 6.8 Scopes showing source image, from Tektronix WVR 7100. Upper left is RGB Parade. Lower left is RGB Parade expanded to show black level. Upper right is composite waveform. Lower right is a vectorscope at standard zoom.

First, Leffel does a primary correction. This correction mostly involved the master black, gamma, and highlight levels. Leffel also tweaked the highlight balance toward red and slightly moved blacks the same direction (Figure 6.9).

All colorists worked in FinalTouch HD, because Color was not yet released. This screenshot is from the Primary room of FinalTouch HD.

He continues the correction with a secondary qualification on the grass (Figure 6.10). He grades inside and outside that qualification.

Fig. 6.9

Leffel continues his correction. “Now that I’ve got an isolation and a sort of base level correction I’m doing an outside vignette because in the original image, the sides are real flat. There’s an even exposure across the whole thing. It’s always nice to have a vignette there to blend out—not to do an obvious vignette, to darken the edges obviously—but to do a soft vignette (Figure 6.14).

“So, I brought down gamma and black and a little bit of gain, but not much. Mostly gamma. This image is mostly gamma anyway. There’s not a whole lot of black and not a whole lot of white, so almost all of this image is easily manipulated with gamma.”

Fig. 6.10

Fig. 6.11 This is the correction inside of the qualification—the white areas.

Although Leffel keeps the edge sharp on his vignette while he drops the level at the beginning, he gets to a point where he needs to see the vignette softness closer to the way it will look in the end. “I’m going to make that vignette as soft as I can make it and what this is going to do is just add richness to the whole image. We brought it down from what the original was. Now we’re going to add even more richness. The interesting thing is going to be to see what happens when the ultralight flies. If you do the vignette soft enough, then the vignette doesn’t become an issue with the motion. You don’t really sense the vignette there. You just sense richness. The brighter center is just sort of a natural feeling which is what I’m after.”

Fig. 6.12

Fig. 6.13 This is the small correction made outside the qualification—black areas.

Fig. 6.14

Fig. 6.15 Final correction.

Vignetting the “Kiss” Bedroom Scene

Of all of the colorists who used vignettes to focus attention on the subject, the most intricate example was probably done by Mike Matusek of Chicago’s Nolo Digital Film. Matusek worked with several vignettes to shape the bedroom scene from “Kiss Me In the Dark” (Figure 6.16). We’ll walk through the entire correction, including the vignettes he creates at the end of the grade.

“I don’t use the vectorscope much,” Matusek mentions, before he starts grading the image. “Before I start any shot, I quickly glance at the waveform. See where the whites and the blacks are? I noticed that the blacks are a little warmer, so I thought I’d balance them. Sometimes I’ll whack out the blacks just to give it a look, but I’ll always try to start by balancing it. Overall I thought it looked a little washed, so I’m bringing the midtones down a little bit as opposed to crushing the blacks.

“On the Nucoda system that I work on, I’ll zoom in and sample an area. So now I’m going to work on gain. The midtones are a little warmer than I’d like. I like playing off these little blue accents, these highlights,” he says, pointing to her négligée. “So what I’d like to do is overall go a little cooler.” Matusek simultaneously pushes warmth into the shadows and then adds blue into the midtones. “And I got some green out of the highlights, just because I didn’t like that. I noticed that there is some green in the blanket or maybe there’s some green fill and then I pulled green from those highlights, but the whole image starts to look magenta, because I’m losing green,” Matusek explains, backing off of his green highlight correction.

Fig. 6.16 Bedroom scene from “Kiss Me In the Dark.” Image courtesy of Seduced and Exploited Entertainment.

Fig. 6.17 Scopes showing source image from Tektronix WVR 7100. Upper left is YRGB Parade. Lower left is vectorscope zoomed in 5x. Upper right is composite waveform. Lower right is a vectorscope at standard zoom.

Fig. 6.18 Final primary correction.

Fig. 6.19 FinalTouch UI showing primary data.

Matusek switches between the original source and his correction (Figure 6.18). “See? That’s getting a lot moodier.”

