Introduction

Welcome back! In this second part of our series on the new film emulation tools in Color Finale 2 Pro, we’ll focus on Film Halation. This is another exciting feature that came as part of the 2.10 update, designed to give your digital footage the warmth of organic and subtle imperfections of film. If you missed our first video on subtractive grading, be sure to check that out. Try everything for yourself with a free 7-day trial. All links in the description.

What is Film Halation?

Halation is an optical phenomenon found in traditional film stock. It occurs when light scatters inside the film emulsion and creates a glowing halo effect around bright highlights, particularly in high-contrast scenes. In real film, halation often appears as a reddish glow around overexposed areas, caused by the light reflecting off of the film base. This natural imperfection is something that many filmmakers seek to replicate digitally to evoke the look and feel of real film.

Why Use It?

Film halation adds a subtle, yet critical, layer of realism to digital video by mimicking how light interacts with film stock. Without it, digital footage can sometimes feel too clean or clinical. Halation softens hard edges and adds warmth, often giving your footage that authentic, nostalgic film look.

Example 1

Let’s look at a scene with strong bright lights, such as a car’s headlights at night. By applying film halation, you’ll see a slight red halo appear around the most intense highlights, just as it would look if shot on film.

Halation Tool Breakdown

Scatter: Controls how much light spreads beyond the brightest areas of the image. Increasing scatter will create a more pronounced halo effect, making the light diffuse more naturally across surrounding areas. (On screen: Scatter increases the spread of halation.)

In traditional film, light passes through multiple layers of emulsion, each containing different colored dyes. When a bright highlight hits the film, some of the light scatters and reflects off the film base, creating a halo effect known as halation. This effect starts with a red glow because red light scatters the most. However, as the light penetrates deeper into the film, it can also reach the green dye layer, which shifts the halation glow from red to yellow, depending on the intensity of the light.

The Dye Transmission allows you to simulate this process. By increasing dye transmission, you’re essentially letting more light reach the green dye layer, causing the halation to transition from a red hue into a warmer, yellow glow. This creates a more complex and natural halation effect, mimicking how real film stock behaves under intense lighting conditions.

In simpler terms, the Dye Transmission control paints the halation with additional colors, moving it from the initial red into warmer tones, just like how light spreads across different dye layers in traditional film. This gives you greater flexibility in how the halation appears, allowing you to achieve a richer, more film-like aesthetic.

Boost: Boost increases the overall intensity of the halation effect, making it more prominent. This is useful if the highlights in your scene aren’t creating enough halation on their own, and you want to amplify the effect. (On screen: Boost controls the intensity of the halation.)

By adjusting these settings, you can achieve anything from a subtle halation effect to a more exaggerated, stylistic look, depending on the mood and tone you want to create.

Example 2

Here’s another example, where we have a backlit subject in direct sunlight. Increasing the halation strength and spread softens the harsh contrast and gives the image a more dreamy, filmic quality.

Halation vs Digital Bloom

You might be wondering: how is halation different from digital bloom? While both effects deal with highlights, they work very differently. Bloom creates a soft, diffused glow that affects the entire image, whereas halation is much more subtle and specific to film stock, affecting only the highlights and producing that characteristic red fringe.

Conclusion

Film halation brings an authentic and organic touch to your footage, letting you emulate the natural imperfections of traditional film. Combine it with subtractive grading for a full cinematic experience. Be sure to subscribe to catch our next video, where we’ll take a closer look at film bloom, another essential tool for adding a soft, vintage feel to your images.

Introduction

Subtractive Grading is just one of the new film emulation tools in the 2.10 update for Color Finale 2 Pro. It’s a colour grading technique that's about controlling colours in an image by removing or reducing colour components. The basic idea is that by taking away one or more of the primary colour components (red, green, or blue), you can bring out complementary colours.

For example, reducing red makes the image look more cyan because cyan is the opposite of red on the colour wheel.

Complementary Colours:

• Red <-> cyan
• Green <-> magenta
• Blue <-> yellow

So when you subtract a primary colour, its opposite colour shows up more strongly.

Why use it? Subtractive colour grading gives you precise control over the mood, style, and feel of a video. You can create cooler or warmer looks, balance skin tones, or highlight specific visual elements by subtly reducing certain colour channels.

