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Editing Color Correction 101

Don't let the interface of the Color Corrector 3-Way window intimidate you (OK, some of us editors were intimidated by this less-than-intuitive window). Keep in mind that, even though this article will show you a few simple techniques, this color-correction tool and others are quite robust, and some editors make healthy incomes concentrating on this fix-it-in-post endeavor.

Let's start with some tools that will help greatly. The first is an NTSC monitor. Though we are aware that many editors work without this essential tool, due to its hefty sticker price (some over $10,000!), we really cannot see the true colors that viewers experience on a television set from our computer monitors. A consumer television set is better than no outside monitoring of the picture, but a true NTSC monitor is best. If you are sure your finished piece will live only on the internet, no monitor is necessary. But if you are making DVDs of your final project (which are usually viewed on television sets), or the Discovery Channel calls and wants to use your piece on air, it's a good idea to view your project through a non-computer monitor before output.

The other two tools we will use won't cost you anything extra if your editing software has them built in. They are two of the four video scopes: the waveform monitor and the vectorscope. We covered these tools in The Right Caliber, the May 2007 Editing column. Again, we will admit that these highly technical-looking scopes intimidated some of us at first viewing, but learning the basics of how to read them to assist in altering light and color will great improve our images.

The video scopes give us invaluable information on color and brightness within a single clip and even help us correct white-balance problems originating in production. They will also quickly tell us if our image is not "broadcast safe," enabling us to bring it within the safe zone with our color corr…