Change the look of your clips

For this lesson, I'm working with the 06_01 Basic correction options.prproj file. You can find this with the media associated with this lesson. Just double click on it to open it in Premiere Pro. Once you have the timing of your edited sequence just right it's likely you'll want to adjust the appearance of your clips. There are a wealth of special effects available in Premiere Pro but we're going to focus on the Lumetri Color panel. The first clip in this NinjaSonic Sequence is a little dark. I'm going to switch to the Color workspace and this brings up the Lumetri Color panel. If it doesn't just be sure to click on the Panel menu here in the Workspace panel and choose Reset to Saved Layout. In the Color workspace clips are selected automatically when the Timeline Play head moves over them. See as I drag across here each clip is highlighted. This is based on the Track selection buttons, that's this column here where the track names are. And it's worth noting that these are distinct from the buttons to the left which are the available Source selection buttons. Going back to this first clip all I need to do to brighten this up is drag the Exposure slider to the right. You've got more subtle controls available here but very often just moving the Exposure slider will fix these kinds of simple issues. The fourth clip in the sequence this interview one shot has a pretty strong tint. I can see just by eye that there's too much magenta in this shot. So, to fix it I'm going to drag the Tint slider over towards the green and that does a pretty good job. You'll notice that each section in the Lumetri Color panel we've got Basic Correction, Creative, Curves and so on, has a Checkbox to enable or disable it. So, if I disable the Basic Correction you can see the original state of the clip and if I enable it you can see the result after I've adjusted the settings. This is pretty useful to compare the before and after. I'm going to reset this Tint control by double-clicking on it. That sets it back to the default of 0 and now I'm going to use this Eyedropper to automatically adjust the color. I've clicked once to select the tool and now I'm going to look for something white like the lettering on this t-shirt but before I click I'm going to hold down the Ctrl key here on Windows. This would be the Command key on Mac OS. And you can see when I do that I get a larger Eyedropper, this means Premiere Pro will take a 5 x 5 pixels sample getting me an average of the colors and this will often give you a more accurate result particularly if you're working with noisy footage. I'm going to click and automatically you can see we've got a better result and both the Temperature and Tint sliders have been adjusted. I have a second sequence in this project, Travelogue Sequence, it’s here in the Bin as well. And the last shot in this sequence is a little bit flat, it doesn't have very much contrast. So, I'm going to fix this again in the Lumetri Color panel by dragging the Contrast slider to the right. And that looks pretty good. If I drag this all the way over you'll notice that we begin to get some crushed colors which might be a desired look. It looks a little bit more filmic perhaps. But on this occasion, I'm going to pull it back a little to get something a little more natural looking. Now that I'm happy with the adjustments I've made I'm going to go back to the Editing workspace and continue with my project. There are a few other clips in this project you can experiment with and of course there are several categories of controls in the Lumetri Color panel. Ultimately the measure is whether you're happy with the results.

For this lesson, I am using the 06_02 Apply a look to your clips.prproj file. You'll find this project file with the media associated with this lesson. Double click on it to open it in Premiere Pro. There are broadly two kinds of color adjustment you will make to your clips. Color Corrections and Creative Looks. You might correct the colors in two clips so they match, then separately adjust the appearance to make the clips look more filmic. I'm going to switch to the Color workspace and I'm interested to work on this Arch far clip in the Travelogue Sequence in this project. And in fact, I want to compare the original version of the clip with the version that I'm working on. So, in the Project panel I'm going to expand this Media Bin and double-click to open the Arch far shot in the Source monitor. Remember selection is really important in Premiere Pro. So, now that I've opened this up in the Source monitor I'm going to go back to the Timeline and single click to select the timeline instance of the clip. It's that instance of the clip that we want to work on. I've also already increased the size of the Lumetri Color panel. I just clicked on the boundary of the edge of the panel and dragged it out, so I have more access to the controls and I'm going to go to the Creative section of the panel. In this section, we have a number of pre-built looks that you can apply to your clips to achieve a subtle nuanced color correction adjustment. We have a Look menu that lists all of the built-in looks as text. But I'm really interested to work with this Preview browser. On the right side of the preview is an arrow and I can click on this to browse through a few of the built-in looks. If you like a look that you see you can click on the picture to apply it to the clip. I should note that these looks are really intended to add that nuanced adjustment rather than to correct problems with your clips, but you can combine these looks with other adjustments in the Lumetri Color panel. Here I'm going to go back to the Basic Correction section and I think I'm going to lift up the Exposure a little, maybe push up the Contrast, pull down the Shadows, lift the Highlights, and you can continue working until you're happy with the combined result. When you've finished making your color adjustments you can go back to the Editing workspace to continue working on your project. It can be fun experimenting with looks and they can bring your work to the next level with just a few clicks. It's worth taking the time to try all of them to get a feel for the results you can achieve.