Before Matusek starts adding secondary vignettes, he shuttles through the footage past the first frame and sees that a man comes down into the frame from above. Matusek is glad he checked the shot: “The thing that’s a big pain in the ass is when you spend ten minutes on a shot like this and hit play and then the guy comes in the frame and screws up what you did, so what I would typically do is go through the whole shot to see what I’m getting myself in to. So he does come in, but I notice that he doesn’t really go in front of the pillow. What I notice is that my eye goes to this pillow (above her forehead) and even down here (the sheet under her neck and shoulders), so what I’d like to do is put a window here (on the pillow) and drop the exposure. Put a window here (foreground sheet) and drop the exposure. I really hate this highlight on the back wall, so I’d put a Bezier shape and bring that highlight down (Figure 6.20) and really soften it, and if I had to, I could keyframe it to stay where I wanted it to stay. First I’ll put those other two windows, because I know they’ll actually work.”

Matusek explains that about half of the work he does is commercials and half is independent films. “The trend, I felt, was that in independent film it was more about setting the mood and emotion and with commercials, it’s about getting a really cool look to grab people’s attention. Hopefully, it’s to help sell the product with the look having to do with the story of the spot, but mostly give it a hip, cool look and focus the attention on the product. And if you give it a really cool look, when you get to the product shot, make it look nice and pretty and bright. So basically commercials are a lot brighter, contrastier. Long form is a little bit moodier.”

At this point, Matusek adds a soft, low, wide vignette to darken the sheet below her body, bringing the highlights down to about half and the midrange down a little, commenting, “Now your eye goes to her and I still don’t like that pillow, so I’ll do one more window there.” He draws a custom shape for the pillow and brings the master gain down. “I think I went a little too flat.” He checks back and forth—toggling the vignette off and on before revising it by increasing the contrast inside the window.

“There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘You wanna go darker with that? You wanna go darker?’ But you’ve got to push it to the point where it looks pretty bad and then bring it back. Especially with clients. All colorists can see subtle changes in what they did. We’re staring at the image for the whole time, while they’re reading a magazine or they’re on their laptop and they’re looking up and down, so they miss those subtle changes. So it’s good to show them—not extreme differences—but enough differences so they can see it.”

Fig. 6.20 With the vignette. Only the Master Gain was brought down to about 75 percent inside the vignette.

Matusek then adds another vignette, bringing down the edges some more. “When you go back and forth you kind of get a feel for the balance, like ‘That feels a little top heavy.’” To fix the “top-heaviness” of the image, Matusek repositions the vignette lower in the frame, then toggles back and forth to check the correction. “Here (without the vignette) it looks a little bit overlit. Here (with the vignette) it’s a little more dynamic. There’s more depth.”

Matusek continues to evaluate the image to see how it can be improved. “Now that I’m happy with all this other stuff, this highlight (on the négligée on her breast) is bothering me. So now there’re two things I could do. I can add a luma key on the highlights and defocus them. Or maybe just put another window and bring it down.” Matusek adds another window, on the négligée (Figure 6.21), explaining, “By putting that window on her hand and her breast, your eye goes to her face.”

Fig. 6.21 Vignette on négligée. Only Master Gain was brought down to about 70 percent inside the vignette.

Fig. 6.22 An overall vignette was added to focus attention and give texture. The outside of the vignette has the Master Gain lowered to about 50 percent.

Fig. 6.23 Original Source from Seduced & Exploited Entertainment’s “Kiss Me In the Dark.”

Fig. 6.24 Matusek’s final correction.

When he is done with the vignettes, he summarizes what he did, and what he looks for before he moves on to the next shot (Figure 6.24). “I kind of shaped it. First you start off getting the density of the image. Then I get the color balance where I want it. Then the mood and where you want to put the gamma and the midtones. Then I kind of shape it. And now I’ll go back to my primary and maybe I’ll go even cooler with it, just for the heck of it and see what it looks like.”

Vignette to Create Day-for-Night

NASCAR senior colorist Chris Pepperman (formerly of NFL Films) used vignettes to create a day-for-night look in the “Michigan Ave. Pumpkin Lights” scene (Figures 6.25–6.28). Normally, in a day-for-night shot, you would want to avoid shooting the sky, because even if you darken down the entire shot, the contrast between the sky and the rest of the image is usually a clear giveaway that the scene was not shot at night. To bring that contrast under control, Pepperman used several vignettes throughout the image.