Example 1

Here's a practical example. Suppose you're working on a scene with a lot of green foliage, but you want to make it as warm and natural as possible. By reducing the green channel slightly, the reds and yellows become more prominent, giving the scene this warmer look.

By explaining it this way, you can start experimenting with subtractive colour grading using simple tools and begin to understand how removing colours affects the image.

Subtractive Grading Tool

In the Subtractive Grading tool, we use subtractive primaries: cyan, magenta, and yellow. So when you increase or decrease these colours, you’re effectively ‘subtracting’ their corresponding additive primaries. Have a look at the 2:20 mark in the video embedded above for a clear visualisation of these parameters.

• Cyan slider: Increasing cyan reduces the red in the image, making it have a cooler colour temperature and emphasising blues and greens. And vice versa, increasing the red tones if we remove cyan, adding warmth.

• Magenta slider: Increasing magenta reduces green, shifting the image towards purple and red hues. Decreasing magenta increases green, which can add vibrancy to foliage or natural scenes.

• Yellow slider: Increasing yellow reduces blue, adding warmth and making the image more yellow and red. Decreasing yellow will create a cooler effect.

Example 2

In this example we feel that the scene is too warm (too much red and yellow), so we increase the cyan and magenta slightly to reduce the red and green components, giving the image a more neutral look.

Subtractive Grading vs Colour Wheels

How can subtractive grading help you?

Traditional telecine colour correction is based on additive RGB controls. You increase or decrease the red, green, and blue channels directly to alter the colour balance. This method is often linear and intuitive but may lack the subtlety needed in complex scenes.

Subtractive grading on the other hand provides more nuanced control over colour shifts, especially in skin tones and highlights where balancing between warm and cool tones is crucial. You don't have to work all three RGB channels to get the right balance, which can often result in an over-corrected, artificial look.

1. It's an easier way to fine-tune skin tones without introducing unwanted colour shifts. For example, slightly reducing magenta will bring out more natural greens without affecting the blues and reds as strongly.

2. Remove a dominant colour like cyan to enhance the warmth and depth of an image, without skewing the overall balance too heavily in any one direction. This makes it more suited for achieving subtle, film-like colour tones, particularly in highlights and shadows.

3. In scenes with mixed lighting (for example tungsten and daylight), it can be difficult to manage the competing colour temperatures using additive controls, as adding or removing blue, red, or green will affect the entire image uniformly. Subtractive grading allows for more selective adjustments. For example, you can reduce yellow to handle warm tungsten lights without significantly impacting the daylight regions. This is also useful for night scenes, or in general anywhere you want to preserve certain lighting elements while neutralising others.

Conclusion

Subtractive grading offers a level of precision and control that’s ideal for achieving natural, film-like results. It’s especially good for handling skin tones, mixed lighting environments, and complex colour grading scenarios where subtlety is key. Combined with the other film emulation tools such as grain, bloom, halation, and vignette, you can create some truly analogue looks. Try for yourself with a free 7-day trial. Thanks for reading!

Introduction

A lot of editors love Final Cut Pro for things like the magnetic timeline, but wouldn’t it be great if it came with more options for working with the latest and greatest video formats? That's what we thought when developing Color Finale Transcoder 2. Shoot B-RAW, N-RAW, and other raw video formats while continuing to edit in a familiar interface.

And as you’ll find out, in some crucial cases you won’t even need to transcode.

Workflow

Transcoder 2 is a macOS app that once installed lives in the Applications folder as you'd expect. You can open it from there to use standalone, but inside Final Cut Pro you'll see that it also shows up as a workflow extension. Whichever way you open it, you’ll have the same window and user interface.

Let's say you've filmed some N-RAW footage. You've already mounted the card on your Mac, and want to start cutting it as quickly as possible. You’ll see all your internal and mounted drives in the left panel, and once selected the relevant files pop up in the media browser underneath the viewer.

Once you've found the clips you want to use, you can trim them using the I and O keys, or by dragging the in and out points.

Sometimes the raw clip might need some exposure and colour temperature adjustments. On the right hand side panel you’ll find raw parameter controls, and scopes to help you evaluate any changes you make. Metadata of clips is preserved too. You can access it by changing the tab from adjustments to the metadata view above the scopes. Adjustments made in this panel define the final look of the transcoded clip.

