Apple Final Cut Pro 5 - Manual (Page 1231)

444 Part II Project Interchange
Color Balance Controls
Color Balance controls are color wheels that allow you to change the mix of red, green,
and blue that fall within the area of a specific range of luminance in your clip. The Color
Balance controls act like virtual trackballs; you can drag anywhere within a control to
move the color balance indicator. The Color Corrector filter has one Color Balance
control that affects the whites of a clip, and a Hue control. The Color Corrector 3-way
filter has three Color Balance controls: One affects the blacks of a clip, the second
affects the mids, and the third affects the whites.
The angle of distribution of red, green, and blue in all the Color Balance controls
corresponds to the angles of those colors in the Vectorscope. The direction in which
you move the balance control indicator is matched by the mix of colors moving in the
same direction in the Vectorscope.
If you hold down the Shift key while dragging a color balance control indicator, the
angle of the control indicator is constrained, restricting the indicator’s movement out
toward the edge of the control, or in toward the center. This lets you change the
intensity of your color mix without changing the distribution of hues.
Unlike other controls in Final Cut Pro, holding down the Command key while
manipulating a Color Balance control doesn’t “gear down” the control (allowing you to
make more subtle adjustments); rather, it gears up the control, causing it to respond
more quickly and resulting in greater changes.
Balance control indicator
path constrained by the
Shift key