“So the first thing I’m going to do is create a circle. I’m going to take it down below the pumpkins and I’m going to rotate it and now I’m going to stretch it. I’m situating this window where I can now work on the outside of it and I really want to knock down the sky even more. I’m gonna really crush the you-know-what out of it.” As he does this, he notices something that bothers him. “Can you see the noise in there a little bit? So what I’m going to do is come up on the black levels to get rid of that noise and leave the black levels alone, because there are some blacks here in the building. I’m going to bury (the highlights) and add even more dark blue.” But as he does this, he sees another problem develop (Figure 6.29). “I don’t like what it’s doing here. I should be able to track more of that blue in there. And I see some posterizing going on.”

Fig. 6.25 Source image courtesy Randy Riesen.

Fig. 6.26 Scopes showing source image from Tektronix WVR 7100. Upper left is RGB Parade.
Lower left is RGB Parade expanded to show black level. Upper right is composite waveform. Lower right is a vectorscope at standard zoom.

Fig. 6.27 Pepperman starts out with a primary correction.

Fig. 6.28 Data from FinalTouch Primary room UI.

Because of these issues, he backs off the more extreme correction that he was trying to do before continuing. “So the next thing I’m going to do is soften that out. But I want to almost see the curvature of the vignette because I want to put some texture in the sky. I want it to be almost organic. I don’t want it to look flat like you’re keying something in. I like having it darker to lighter. It gives it more of a true appearance.” I comment that the vignette he’s created looks like something a DP might have done with a filter. He’d been working outside of the vignette he created, but switches back to the inside to work on the lower part of the frame.

“Now inside the vignette, I might bring up the black levels a little bit. I’m going to push a little more blue to give it a perception more of night. I don’t want to contaminate the blacks too much, ‘cause I don’t want to change the color of the building either. Now I’ll start to bury the blacks again so you can really almost see the shadow on that. I really like that, but I still think we can push it more. So I’m going to go back outside the window and I’m going to bring the midrange down and the whites. I’m just going to make it a little more blue. And now I’m going to drop the window down.

Fig. 6.29 First secondary correction finished. Corrections were made inside and outside the qualified area made by the oval vignette.

Fig. 6.30 Data from the outside corrections to the secondary.

Fig. 6.31 Data from the inside corrections to the secondary.

“What I’m going to do is an isolation appearance. This is something I like to do.” Pepperman creates a custom user shape for the next vignette, defining one of the buildings. “What I’m doing is brightening the building to give it the appearance that the lights are on.” Pepperman creates this illusion by raising the highlights and crushing the blacks inside the vignette (Figures 6.32 and 6.33). “I’m going to make sure that the blacks are deep, so it doesn’t look like it’s got a spotlight on it. And the midrange might even help that. Now, that looks pretty good. I’m going to soften it. So I like that.”

Fig. 6.32 This has the second vignette added to the top-right building.

Fig. 6.33

You can see the triangular window and the changes to the master levels to create the impression that the lights are on bright inside the building.

Fig. 6.34 The third vignette added to the leftmost building.

Fig. 6.35 The data from the secondary, including the shape of the window.

As his next step in the correction, Pepperman plans to bring up the blacks on the building to the left and raises the highlights (Figures 6.34 and 6.35). “I’m going to use the trackballs to clean up the blue and now I’ll soften it.”

“And then I just want to do one more thing.” Pepperman creates a custom shape in the middle of the frame and darkens it (Figures 6.36 and 6.37). “Now it doesn’t look like it’s darker on the edges. You’ve got a darker feel in the middle, too.”

Fig. 6.36 The effect of the fourth secondary vignette.

Fig. 6.37 The data from the fourth vignette.

“If I really wanted to, I could isolate the pumpkins and bring them up. I don’t like the way they clip. I would brighten them back up to where they’re clipping. Like they would in real life. Because when it’s clipped like that but it’s low, it just doesn’t look right. So if I brighten the pumpkins up, this picture would say day-for-night much better. It would simulate it much better.” As he blows out the pumpkin lights, the shot looks much more realistic as day-for-night (Figures 6.38–6.41).

Fig. 6.38 The data for one of the pumpkin lights.

Fig. 6.39 The data for the other pumpkin light.

Fig. 6.40 Starting point for image.

Fig. 6.41 The final correction, including the last two pumpkin light vignettes.