You will also see controls and options at the top of the viewer. These include a LUT picker that lets you put a LUT over a clip and an option to de-squeeze anamorphic footage. Note that these are the viewer’s settings, and they're not saved with the exported video.

Once you’ve selected, trimmed, and prepared your raw clips, it’s time to save them to a location. At the bottom, below the file browser, you can select which FCP library you want to put them into.

If you would like to save them outside of FCP, right click on the file and select 'Queue for Transcoding to...' to save to any destination, such as an external drive. The transcoding process is added to the queue on the left of the window, and once finished you can also import these files into Final Cut Pro just by dragging and dropping from the queue into the Library or directly onto the open timeline.

Using Original Media

Alongside the Library import options at the bottom of the Transcoder 2 window there is an option to import original media. Turn this on and you don't even need to transcode N-RAW and B-RAW clips! Transcoder 2 comes with two plugins for the respective formats that are added automatically during import. They include controls over several parameters like color temperature and exposure.

With this original media option is turned on, it's the original raw files that are being used, so they have to be available at all times while you’re editing — that means if you have the files stored on an external drive, make sure to keep it mounted.

That's it. The next step is to edit and colour grade!

If you’re not a Final Cut Pro user or just want to quickly get a big raw file into a state that you can share or use in other editors, 'Queue for Transcoding to...' is what you want.

Image Sequences

Color Finale Transcoder 2 can also combine raw stills sequences into a video. For example, you can shoot a time-lapse and then save it as a .mov file.

Simply browse to the folder where the images are located, and if they are in sequence, they will automatically show up under one file name, just the same as with a raw video file. You can then select the framerate, adjust raw parameters such as exposure, white balance and contrast, and even set the start and end points as before. Finally, export using 'Queue for Transcoding to...'

Here are some examples of common file name patterns that will be picked up by Transcoder 2 and collapsed into one file in the browser:

• example.####.jpg
• example.1.jpg
• example.0001.jpg
• @.jpg
• name####.jpg
• name0001.jpg

Conclusion

Now you know how easy it is to work with N-RAW, B-RAW, and other raw video formats in Final Cut Pro using Color Finale Transcoder 2. You can try free for 7 days or buy Transcoder 2 at our web store.

There is always a strong interest in recreating the analogue film look with digital camera footage. In version 2.10 of Color Finale 2 Pro, we're introducing our approach to tools and workflows to achieve the film look, the Color Finale way—enabling you to create a professional result with minimal effort. Our intuitive controls make it simple to create stunning, film-like images.

Color Finale 2 Pro already comes with a film grain tool known for its quality. With the latest update we’re significantly expanding the range of film emulation tools in Color Finale 2 Pro, allowing you to achieve looks like this:

From the inspector, mix and match or use the full complement of tools to get the most out of the film emulation workflow.

Save all these parameters as presets, and now you can use your own film look across a variety of projects.

We believe this update will appeal to many videographers and creators. To get these new features, make sure you’re updated to version 2.10 or newer of the plugin by Checking for Updates in the Color Finale app, or if you don't have Color Finale 2 Pro, you can try it for free with a 7-day trial. Renew your update and support period. We hope you enjoy these new features!

Introduction

With the latest string of updates (2.8 and 2.9), you can now apply Color Finale 2 Pro’s powerful and flexible shape masks, complete with area tracking, to tasks beyond colour grading—such as building complex image compositions directly within the Final Cut timeline.

Let's take a closer look at what’s possible.

Example 1

In our first example, we're going to remove the red and blue glow from the skin.

To do this, we're going with the inside/outside mask technique. The first step is to create a group and add a mask to it. Creating a group from the get-go keeps things conveniently organised and means we only have to add a mask once instead of repeatedly applying it to every layer.

Both the face and the background have blue in them. At this point our new AI Person Mask comes in handy to separate a subject from the background. Apply it and change its display mode to “Mask input + mask” to see the result.

Notice the options that help refine the mask, for instance to capture all the hair and to blur the edges.

Once we’re satisfied with the interim result, we can start to work inside the mask to correct the skin tone. Color Finale 2 Pro offers a lot of tools to work with skin tones.

