3-Way wheels: Shadow, Midtone, Highlight
The 3-Way correction contains three color wheels: Shadow, Midtone and Highlight. These 3-Way wheels let you change the color of the shadows, midtones and highlights for your footage. The wheels are arranged in a triangle with Shadow on the left, Midtone at right and Highlight in the center. Moving 3-Way wheel controls causes the CDL sliders to update with their RGB values, and vise versa.
Part of the magic of Colorista Free is that the color wheels use a common Lift, Gamma, Gain model. This produces pleasing results for Shadow, Midtone and Highlight correction. If you are familiar with our Magic Bullet Colorista II product, then you already know and love these 3-Way wheels because they are exactly the same controls.
Anatomy of the color wheel
Each color wheel is divided into Hue, Saturation and Luminance controls. The wheel has four
parts:
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Workflow Note: The Colorista Free wheels may sometimes react slowly, but for a very good reason. Unlike most color correction software, Colorista Free is giving a real-time preview when you make a change. Every time you move a color dot, for instance, you get real-time update of its effects in the Preview Window of your host application. Of course, you can preview and work faster if your resolution is set to Half or lower.
How to use 3-Way Correction
We recommend the following order of steps to make a 3 Way color adjustment.
The three wheels
Let's look at the specifics of how to use this powerful 3-Way correction. Our wheels correspond to the traditional color grading concepts of Lift, Gamma and Gain. In our wheels, Lift = Shadow, Gamma = Midtones, Gain = Highlights.
Shadow wheel
Shadow lets you set the black level in the footage. You add density or darkness when you move the Shadow color. You can
raise or lower the Shadow levels with its Luminance control. You can offset
the color balance in the Shadow regions with the Hue Point. Moving toward any of the colored regions pushes the color balance
toward that color, moving from unsaturated at the center to completely
saturated color at the edge. Adjustments to the Shadow color wheel can add inky blues or a reddish/yellow warmth to your shadows. This can greatly affect the mood of your image.
Midtone wheel
Midtone changes the mid-tones in the footage, shifting the middle tones to be darker or brighter. For instance, to make your image
more warm, just move the Midtone dot toward the yellow/red area
of the wheel — the more you move to the outside of the wheel, the more 'warm'
the image becomes.
Highlight wheel
Highlight lets you set the white level in the footage. The Highlight wheel will brighten and tint the
entire image but it mostly affects the highlights.
Hue Point control
The Hue Point control is a dot inside the wheel. The Hue Point always appears as a 100% Saturation version of whatever color is picked.
Hue Point is a two-dimensional control because it affects both Hue and Saturation. It moves along the Hue axis and Saturation axis. Hold the Shift key to constrain the dot for Hue-only changes.
Hue Shift control
The Hue Shift chip sits on the outskirts of the wheel. Red is its default color. As you move the Hue Shift chip around the wheel, it rotates the Hue Point dot along the center of the ring. The chip always reflects the exact color that it is sitting over.
Hue Shift is a one-dimensional control because it just moves along the Hue axis. Hue Shift lets you adjust the Hue of the selected color without changing its Saturation. This gives you finer control and makes your calculations more accurate. For instance, let's say that you are working on skin tones and you know the Saturation level is correct but the Hue is wrong. You can change the Hue only, perhaps make it more yellow than orange, without touching the Saturation.
At left, adjusting the Hue Point control. At right, adjusting the Hue Shift control to change Hue without affecting Saturation.
Saturation Shift control
The Saturation Shift slider is a color gradient with a white chip. Value range is 0-100%. Default value is 0%. Move the chip upwards to increase the Saturation of the color it is affecting. Move it down (towards gray) to decrease the Saturation of that color.
When its chip is in the gray area, the Saturation has gone towards white at the same Luminance level. When it's all the way towards the top, the color is at full saturation. Moving the Saturation Shift slider moves the Hue Point dot in a corresponding fashion, along the axis of most saturated to least saturated point of the same color.
Saturation Shift is a one-dimensional control because it just moves along the Saturation axis. Double-click the slider to reset its value.
Left to right, the Saturation Shift set high and low.
Luminance Shift control
The Luminance Shift slider is a grayscale gradient with a black chip. Value range is 0-100%. Default value is 0%. Move the chip upwards (towards white) to increase the brightness level of the image. Move the chip down (toward black) to decrease the brightness level.
Luminance Shift is a one-dimensional control because it just moves along the Luminance axis. Double-click the slider to reset its value.
NOTE: You may get undesirable or inaccurate results if you set Luminance to an extreme value. For instance, a high Luminance in one wheel may make the other wheels shift slightly. At extreme values, the accuracy for the controls may not correctly reproduce CDL values. We recommend staying away from extremely high Luminance for these reasons.
Left to right, the Luminance Shift set high and low.
Getting around the wheels
There is a lot of power packed into the Shadow, Midtone and Lightness wheels. Let's go over the finer points of how to use them.