Vector and Luma Qualified Secondaries

One of the reasons to use secondaries is because balancing an entire tonal range—highlights, midtones, or shadows—is not specific enough to fix more isolated color casts within that range. When that happens, secondaries allow the colorist greater precision to manipulate more specific ranges of color. One example of this is in the scene from Chasing Ghosts that I call “Banker’s Light” (Figure 6.42).

Janet Falcon, formerly a Miami-based colorist who is now at Shooters Post in Philadelphia, liked the challenge of bringing this scene to life and used secondary color correction to execute her vision. She starts with a basic primary correction (Figures 6.44 and 6.45), then moves on the secondaries.

“The highlighted areas in the shirt don’t have much green in them,” she begins. “It’s the midtone shadow areas that have more green. If I just take green out of the highlights, that’ll go further away. I just want to take green out of the lower lit areas (of the shirt).”

Falcon pulls green out with a secondary qualification based on the greens of the shirt. She pulls some of the green out, but when she does, she sees that her qualification of the green needs to be tweaked to better get all of the green out of the shirt without affecting the green tint in the window over the detective’s shoulder. She explains her qualification: “I like green. A lot of people don’t like green. Normally, what I would do is qualify it based on that that’s a darker color or a more colorful color. That’s why I was trying to pull up the bottom end of the luminance to eliminate the darker green in the door from the qualification in the shirt. What I would normally try to do is get the greener parts of the shirt. Let the tie stay beige. But there’s green in here,” she says as she points to the shadowed folds of shirt (Figures 6.46 and 6.47). “If I make a qualification that’s stronger on the green parts and maybe a little bit grayer, like not so much of a qualification on the white parts, so that when I make the color correction, it affects more of the greens, the stronger greens. And it might affect the lighter parts too, but not as much. I personally don’t want to affect [the green in the window of the door] unless the client or somebody told me, get rid of the green in the window.”

Fig. 6.42 Source image from Chasing Ghosts. Image courtesy of Wingman Productions, Inc.

Fig. 6.43 Scopes showing source image from Tektronix WVR 7100. Upper left is RGB Parade.
Lower left is RGB Parade expanded to show black level. Upper right is composite waveform. Lower right is a vectorscope at standard zoom.

When I ask why she doesn’t simply use a vignette to save the green light in the window of the door she responds, “Usually it’s easier if you can do something without windows, because you never know where you’re going to end up later. Maybe we’ll come back to this shot later and he’ll be up and standing in front of that or moving around, walking. So to the extent that you can do it with a color vector qualification, you never have to follow it with a window and track it. So I always try to do everything first without a window and then if you have to put in a window, then put in a window. And depending on what this is for, I might put a vignette on him to focus attention on him.” Falcon sets up a new secondary with a circle, softens it, and corrects outside of the circle (Figure 6.48).

Fig. 6.44 Falcon’s primary correction.

Fig. 6.45 Data from the primary correction in FinalTouch UI.

Fig. 6.46 This correction pulls some of the green out of the more midtone areas of the shirt.

Fig. 6.47 Here’s the data, including the qualification for Falcon’s first secondary.

Fig. 6.48 The effect of the correction to the outside of the second vignette.

I point out the different “camps” of colorists who prefer adding softness to the vignette early or later. Falcon walks the fence on this decision, though she seems to land in the “soften early” camp. “I like to get the window positioned the way I think I’m going to want it and then I go back and forth. For me they all go together. The amount of color correction; the shape of the window; the softness of the window. All those things play together. I know a lot of other people do it the other way. They’ll put the color correction in first and then do the luminance key. I know Kevin Shaw does that.” Kevin Shaw is a prominent color correction trainer and consultant. “If he wants a luminance key of the sky, he’ll make a color correction in a circle, then create a luminance key and bring that correction into the luminance key. I create the key as close as I think I can get it and then I color correct it. Then I go back and touch up the softness and the positioning. I do a lot of back and forth. I know I work differently than other people. I’ve seen people do it the other way and I can’t understand how they can do it that way.”

Falcon tweaks the aspect and rotation of the circle to include his face and some look room and darkens outside of it. Then she pulls a secondary HSL key on the highest chroma part of the banker light. “I think it helps to knock that light down a little bit.” I can tell she’s not quite happy with her correction because she’s unfamiliar with using FinalTouch/Color.

