Color Match Better in Boris Red 4.0

Download the project files here.

STEP 1: Launch Boris Red 4.0 and select media

Select the Flying Jet.mov track in the Timeline window. You’ll notice that the foreground jet is greener than its magenta-blue tinged environment. You can use the Boris Red Color Match filter to fix this. Since the jet contains an alpha channel, all color adjustments will affect it and nothing else. Go to menu Filters>Colors and Blurs and choose BCC Color Match. The Boris Red Color Match filter gets applied.

STEP 2: Isolate a reference frame in your footage

Hit the End key on your keyboard to advance to the last frame of the sequence. After examining the background footage of the city, you’ll see that the last frame of the clip contains buildings and objects in closer proximity to the foreground (where the plane is). This will be a useful reference for us when we do our color matching.

HOT TIP: As a rule, objects farther in the background appear softer and have less contrast than objects in the foreground. To achieve this sense of atmospheric perspective and depth of field shift, you need to: adjust the jet’s hue, value and contrast (black/white point) to closely match its environment (the background), and defocus or blur the foreground or background, depending on where your point of focus is

STEP 3: Begin sampling your colors

In the Controls>BCC Color Match tab, select the eyedropper for "Hilight" Source. Find the whitest point on the jet and sample that color.

STEP 4: Begin sampling your target colors

In the Controls>BCC Color Match tab, select the eyedropper for " Hilight" Target. Find the whitest point on the closest background building and sample that color.

STEP 5: Finish sampling your various source and target colors

Repeat the above steps and sample Midtone Source, Midtone Target, and Shadow Source and Shadow Target. These are the color values I ended up with based on the areas of the image I sampled. Feel free to use them, or your own (all parameters were set to "constant" interpolation):

• Hilight Source= 255 255 254
• Hilight Target = 208 210 186
• Midtone Source = 71 96 86
• Midtone Target = 113 118 132
• Shadow Source = 23 23 23
• Shadow Target = 58 59 63

Keep in mind that the color sampling will only get us in the ballpark, but our eyes will bring us home. Further adjustment is necessary.

HOT TIP: Seeing your colors as gray-scale values instead of chroma values is very helpful in determining how close or how far off your color matching is. The Change Preview Channels on the Comp window lets you view individual color channels in gray scale (see next step).

STEP 6: Look at your channels separately

Using the Change Preview Channels options, view each RGB channel separately. Note: If you see too much deviation in dark and white values from the foreground to the background in any of the RGB channels, more color adjusting needs to be done. For example, if the Red channel is the only one showing a problem, go back to your color controls and tweak red.

Fortunately, you can see my values are pretty close in the screenshot, left, and the jet looks like it "belongs" in that scene.

Final screen shot

STEP 7: Tweak your colors

Now that you have your full color palette to work with, you can get your colors even closer to where they need to be. Apply the following Color Match parameter values in the Controls window (all parameters were set to "constant" interpolation):

• Master Level= 33.80
• Master Color = 100
• Midtone/Shadow = 40.85

You should see the plane blend better into that environment.

STEP 8: Final Touches: Motion Blur

Motion blur can be applied to your jet as well as the background to give the jet’s swoop down over the city some added realism. Select the Toggle Motion Blur button on the Flying Jet.mov track in the Timeline window. To motion blur the background, select the SanFranBG.mov track in the Timeline and apply Boris Red 4.0’s BCC Motion Blur (another new feature) and enter a constant blur value that suits you. Render your comp.

YOUR GUIDE

John Lafauce, Jr.
Software Quality Assurance Specialist
Boris FX, Inc.

John is a veteran visual effects artist and compositor who spent a decade in Hollywood making movie magic on over 30 feature films for companies such as Sony Pictures Imageworks, Rhythm & Hues and Pacific Title. He currently works in quality assurance for Boris FX in Massachusetts, helping to develop graphics and effects software plug-ins for the broadcast and post production industries. Away from work, John writes about VFX for various online communities and spends time with his wife, infant twin sons and parrot Layla.

John Says Keep In Mind...
Editors often find themselves needing to touch up and refine their color to get the right look. Boris Red has an easy-to-use Color Match feature that lets users quickly and accurately balance color. You can follow along with this tutorial by downloading the Boris Red Color Match media (Flying Jet.mov, an RGBA, 8-bit movie and SanFranBG.mov, an RGB, 8-bit movie) online at studiomonthly.com. If you don’t have Boris Red, download a 14-day trial from the Boris FX Web site at www.borisfx.com/products/red4/.

I used Boris Red 4.0 on a 3 GHz Intel Pentium 4 Processor PC, running Windows XP Pro. As of January, Boris Red 4.1 was one of the few graphics and effects applications to offer Universal Binary support. It now runs natively on Intel-based Macs.

Boris FX, Inc.
www.borisfx.com
260 Cedar Hill St.
Marlborough, MA 01752
ph. 703.462.1640