We use the Shuffle Tool’s channel mixer with the new normaliser mode enabled to dial in a more natural skin tone, and apply an HSL mask to the group. This HSL mask is set so that only the skin tones are affected by the previous step, but at the moment it spans the entire image and captures more than the skin. By setting it to “intersect”, we make sure that it’s only applied to the areas covered by the Person Mask.

With the two masks added to the group, the Person Mask and the HSL Mask set to intersect with the Person Mask, we can add as many layers as we need (for example a Color Wheels layer) and changes made with them will only affect the skin.

Now placing a layer such as Six Vectors above our group affects the image globally, as you would expect.

We can make the talent pop out even more by adding another Six Vectors tool inside the group and selecting “Invert Parent Mask” before making the necessary changes. Now everything outside of the mask is targeted. Handy!

The final result:

Example 2

Let's explore another new option for masks, which is the ability to cut them out and publish them to the timeline. Added in version 2.9 of Color Finale 2 Pro. It lets you publish any mask that's included in the masks menu.

For example, let's add a square mask to the following clip:

“Publish Mask” in the layers panel. Then, go to the inspector, find Mask Output, and select “Cutout.” Now the square mask is separated from the footage.

But one of the most interesting results you can achieve are by cutting out a Person mask since you avoid manually rotoscoping and tracking your subject.

Here is a practical example of mask publishing. Besides just cutting out a character from the scene, a great use of this feature is to place text such as movie titles or a graphic behind a character. First, duplicate the clip on the timeline and place it above by holding “Option” and dragging to create a copy.

Then, apply Color Finale 2 Pro to the top clip and follow the same steps: create a group, add and refine a Person Mask, select “Publish” and then “Cut Out” in the inspector panel. Now place your text in-between the two clips. Easy!

Here is another tip on how you can use this feature. For example, let’s apply the “Bad TV” effect, which comes with Final Cut Pro natively. You can apply it to the character or the background. Apply any other effects to achieve interesting results.

You can also duplicate the layer with a cut out mask multiple times to clone the character. For example, you can offset these layers by keyframing in the inspector panel.

Try yourself

Interested in trying these features out for yourself? Try a free 7-day trial of Color Finale 2 Pro to see how it can improve your Final Cut Pro workflow!

Overview

Here's what's new in the 2.9 update for Color Finale 2 Pro. There's now an option to export a mask that's been created in a layer or a group to the plugin's resulting image. This means you now have more ways to composite and color grade shots in Final Cut Pro.

For example, you can automatically isolate and track a person with the AI Person Mask and then use that mask to swiftly replace the background by simply putting the masked clip over your background clip on the timeline.

Or how about adding some fancy titles behind the person?

How to use

To use this feature, after adding and creating or generating a mask, right click on the layer or group and choose 'Publish Mask'.

Once the mask is published you can decide whether you want a cutout or just the mask itself.

We hope you find this feature a pleasant addition to your workflow. The 2.9 update is free for all Color Finale 2 Pro users within their support period. Read the release notes. Information about annual support.

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Example 1
3. Example 2
4. Example 3
5. Exporting LUTs
6. LUT Opacity and multiple LUTs
7. LUT Manager

Introduction

In this post you'll learn a few tricks that can help you use LUTs to color grade your videos. If you like, you can watch the video version.

Color Finale 2 Pro lets you import and create LUTs, as well as export them in a simple way. Try for yourself with a free 7-day trial.

A lot of videographers have one or more go-to conversion LUTs that work nicely with the log material they work on most frequently. In this tutorial we are exclusively using log footage for accurate demonstration.

Example 1

Here we applied a LUT, and it worked nicely on the footage. Let’s copy and paste Color Finale 2 onto other clips and again, all good:

But sometimes we can face problems immediately after applying a LUT. For example the highlights instantly become blown out, or the image too dark.

So is there a fix? You might be tempted to just skip that particular LUT and try another one from your collection, but what if you only have a handful? The good news it that you can keep that one and still bring your images to life.

To help evaluate the image it's always a good idea to first open the Waveform scope in Luma mode.

As you can see, in this case the footage is overexposed, and the sun is in direct view causing major flaring. Extremes like these could make things suboptimal for a LUT.

Color Finale 2 Pro provides the most flexible tool for working with log footage — something not found in Final Cut Pro’s native grading tools. That's the Log Wheels tool. Put the Log Wheels layer below the conversion LUT.