“I like to be very, very, very specific about what I affect and what I don’t affect. Some people aren’t that specific. I’m kind of neurotic about it. Like, his face looks like he’s sick. It’s kind of pink here and green here, and that’s because I didn’t get a perfect isolation on the pinker parts of the face. I got some of the pink out, but it also got it out of some of the places that I didn’t want to affect, Falcon mentions as she points to the detective’s forehead. “And in here, not enough, she continues, pointing at the darkened side of the face (Figures 6.49 and 6.50). “So he ends up looking kind of blotchy, but in the end it’s better.”

Fig. 6.49 Completed correction, including a third secondary to reduce the intensity of the glow in the banker’s light.

Fig. 6.50 The data from the third secondary, showing the qualified area.

Secondary Corrections Can Focus Attention

Larry Field of Level 3 Post in Los Angeles used a vector qualification to place the attention where it was needed in the scene I call “Music Video Overhead” which was shot by Charles Vanderpool (Figure 6.51).

Before he begins, Field jokes about the general look of music videos, saying, “So no one’s afraid of contrast in a music video. What I would do if [the strong color of the floor] was a concern would be to grab a color isolation on just that color and desaturate it after everything else was balanced and that would send your eye to her better. But first I want to start at a position where everything is where we want to be instead of starting with just that color and everything else is out of balance. I start basically with primary color correction. Do the contrast and the basic feel first. It doesn’t matter who you’re with or where you’re at; people are going to enjoy the image a lot better once the primaries are balanced, and you’re in the ballpark where you need to be. Then you can start playing in the secondaries, effects, windows, keys, masks. That stuff is always secondary to me. It’s always after I have it balanced and I have an idea of where I’m going and what we’re doing.

Fig. 6.51 Source image courtesy of Vanderpool Films and Charles Vanderpool.

Fig. 6.52 Scopes showing source image from Tektronix WVR 7100. Upper left is YRGB Parade. Lower left is vectorscope zoomed in 5x. Upper right is composite waveform. Lower right is a vectorscope at standard zoom.

Fig. 6.53 Scene after secondary correction, reconstructed from watching a videotape of the session.

Fig. 6.54 The data from the reconstructed primary correction.

Fig. 6.55 Field just talked through this secondary correction during the session. I reconstructed it later using his instructions.

Fig. 6.56 Recreated secondary data.

“Then use a secondary to pick the narrowest range of the floor, so it isn’t affecting anything else and desaturate it and maybe swing towards red a little bit to blend in with the shadows more. With the secondary, look at the matte to see what part of the picture you’re affecting.”

Using Secondaries to Match

We have an entire chapter devoted to matching shots (Chapter 9), but here we’ll point out several ways that secondaries can help resolve tricky matching problems. Robert Lovejoy from Shooters Post in Philadelphia used just about every type of secondary qualification as he tried to match the “Art Institute Lions—Cool” scene (Figure 6.59) with the “Art Institute Lions—Base” scene (Figure 6.57).

Like most colorists, he started with the basics before moving to secondaries. Lovejoy explained his opening steps: “I’m balancing blacks, balancing whites, and spreading my tonal range. I’m looking at the steps and the building façade.” He sets up a split screen between the correctly shot image and the cool image and then positions the split down the middle of the lion. He starts by trying to match the base that the lion is standing on, adding some red to the midtones (Figures 6.61 and 6.62).

His primary correction to the cool image turns the sky a freakish color (Figure 6.61). This is where secondaries come in handy to fix problems created in the primary correction. Lovejoy qualifies the sky in the upper right corner with a luminance only matte, then desaturates the highlights within the qualification, taking the sky back to pure white (Figures 6.63 and 6.64).

Instead of simply trying to match the base scene with the cool scene, Lovejoy also improves the base scene, then grabs a still of the improved base scene and wipes between it and the cool version he’s trying to match (Figures 6.65 and 6.66). Instead of relying on scopes, he’s using just his eyes, the video monitor, and years of experience. “It’s very close. There are subtle differences in the lion. Secondary could be my friend on that.”

Fig. 6.57 Source image of “base” Art Institute scene.

