Recommended reading to improve color correction skills?

[radialMelt]

Hi all,

Wasn't sure what forum to put this in, but since a lot of people do color inversions and corrections as part of their scanning routine, I thought it would best fit here.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone could recommend some technique-oriented reading materials to help improve one's color editing/correction abilities. I'm looking for things like suggested strategies, case studies, etc.

The goal here is to improve my skills in the color correction department. When color correcting my C-41 scans, I can usually arrive at an end product I am somewhat satisfied with but its often laborious and usually heavy on the trial and error. Ultimately, I'd like to have a few go-to techniques for particular situations that can help me arrive and satisfactory results with much less stabbing in the proverbial dark.

Articles, books, websites... whatever! Looking forward to your recommendations. Thanks in advance!

 

[Kino]

It all depends on the software you will be using, but you can generally type in "Guide to Color Correction Tutorial on program X" in the YouTube search bar to get started.

Don't discount color correction tutorials for digital video production as a good way to understand how to manipulate a digital image, but be aware the interface for these types of programs are different; only the underlying strategies will be directly applicable to you. With a bit of thinking, you can figure out how to translate actions in any one program to another.

 

[Steven Lee]

@radialMelt When it comes to color-correcting film scans, there are two somewhat disconnected parts. First, you need to read something about inherent characteristics of film. TBH I do not have a link to share. The goal here is to understand what needs to be corrected. Roughly goes like this: the film emulsion layers are not equal. The topmost layer gets more light and also absorbs chemicals a little faster. As a result, exposure and gamma on each film layer is different. Cyan/red gets 0.5EV more light (and higher gamma) than Magenta/green, and Yellow/Blue gets even less.

Then, you need a book on basic digital image editing. The key concepts to understand IMO are: the histogram, channels, and the curves and levels tools. Also, understanding the concept of adjustment layers (not to be confused with film layers) is also helpful.

Then you combine this together, and it becomes clear that to offset the exposure differences you need to "shift" red and blue histograms to align with the green one. To do that you need two reference points: the true black and true white. Next step is to normalize the gamma. Best to leave the green channel alone, but adjust gamma on the red (down) and blue (up). Follow that with some saturation bump, which is required because of imperfect color separation of most scanning platforms, and the global color temperature adjustment to taste. That's a rough overview of what usually happens.

Obviously there's a lot of what one can do with an image after that, from selective color surgery to complex masking or introducing deliberate color casts selectively into shadows, midtones or highlights. But the steps above are basically necessary to simulate what RA4 paper is doing.

 

[radialMelt]

Thanks to both of you for the suggestions. Just to be clear, I was looking for specific book or article (or website or video) references. Something that someone here has read/watched and benefited from, with regards to the topic.

In the meantime I will continue googling and watching/reading stuff that pops up. Thanks!

 

[Kino]

Thanks to both of you for the suggestions. Just to be clear, I was looking for specific book or article (or website or video) references. Something that someone here has read/watched and benefited from, with regards to the topic.

In the meantime I will continue googling and watching/reading stuff that pops up. Thanks!

For color negative, this is a good resource: https://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2013/06/02/scanning-and-editing-color-negative-film

 

[radialMelt]

For color negative, this is a good resource: https://www.alexburkephoto.com/blog/2013/06/02/scanning-and-editing-color-negative-film

Will check it out, thanks!

 

[_T_]

The thing that helped me most, besides practice, is this online color theory textbook:

The Dimensions of Colour, modern colour theory

www.huevaluechroma.com

It's a free resource that can teach you everything you need to know about working with color.

 

[radialMelt]

The thing that helped me most, besides practice, is this online color theory textbook:

The Dimensions of Colour, modern colour theory

www.huevaluechroma.com

It's a free resource that can teach you everything you need to know about working with color.

Thank you!