Let’s demonstrate why. First, keep it above and try to bring the exposure down, move the offset slider to the left and see what happens. Notice the highlights. There is just a straight line on the scope; meaning all the information in the highlights has been clipped and lost. There’s now no way to bring it back with subsequent operations.

However if Log Wheels act on the footage first, below the conversion LUT, you preserve much of the information since the full potential and dynamic range of your Log footage is unlocked, especially in this kind of workflow.

If you look at the waveform now you would clearly see that it retains all the information that was clipped previously:

Turn off the LUT layer and continue to lower the exposure, and set the midtones so that they are around half way on the scope. Then turn the LUT layer back on. Now, our image is brought back to life and is looking good. Easy.

You can do the same with this next clip that has become too dark instead.

Follow the same steps but in this case you just need to increase the exposure. So, now we clearly see that using Log wheels together with a conversion LUT gives you an advantage over regular tools. And this is something Final Cut Pro doesn’t include natively.

A handy tip: you can instantly increase the contrast of your conversion LUT if it's not doing enough for you by setting a blend mode on the layer. You can apply Overlay, Soft Light, or Hard Light to achieve a hard contrast result, all in a couple of clicks.

Example 2

Let’s take a look at another case when you might want to use a LUT that both converts the footage into a video color space, while at the same time giving it a look.

After applying a LUT the image could look better, and in most cases, you could try to find another one. But you can take steps to improve on what you have. Like previously, place Log Wheels below the LUT layer. Make some changes to the exposure, shadows, midtones, and highlights. You can add as many layers as you want, so for example you can create another Log Wheels layer to help further stylize the original look.

Here's the before:

And here's after:

Example 3

You can also apply masks over LUT layers. Here is a close-up that we want to stylize.

Let’s pick a LUT from our Hollywood LUT collection; for example, let’s choose Horror. Instantly spooky!

A B-Spline mask around the eye can keep it untouched by the LUT. First, create a group and put your LUT layer into it. Then create a mask over this layer. Invert it and change its feather to around 25%.

Just one mask can increase the overall impact of your footage! By adding more tools into this group, you can continue to refine the final image:

Exporting LUTs

So you've create a really nice look. What if you want to re-use it down the line? Color Finale 2 Pro includes an option to export your color grade as a .cube LUT. For example, you can add it as a LUT to your camera or monitor during a shoot. To export, go to the Color Finale 2 Pro inspector and click on the circular button in the top right.

Note that due to the nature of LUT files, masks and effects are not saved. If you want to save everything, consider saving as a Preset instead to use with other Color Finale 2 projects.

LUT Opacity and multiple LUTs

Another useful tip is that you can change the opacity of any LUT to control its effect. Sometimes when you try to find a LUT to stylize your image, you go from one LUT to another and in an attempt to find the right look nothing seems to do the job! But you can always play around with the layer opacity, in addition to using other tools to improve the results. You can also apply multiple LUTs on top of each other for unique results.

LUT Manager

On the topic of LUTs we want to mention our app called LUT Manager. It's a real timesaver for when you have a lot of LUTs tucked away on your computer and want a quick way to sort and preview through them. It’s often hard to find and choose the right look for your project, and it gets doubly frustrating when there's a long drop-down menu of file names.

LUT Manager instead offers quick visual previews over your own footage. Send a frame right from the Final Cut Pro timeline and compare up to 4 large images at the same time side-by-side. Easily send the look back, and LUT Manager will apply it to your clip. You can even stack a conversion LUT with a look for accurate previews.

It can of course also be used as a standalone application without Final Cut Pro, handy for quick previews of LUTs during the day-to-day. Easily export a preview as a frame or even bake the LUTs into an exported video file! There's a free 7-day trial and more info on the LUT Manager page.

Enhancing your Final Cut Pro experience

Final Cut Pro users are well aware that their beloved program delivers exceptional value and user experience. It consistently outperforms similar applications on the macOS platform in terms of performance and efficiency. However, there is one caveat: it doesn't seamlessly integrate with certain technologies due to Apple's choices. Editing certain raw media formats is one area where users must rely on third-party applications for processing before bringing the results into Final Cut Pro. To address this gap, we introduced the original Color Finale Transcoder in March 2020.

