Apple Final Cut Pro 5 - Manual (Page 1207)

420 Part II Project Interchange
Blacks, Mids, and Whites
In the Final Cut Pro color correction filters, most of the controls that you use to correct
your clips are divided into controls over blacks, mids, and whites. Each of these
represents different overlapping ranges of luma values in your image.
Blacks make up the minimum range of luma in your clip. If you looked on a smooth
gradient from black to white, controls that affect the blacks will affect your picture in
the leftmost three-fourths of the gradient, from black to gray. The effect that controls
have over the blacks of an image start to diminish at approximately 75 percent luma,
shown above. This excludes the brightest parts of your image.
Mids make up most of the gray tones of an image. On the same gradient, controls that
affect the mids will affect the middle three-fourths of the gradient, excluding the
deeply white and black parts. The effect that controls have over the mids of an image
start to diminish at 25 and 75 percent luma, shown above. This excludes both the
brightest and darkest parts of your image.
Whites make up the maximum range of luma in your clip. On this gradient, controls that
affect the whites affect the rightmost three-fourths of the gradient, from gray to white. The
effect that controls have over the whites of an image start to diminish at approximately
25 percent luma, shown above. This excludes the darkest parts of your image.
When you use controls that affect only one of these ranges, all changes made to the
hue, saturation, and luma levels of your picture happen exclusively in the area that falls
within that particular range of luminance. This allows you to perform very targeted
color correction only where it’s needed, such as subtly manipulating the hue of the
highlights without touching the shadows, or vice versa.
Blacks
Mids
Whites