Fig. 6.58 Scopes showing source image from Tektronix WVR 7100. Upper left is YRGB Parade. Lower left is vectorscope zoomed in 5x. Upper right is composite waveform. Lower right is a vectorscope at standard zoom.

Fig. 6.59 Source image of “cool” Art Institute scene.

Fig. 6.60 Scopes showing source image from Tektronix WVR 7100. Upper left is YRGB Parade. Lower left is vectorscope zoomed in 5x. Upper right is composite waveform. Lower right is a vectorscope at standard zoom.

Fig. 6.61 The cool lion corrected with a primary correction.

Fig. 6.62 The data for the cool lion primary correction.

Fig. 6.63 This secondary pulls the sky back to white.

Fig. 6.64 The data for the secondary correction of the sky.

Fig. 6.65 This is the base, semicorrect image with a primary.

Fig. 6.66 This is the data for the primary correction on the base image.

To create his secondary correction on the lion, Lovejoy combines two qualifications. First he qualifies the lion using an HSL key. His HSL qualification goes a little “broad,” selecting some portions of the image beyond the lion, so he adds a circle vignette around the lion as a “garbage matte.” With the lion qualified, he lowers the saturation of the lion. “It’s hard to get a perfect match out of two widely divergent sources. You can see here that the base (that the lion stands on) is cooler.” Using the Tangent Devices CP-200-BK panel, he warms up the midtones and highlights within the secondary qualification, ending up with a very close match. (Figure 6.67)

Fig. 6.67 Second secondary correction, desaturating the lion to make the match.

Fig. 6.68 The data from the second secondary correction.

Using a Luma Key to Build Contrast

Bob Sliga shows how to use secondaries to create a unique high-contrast look using the “football center” scene (Figure 6.69) from Artbeats’ Sports Collection.

In addition to the traditional method of stretching out the tonal range in primary color correction, it’s possible to create even greater contrast by grading inside and outside of a luminance key.

First Sliga takes us through the traditional method, starting with some primary-type corrections that Sliga decides to do in a secondary. Sliga exams the source footage and begins, “If you go to our original picture, it’s balanced out pretty decent. So the primary room would be the basic, just starting it out, getting it in the ballpark. I’m just looking for a clean black and I’ve got one. Now this is a little warm, so we could bring the red gamma down, but the truth of the matter is that if we graded film to look like what it should be, people would not like their film. I mean, everyone loves things warm.” Sliga makes a primary correction, but it is so slight that it is hard to perceive, especially on the printed page.

Fig. 6.69 Source footage courtesy Artbeats.

Fig. 6.70 Scopes showing source image from Tektronix WVR 7100. Upper left is RGB Parade. Lower left is RGB Parade expanded to show black level. Upper right is composite waveform. Lower right is a vectorscope at standard zoom.

Because the original image is balanced and in a good place, Sliga moves to secondaries to modify the original, using secondaries like layers of primaries without any qualification. (See the “Secondaries Use Is Changing” sidebar.) “Now I’m just going to pull the gammas down like this. Really compress the blacks. I’m gonna crank up some more contrast by raising the highlights. I don’t care about these highlights,” Sliga explains, pointing to the white tape on the center’s fingers (Figures 6.71 and 6.72). “I’m creating an effect. I’m blowing them out. I can pull the blacks down even further if you want. But you can see as we pull the blacks down that it’s going to kind of naturally funnel in. That’s why sometimes I really won’t do that. That’s why I do a lot more with the gamma. Pull that saturation back down. Maybe warm the gammas back up a little bit.”

Fig. 6.71 The secondary correction with no qualification at all.

Fig. 6.72 Note the numbers under the color wheels.

Switching gears from the more traditional method of building contrast, Sliga attacks the image by using the secondaries as they’re designed to be used: with a qualification. “Now let’s use it as more of a secondary tool. We’re going to create a luminance key.” Sliga sets the luminance 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).

Fig. 6.73 Secondary correction on both sides of the luminance qualification.

Fig. 6.74 Data for the outside of the secondary. Note the numbers under the color wheels.

Fig. 6.75 Data for the inside of the secondary. Note the numbers under the color wheels.

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 are trying to prepare it for uses that it was originally not shot for, but that is a fairly common occurrence in spots, TV episodic work, and features. What was originally written as a daydream or afternoon nap can be recast by the editors and producers after the fact as a nighttime scene or something else.

