Digital Video Solutions: Object-Specific Color Correction
Question: I have a video clip with an actor holding a yellow piece of paper. I need to change the color of that piece of paper to match earlier footage. What is the best way for me to do this?
Answer: It looks like you’ve stumbled into the exciting, and sometimes very frustrating, world of color correction. Although a lot of people think that color correction is used only for brightening up skies and giving a more realistic look to flesh tones, I’ve actually found that replacing one color with another is one of the most popular uses of color correction tools. The secret to changing one object’s color in a video or film clip is to isolate that object by using a mask. Whether you’re using a special effects program such as Adobe After Effects or a non-linear editor like Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro, all of these programs have masking tools that work well with the color correction tools that are also included in each of the programs.
In this example, we’ll use the new Premiere Pro 2.0 to solve your problem. You can correct a range of a specific color in a clip by using the Secondary Color Correction controls. For example, to change the color of a yellow piece of paper without affecting any other colors in a shot, you narrow the range of the color correction to only the yellows of the paper.
Here’s the original image that needs to be color corrected.
STEP ONE:
If necessary, click the Project panel tab to bring it forward and drag your video clip to the Video 1 track in Sequence 01.
STEP TWO:
Move the current-time indicator to the point where the paper is unfolded and centered. In the Program panel, note how the paper looks washed out and has a slight blue tint. We’ll give it a strong orange-yellow color without affecting other colors in the shot.
STEP THREE:
Drag the Three-Way Color Corrector from the Effects panel to the clip. In the Effect Controls panel, click the triangle next to Three-Way Color Corrector to expose the effect settings.
STEP FOUR:
Scroll down to the Secondary Color Correction options and click the triangle to expose the controls. Select the Eyedropper tool next to Center and click the yellow paper in the Program panel.
STEP FIVE:
In the Effect Controls panel, scroll up and set the Output pop-up menu to Mask. This setting creates a black-and-white mask, where white indicates areas to be color corrected, as determined by the color you selected with the Eyedropper tool.
When working with a mask, it’s the white areas that will be color corrected.
STEP SIX:
Select the Add Eyedropper tool, which you’ll use to increase the area to be corrected. Note that the mask is turned off temporarily. Select another yellow area of the paper. Repeat until all of the yellow areas appear as white in the mask.
STEP SEVEN:
If you need to remove white areas from the mask, select the Subtract Eyedropper and then select the areas to remove.
STEP EIGHT:
Set the Tonal Range pop-up menu to Midtones. Adjust the color of the paper by setting the midtones. This adjustment setting will completely depend on your video clip and the object you’re color correcting. However, here are the values that were used in this example: set Midtone Balance Magnitude to 58, Midtone Balance Gain to 50, and Midtone Balance Angle to –139˚.
STEP NINE:
In the Effect Controls panel, set the Output pop-up menu to Composite to view the color correction. The paper should now be a color that really stands out, and the skin tones and background colors should remain unchanged.
Here’s the original image along with the final color correction. Notice how the color of the paper is changed while the skin tones and background stay the same.
Tip: Would you like to do the exact opposite of this technique? If you want to color correct everything in the clip except the yellow paper, then choose Invert Limit Color, the last option in the Effects Controls panel.
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