How to White Balance Shots 101
Part 2: Solving Common Problems (plus, the Temperature and Tint sliders)
We started in Part 1 learning how to white balance shots by looking at the major tools we use to accomplish that task. In this Insight we’ll be taking a quick look at the Temperature and Tint sliders commonly found in almost all post-production software.
You’ll also learn how I deal with subtle color balance issues when I’m happy with how the shadows and highlights look. Often, there’s a problem in the midtowns and I have a simple solution to deal with them (using Curves).
Recapping what you’ve learned in Parts 1 & 2 of White Balancing Shots 101:
- White Balancing mostly involves getting the Red, Green and Blue channels into proper alignment.
- Proper RGB alignment results in neutral color elements staying neutral.
- There are generally two types of White Balance problems: Either the RGB channels are fully out of alignment. Or the RGB channels are only out of alignment within a distinct tonal range (shadows, midtones or highlights).
- Tools for dealing with fully mis-aligned RGB Channels include Offset controls and Curves. And sometimes Temp / Tint, depending on how they work in your software.
- Tools for managing tonal range white balance issues include 3-Way Color Wheels and Curves. And sometimes Temp / Tint, depending on how they work in your software.
Introducing: Color Correction Practice Projects
This Insight also introduces you to footage you’ll be able to purchase, download and color grade in a product we’ll be releasing soon, Color Correction Practice Projects. The footage you see me using in this Insight come from our first project, In the Shadow of Giants.
Giants is a 10 minute documentary short shot in the Artists Quarter in Paris. It features three different cameras, time-lapse, CinemaDNG, .mp4 and ProRes footage. Plus, the footage is a mix of Log and Flat’ish record profiles. Giants features original music from a local Parisian. Practice Projects provide you the opportunity to hone your skills with challenging footage that is also high-quality footage—and fun to work on. You’ll be hearing more about this very very soon.
Errata
I mention in this Insight about my previous videos on using the Temperature and Tint controls. I seemed to have mistaken the upcoming Resolve 12.5 title, which goes over this in-depth. I have not done so here in the Insights Library.
As a result, you can count on Part 3 to this series where I’ll show very specific techniques to use these controls very very efficiently. And we’ll round up some major apps to see if they implement these controls differently.
-pi
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