Running through the tutorial materials, this shot (Figure 6.76) caught Festa’s eye as a good candidate for some secondary correction.

He starts out with a base grade, looking at what he calls his “signposts” for the elements that give him a clear direction for where to place blacks and whites. With that done, he hones in on the skin. The first thing Festa does is zoom in on the woman’s face to get a better look at what he’s going to try to do, which is to soften the texture in her face and really create a glow to enhance the beauty of her face and skin. Festa walks us through his next step, “I’m going to open up another channel, soften the shot to where I think her skin looks good.”

This “channel” he’s referring to is something that would need to be done in Apple Color using the ColorFX Room, creating a node that completely blurs the entire shot. In Resolve, this would be another node in the node graph. He blurs the image, keeping an eye on finding a pleasant skin texture. With that done, he puts a garbage matte around her face (Figure 6.77). This matte will keep any other elements of the picture outside of the matte from being affected by the qualification he’s about to make. To me it’s interesting that he decided to add the garbage matte before the qualification because—at least for me—it’s hard to tell what else will be selected by the qualification, and sometimes the garbage matte won’t be necessary. Obviously, Festa has a lot more “seat time” than I do and knows exactly what will happen when he does the next step in the correction.

With the garbage matte created and softened, Festa uses one of his favorite tools, the 3D Keyer, to color pick (eyedropper) on her face (Figure 6.78). The 3D Keyer provides Festa with a great way of visualizing the qualification he’s made (Figure 6.79). The qualification defines a shapes approximating the shape of the woman’s face. He then softens the key (Figure 6.80).

Fig. 6.76 Footage courtesy D.P., Rich Lerner.

Fig. 6.77 Garbage mask to protect everything but the face from the correction.

Fig. 6.78 UI showing 3D Keyer.

This key serves to selectively blend the original footage to the blurred channel, allowing the blurred image to be blended only through the key created with the 3D Keyer skin tone selection protected with the garbage matte. The effect is a beautiful softening of the woman’s face (Figure 6.81). This is a great use of secondaries.

Fig. 6.79 Close up of 3D Keyer showing the skin tones selected.

Fig. 6.80 Softened key of the skin tone selection.

Fig. 6.81 Final softened skin tone.

Multiple Windows and Masks

Festa continues grading the Artbeats shot of the Marines. He grades some of the warmth out of the original, bringing the shot to a more neutral or base look. Festa says that even if he brings some of the warmth back into parts of the image, he wants to start from a more neutral place.

After the initial primary grade, the first thing that he attacks is the sky, which is bright and relatively featureless in the original. He creates a garbage mask first to protect the highlights that are lower in the frame (Figure 6.82).

With the garbage matte in place, Festa qualifies the sky with a luminance key and blurs the resulting selection (Figure 6.83). He darkens and saturates the blown-out sky inside the qualification. The softness of the garbage mask at the horizon creates a gentle gradient from dark at the top to brighter at the horizon (Figures 6.84–6.87).

Fig. 6.82 With a curve, the bottom portion of the image is protected from the correction. The softness trails off to the horizon, allowing a sky gradient to be created.

Fig. 6.83 A luma qualification of the brightest portion of the sky, blurred.

Fig. 6.84 Sky with window and luma qualification is graded to darken and saturate the sky.

Fig. 6.85 From there, Festa wants the soldier front and center to stand out more as the “hero.” He qualifies the soldier’s face with a round window (Figure 6.86) and a 3D key (vector qualification) of the skin tones (Figure 6.85) and the rest of the image is darkened slightly outside the window, drawing the eye to the center soldier.

Fig. 6.86 Initial qualification of the hero Marine with a round window. (The strange color artifacts are due to capturing this image with an SLR shooting the video monitor, not the grade itself.)

Fig. 6.87 The 3D Keyer shows the qualification of the warm, saturated skin tones that were selected.

Creating Depth and Texture

For Encore’s Pankaj Bajpai, it’s a cardinal sin for an image to leave his suite “flat.” Bajpai explains as he examines the “sleeping woman” shot, “So, the first thing you want to get away from is the image looking flat. To me, flat images are just flat images, and part of it comes from having been so closely involved in photography and photographers. Aesthetically the first goal for me—which I think is the goal for most colorists—is to get away from being a flat image. This is a generic image, it doesn’t feel like life, so the first thing would be to just build that image from being not as contrasty.

