Secondary color correction

[Alexander Volkov]

Hello, everyone!

Do you do your secondary color correction before, or after matching the shots?

Thanks.

Alex

 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Alexander Volkov

[Dan Beddoe]

After and usually in parallel nodes (If you're making multiple secondary adjustments) so that you don't accidentally undo the hardwork you've just done further in the node tree.
Woud be interesting if somebody potentially has a interesting counter method. 

[Abby Bader]

Normally, secondary corrections happen after the initial balance. An important reason for this is that the results of the corrections will match better between shots if the underlying shots are balanced.

Setting up a first pass that works for your film before diving into complex and time-consuming secondary tasks, is also critical if you run out of time.

That said, it's quite common to pull secondary keys etc from the source or layers/nodes prior to the balance. 

[Alexander Volkov]

Thank you Abby and Dan! I meant, for example doing  skintone correction is best, when your whole scene is already balanced and all shots are matched? Or you doing balance (primary color correction) of  individual shots of the scene, then make secondary on a hero shot, and then try to match other shots to the hero shot (with corrected skin)?

[Abby Bader]

It depends. Many colorists balance with offsets and use the skin tones as a guideline for when the balance is good. But in theory, any secondary applies on top of a balanced shot because it usually means going in working with details or parts of the image and that's better done when the whole image sits where it should. 

Not to complicate things: Balance all your shots in your sequence with offsets. Try to get your skin tones where you want them while balancing. When the balance is good on all shots, then go in and work with details.

[Alexander Volkov]

Abby, thank you very much!