Apple Final Cut Pro 5 - Manual (Page 1251)

464 Part II Project Interchange
While making these adjustments, it’s a good idea to use the flesh tone target in the
Vectorscope to show you how accurately the color of the actor’s face is represented. As
you can see in the Vectorscope’s analysis of the before image, the cluster of colors
about the flesh tone indicator were still a little off. Moving the Color Balance control of
the Mids corrected for this.
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 be restrained 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.
14 Drag the sliders 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.