“We have to make us feel present in this world, so right off the bat, I lower the contrast—I got myself some meat in the picture. I also lowered the gamma. A lot of the magic lies in the midtones. That’s where a lot of your play happens. So right off the bat, we do that. At this point I’m going to go in and organically cut it up” (Figures 6.88 and 6.89).

Bajpai softens his hand-drawn shape and corrects outside of the mask, darkening the image and giving a sense of lighting (Figure 6.88). He explains, “We have gone and created a sense of depth, and I’ve done that in this organic way. I could take the saturation and actually go a touch warmer. So now with that little desaturation happening, you are starting to feel more in that world. I also use a lot of keys. I do a lot of masks. At this point, I will see if I could get to the really light where she is sleeping, so now you see how her skin has suddenly become radiant. That feeling of three-dimensionality: it feels human.

“I could just break up the face just a little bit and then soften it, so now you can see that even on that face, I have broken it in highlight and the shadow and you can see what I was talking about in that you can take an image and completely make it feel like you’re there. The whole scene could play in this atmosphere and when I’m doing things, I know that it’s not just this one shot, there’s a whole scene, so its okay for her to look like this, but if you can’t pull that off for the other 50 shots coming after this, you’re in trouble.”

Fig. 6.88 With a pen, Bajpai draws an organic shape.

Fig. 6.89 Levels outside the organic shape were lowered.

Bajpai is aware that in this instance, he’s kind of relit the scene, and like most colorists, is concerned with what the DP may think. He asserts, “In many ways, when you’re on set and you’re a DP working with a director, the director isn’t always telling you everything in the minutest detail. They want you to be able to convey the feeling that they are going after.”

I understand his concern that he’s walking a very fine line between

(1) the kind of completely relit the image which may piss off the DP and

(2) the DP had no time because they were running behind schedule and all they had time to do was to throw up a quick light and get the thing captured on film, so he didn’t really mean to light it like this, so he looks for the colorist to help him make it look better.

Bajpai relates his experience with many DPs: “That’s where it becomes a matter of trust and faith in that I am not intending to relight a DPs work. That is not the idea. The idea is to enhance it and in that enhancement, if you look at this image versus where it started, the light’s already in there—the lamp is already lit that way—so when you’re looking at that and you’re looking at this, it is more like what that lighting needs to be in the context of that scene or the emotional feel that happens to be in that scene.”

The DP isn’t the only concern for the colorist. For example, with actors and actresses, he needs to be concerned with maintaining continuity in the look from week to week. If this image were of a star actress, the color of her hair would be critical.

Bajpai agrees, “Absolutely. No question about that. It’s very important. I did Sex and the City for a couple of years, and it was just as important, I mean the producers were more concerned and if the shade of dye on the set were different from one day to the next, I would get phone calls. It’s very critical, especially with blonde hair. We can finesse the hair based on the tool set. I can tweak the shape of the mask (Figures 6.90 and 6.91) and take out the red so I won’t affect the redness of the face. And then at the point, the yellow-green part can be separated and I can go in and take out the green” (Figure 6.90).

Despite the windows and qualifications of various vectors (greens in hair and reds in the skin), Bajpai considers this primary color correction. I ask him for clarification. His answer: “I don’t necessarily like to call these secondaries. These are like layers so in any layer, what you’re doing is shifting that pixel value. I go along with people when they call it ‘secondary.’ I use a lot of masks. I create masks on layers. That is the true nature of what I do and then I apply 3D keying into that. My work is making it real, getting it three-dimensional, and then taking the cues from the lighting that was done on set and then enhancing that with masks and layers. That’s my approach to doing what I do.”

Fig. 6.90 The initial qualification of the hair, in order to remove some of the green cast.

Fig. 6.91 The keyer selects the yellowish/green shade of the hair, allowing it to be corrected.

Seeing how these talented colorists harness the power of their systems to grade with great specificity to achieve the results they desire is a testament to the importance of color correcting tools that provide you with the most control possible.

Though each colorist attacked the problems encountered in the image in a different way, clear methods and a strategic approach made each step a logical progression towards the goal.