Apple Final Cut Pro 5 - Manual (Page 1239)

452 Part II Project Interchange
Note: When using the Whites Select Auto-balance Color button, it’s important to
recognize that the color temperature of the light illuminating the white area you select
will affect the hue of the compensation that is made. For example, if the picture is lit
with a combination of daylight and tungsten sources, selecting a part of the picture
illuminated by daylight will result in compensating the overall color temperature of the
image by adding more reds, while selecting a part of the picture illuminated by
tungsten will compensate by adding more blues. In such a case, you need to simply
pick the best possible compromise that looks right to you.
In general, using the auto-balance button will get you close to where you need to be
quickly and easily. However, to achieve the look you really want, you need to make
further adjustments to the Balance control by hand.
11 Click anywhere in the Balance control and drag to move the balance control indicator
relative to its previous position.
Since you already used the auto-balance control to add more reds to compensate for
the blues that you didn’t want, this will be your starting point as you work to achieve
the particular effect you want for this scene. For example, you could drag the balance
control indicator farther into the direction of magenta in order to make the image look
a bit warmer and more inviting while preserving the corrected color balance.
Because you’re not worrying about matching this image to any other shots right now, you
can select whatever look you want. Whether you go warmer, cooler, or even into other
more surreal balances of color is purely a creative choice at this point. If you’re going for a
realistic look, it’s important to restrain yourself and stick to making subtle changes.
Once you’ve achieved the color balance you want, it’s time to adjust the saturation of
your clip to complete the look you want.
12 Drag the Sat slider to increase or decrease the saturation.
Be careful when you do this. A common mistake beginners make is to automatically
oversaturate shots to make them look “better.” While a highly saturated look is sometimes
appropriate, less saturation may actually improve the look of your footage. This is
especially true if you have a camcorder with artificially vivid color. In this case, it may be
appropriate to desaturate the image somewhat to keep it from looking too “hot.”
Note: As always, be careful to make adjustments to saturation only while looking at a
properly calibrated broadcast monitor. It can be very tempting to oversaturate the
colors of your clip based on the way video looks on a computer display. It’s a good idea
to enable the Excess Chroma option (in the Range Check submenu of the View menu)
to keep yourself from inadvertently setting illegal chroma levels by boosting the
saturation too high.