As the industry evolves with new cameras and formats, new favorites emerge, and established formats offer enhancements. Users are ready to explore new workflows to handle raw media. Transcoder has become one of our most successful products, and it is only natural that we continue to innovate and add new, requested features. We are excited to present Color Finale Transcoder 2.0.

The Swiss Army Knife for raw video workflows

Transcoder 2.0 is designed for videographers and editors who work with raw video formats. Record fearlessly with today’s popular video cameras, knowing that you can effortlessly cut the highest quality footage in Final Cut Pro or use it as a raw media processing solution to create ready-to-edit QuickTime media from raw video files.

What you can do with Color Finale Transcoder 2.0

Use Transcoder 2.0 to work with

• N-RAW (new)
• BRAW
• ARRIRAW
• CinemaDNG
• Raw image stills (new)

Here’s a closer look at the full feature set

• Browse and Select Raw Media: easily navigate your disks to select raw media.
• Keep Full Metadata: carry over camera metadata for use within the Final Cut Pro.
• Essential Adjustments: adjust exposure, white balance, and other critical settings for raw media.
• Waveform Monitoring: verify your adjustments against waveforms for accuracy.
• Integration with FCP Libraries: add transcoded media directly into FCP libraries—metadata fully preserved.
• Job Queue Management: efficiently handle multiple transcoding jobs.
• Preview LUTs: use display LUTs for non-destructive preview of raw footage.
• Handle Anamorphic Footage: preview anamorphic footage the way it’s meant to be seen.
• Timeline Playback Without Transcoding: cut BRAW and N-RAW footage directly on the FCP timeline without the need for transcoding.
• Process Raw Images from Stills: gather sequences of raw frames and export them as videos.
• Flexible Export: save transcoded files anywhere on local and network disks.
• Explode Raw Video Files: break raw video files down into individual frames and save them as stills sequences
• Standalone or Workflow Extension: use Color Finale Transcoder 2.0 independently as a standalone app or as a workflow extension within Final Cut Pro.
• N-RAW and BRAW Plugins: Transcoder 2.0 comes with two Final Cut Pro plugins that enable N-RAW and BRAW editing without the need for prior transcoding.

Why Color Finale Transcoder 2.0 is a game-changer, especially for Nikon Z8/Z9 users

One of the standout features of Transcoder 2.0 is its support for 8K Nikon N-RAW media. For the first time, you can place this high-resolution format (along with BRAW) directly onto your Final Cut Pro timeline without needing to transcode it first. Complete with full audio support and no compound clips, it streamlines your editing workflow.

Release Date

Color Finale Transcoder 2.0 is out now! Try it free for 7 days or buy from the store. It’s designed to meet the evolving needs of today’s videographers by providing a comprehensive and efficient set of tools for processing raw media. By supporting the latest raw formats and offering a suite of powerful features, Transcoder 2.0 ensures that you can focus on what you do best: creating stories wrapped in high-quality visuals.

Significantly speed up your masking workflow

Person Mask is a new machine learning-based masking tool for Color Finale 2 Pro, a color grading plugin for Final Cut Pro. It automatically identifies and isolates human figures in your footage enabling precise adjustments and effects without manual masking.

This a free update for all Color Finale 2 Pro users who are within their active support period. Download it from the online license manager or simply click Check for Updates in the ColorFinale.app (from the /Applications folder). If you don’t have the plugin, you can try the free 7-day trial or buy it from the store.

To add a Person Mask, first make sure you have the plugin selected in the inspector so that there is a yellow border around it. Then, like with other mask tools, right click on a layer such as Color Wheels, choose 'Add Mask' from the dropdown menu, and click on the icon to add the mask. Once selected, a neural network automatically detects and masks any prominent people in the shot, including their clothes and other items.

There are several familiar options to refine the mask. Softness, detail, and blur. The quality selector lets you choose between faster processing at the cost of having a slightly rougher mask — useful for a quick edit — or a more accurate result.

You also have the options to select between the full mask, the contour around the person or people, or to use the mask in combination with the contour. Vary the width and set the contour inside, outside, or in the centre.

For an example of how the Person Mask can speed up your workflow, consider the common inside/outside masking technique: now instead of manually rotoscoping the person in the clip for the first layer, you may only need one click to capture the mask in one go, significantly speeding up the process.

