Color 101: An Introduction to Color

Course Overview

This three day hands-on course will familiarise students with Apple's masterful new color grading and finishing software. Start with the basics of color balancing and correction, and move on to the fine points of secondary grading, including scene matching, using vignettes to isolate and track regions, creating advanced color effects and 'looks,' skin tone adjustments, adjusting the composition and framing of a shot, and much more.

Audience

This course is designed for existing Final Cut Pro users who want to learn more about the color correction and grading capabilities of Color.

Skills Gained

By attending this course, delegates will learn:

• Navigating the Color Rooms
• Understanding Waveform and Vectorscopes
• Using Trackers
• Color Correcting Contrast
• Color Correcting for Brightness
• Working with Vignettes

Examinations

• This course covers the requirements necessary to successfully become an Apple Certified Pro, Level 1 in Motion. Level 1 certification attests to basic operational knowledge of the application.
• Motion Level 1 certification also counts towards the new Final Cut Studio (FCS) Master Pro certification. FCS Master certification recognises a Certified Pro's skills with the entire Final Cut Studio product suite.

Prerequisites

• A basic understanding of Mac OS X and a good understanding of Final Cut Pro.
• Students should ideally have attended at least FCP 101: An Introduction to Final Cut Pro.

Course Outline

Day 1

Lesson 1 - Setting Up a Project and Navigating the Color Rooms

• Setting up, Primary In, Secondary Rooms, Color FX, Primary Out, Geometry, Still Store, Final Print, Transferring Final Cut Pro Projects to Color, Standard-definition and High-definition Formats, l Frame Rates, Project Frame Sizes, Broadcast Safe Settings, and Preventing Illegal Video Signals.

Lesson 2 - Making Basic Adjustments

• Understanding Scopes, Adjusting Contrast, Primary Color Balancing, Defining, Lift, Gain and Gamma, Hue Controls and Correction, Saturation Controls and Correction.

Lesson 3 - Creating and Recalling Grades: Advanced Primary Correction

• Switching between Grade Banks, Dragging and Dropping Grades, Grouping Shots and Grading Groups, Checking Continuity and Still Store Bin.

Day 2

Lesson 4 - Basic Secondary Correction

• Using Hue, Saturation and Luma Curves, Using the Eyedropper , Keying, Using HSL Selectors, Fixing Skin Tones.

Lesson 5 - Using Vignettes: Secondary Correction

• Using Vignettes to Isolate Regions, Inside and Outside Vignettes, Tracking Vignettes to Points, Keyframing -Secondary Controls, Using Multiple VIgnettes to Achieve a Grade and Relighting.

Lesson 6 - Applying Effects and Creating Looks: Color FX Room

• Commonly Used Grade Effects, Presets, Using Nodes, Day for Night, Bleach Bypass, Dream Sequence, Edge Vignette, Creating a Film Look, Using Old or Damaged Film-Vintage Effect, Saving and Recalling your Favorite Effect.

Day 3

Lesson 7 - Recompositing the Shot and Making Final Adjustments

• Panning and Scanning, Using Keyframes, Repositioning the Frame, creating Custom-Shaped Vignettes, Clipping Saturation and RGB and Final Adjustments and Corrections.

Lesson 8 - Tracking in the Geometry Room

• Using Trackers, Advanced Tracking Techniques, Applying Trackers to Vignettes and Shapes.

Lesson 9 - Rendering, Exporting and Archiving

• Shots to Render Queue, Print Options, Final Gather Options, Exporting JPEGs, and Exporting

Color 101: An Introduction to Color / Color 101