You can do a lot of things with this. For example with the inside/outside mask set up you can apply the recently added Bokeh blur filter to the background to further increase the separation between the scene and the subject, simply modify the skin tones to better match the scene, or even make your subject glow!

We hope you find this update containing the AI-powered Person Mask a useful addition to your workflow.

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Color picker
3. Auto white balance
4. Color chart
5. Adjusting white balance manually
6. Alternative approaches
7. Reference

Introduction

All videographers at some point face the challenge of dealing with skewed or incorrect white balance. As you look through the footage the question inevitably becomes: how can I bring everything in-line? Fortunately, Color Finale 2 Pro offers multiple tools to assist you in analysing and setting the right white balance.

It’s worth noting that sometimes incorrectly shot footage can be prohibitively difficult to correct in post-production. Additionally, a color temperature on either extreme end can be considered normal due to the external shooting conditions and so may only need minimal adjustments if you’re aiming to reproduce that natural look.

But in this post you’ll see how you can take a clip and give it a neutral white balance.

When thinking about white balance, we tend to think about the color temperature and color tint parameters. There are at least four ways to go on about changing these parameters from Color Finale 2 Pro’s inspector: with the color picker, the auto button, using the color chart tools if there’s one in the shot, or manual adjustment using the Temperatue and Tint sliders. You can also set white balance by using tools such as Color Wheels in the layers panel.

Don’t have Color Finale 2 Pro? Try it out with a free 7-day trial of Color Finale 2 Pro.

White balance via the color picker

Note: before using Color Finale 2, make sure you have the plugin selected so that there is yellow border around it in the inspector.

First let’s use the color picker. If we click on the picker and hover the cursor over the viewer we can see the pixel readout information of the underlying image. By hovering over an area that we know should be white or gray, we can get a more accurate idea to what extent there is a color temperature bias. In the end the red, green and blue values of this area that we know to be white or gray should be lined up.

Once the cursor is over a known neutral white or gray point in the image, click on it. The white balance instantly changed in the clip. With the help of a video scope set to overlay mode we can see if the white balance is correct by checking that white pixels in the image are showing as white pixel values in the scope.

If you want to view the RGB channels individually you can change the scopes mode from overlay to parade. Just as with overlay, we can now tell if any area that should be neutral or gray is white balanced: the peaks of the red, green, and blue values for those pixels should be in alignment with each other. Use the color picker for clips with highly saturated colors to achieve a more accurate result.

Auto white balance

Now let's look at the auto button. The auto tool works in a similar way to how a digital camera calculates auto white balance. It examines the pixels’ statistical distribution information for the given frame and calculates white balance compensation needed for the image based on this information.

Avoid using auto with images that are predominantly monochromatic or that have a dominant, highly saturated color. For additional help in understanding whether an image needs white balancing there is the image analysis tool.

Often it can be distracting trying to see whether your RGB values are balanced in-line on the scopes due to an abundance of information. Using this tool together with the video scopes allows you to mask and evaluate only the areas you're interested in. The scopes will not reflect information outside of the selected area.

Color chart

Let's look at using the chart. Using a gray card or a color chart appropriately within the frame provides an ideal target area from which to set exposure and white balance. Select the appropriate chart from the inspector, add points to the image, working clockwise, press match chart and Color Finale 2 Pro does the rest. To see the before and after, toggle the match enabled button to bypass the result.

Manual white balance

You can always balance the image manually. Manual white balancing clips is simply a case of adjusting the temperature and tint parameters’ sliders in the inspector.

To help us evaluate the changes in the color channels we have set the scopes to overlay — they'll be overlayed each other and appear white on the graph. The standard way of setting white balance manually is to use the temperature slider first to balance the red and the blue channels. Then the tint slider to adjust between magenta and green.

Alternatives

There’s a lot of flexibility in how you can approach color correction. So regardless of standard approaches you can also balance the shot by using Color Wheels in its sliders mode. Simply increase or decrease the highlight and midtone values to find the right balance. As with the other techniques, using scopes so you can evaluate the values is a must if you want to get more accurate, repeatable results.

In Conclusion

Hopefully you found this post helpful and feel ready to white balance your own footage using Color Finale 2. This post is based off of our video on YouTube. Consider subscribing to our YouTube channel for more tutorials like this and more.

Reference

Color Finale Easy Reference Guide — White Balance