For this lesson, I'm working with the 06_03 Creative adjustments.prproj file. You'll find this project file with the media associated with this lesson. Double-click on it to open it in Premiere Pro. In addition to pre-built looks there are lots of controls you can experiment with to change the appearance of your clips. There's no right or wrong approach here and sometimes the best way to get the look you want is by trying an extreme and then toning it down. Let's try it. I'm looking in this NinjaSonic Sequence and I'm going to go to the Color workspace. I'm interested in making adjustments to this Interview 2a.mp4 clip. It's worth noting that adjustments made using the Lumetri Color panel are added to clips as a visual effect that appears in the Effect Controls panel. Here in the Lumetri Color panel, I'm in the Basic Correction section and I'm going to make some adjustments. I'll increase the Exposure on this shot, push up the Contrast, maybe I'll pull down the Shadows and the darker Black pixels and the brighter White pixels and that just gives the shot a feeling of greater depth. Maybe I'll even warm the shot up a little bit too. If I go to the Effect Controls panel which is usually in the same frame as the Source monitor, there's our Lumetri Color effect on the list. If I want to I can select this heading as I have now and copy it and paste it to other clips or in fact multiple other clips using standard copy and paste controls and I'll try that in a moment. Before I do notice that if I want to with this effect selected in the Effect Controls panel I can hit the Delete key and it's gone. I'm going to undo that by pressing Ctrl+Z on Windows here and that would be Command+Z on Mac OS. So, let's apply this effect to some other clips. I'm going to select the Effect heading and if I want to I can right-click and choose Copy but I'm going to use the keyboard shortcut. Here on Windows I'm going to press Ctrl+C, that would be Command+C on Mac OS. And now if I scroll along a little in this Sequence I have three more clips I'd like to apply this adjustment to. I'm going to make a marquee selection, just overlapping the clips so they're highlighted and you'll notice that I can no longer see the controls in the Effect Controls panel. In fact, I just get this information Multiple clips selected. Remember you can only see the controls for a single clip at a time but that won't stop me applying the effect to these three clips. I'm going to press the standard keyboard shortcut for paste, that's Ctrl+V on Windows or Command+V on Mac OS. And you probably saw there as I press the keys this Effects badge lit up to show that there's an effect applied. I'm going to undo that again with Ctrl or Command+Z and I'm going to show you another way of achieving the same result. This clip has the effect applied as I want it. So, I'm going to right click and I'm going to choose Copy. I could of course just press Ctrl or Command+C as well. Now I'm going to select these three clips and I'm going to right click and choose Paste Attributes... This allows me to apply settings from one clip to another clip or to multiple clips. And you've got a lot of control over the kinds of settings that are applied. In this case I want the clips to match exactly. So, I don't need to deselect any of these options. I can just click OK. All three clips have the same effect applied. When you're happy with the color adjustments you've made go back to the Editing workspace and you can continue working on your project. This is a quick way to use creative work applied to one clip to change the appearance of many clips. There are shortcuts of course and long cuts, that's a slower workflow that gives you more control but the results are the same.
 

For this lesson, I'm working with the 06_04 Color Wheels.prproj file. You'll find this with the media associated with this lesson. Double click on the project file to open it in Premiere Pro. Color Wheels allow you to make color adjustments to adjust the dark or the light areas of an image. The extra control can help you fix more subtle problems in clips and add more nuance to a look you're creating. Let's try it. I'm switching to the Color workspace and in the Lumetri Color panel I'm switching to view the Color Wheels section. I'm looking at the Travelogue Sequence in this project and I'm going to single click in the Timeline panel on this Walking on sands.mp4 clip to make sure it's selected. In the Lumetri Color panel I have three separate Color Wheels. One for the Shadows, that's the dark pixels. One for the Midtones and one for the Highlights, that's the bright pixels in the image. The blue sky in this clip is around about the Midtones. So, as I hover the mouse cursor over this Midtones Color Wheel you can see a control puck appears, that's that little + symbol in the middle. And I'm going to drag that towards the blue side of the Color Wheel and right away you can see the result. I've got a stronger blue color in that sky. I'm going to use the Highlights control to add some warmth to the sand which is in the brighter pixels. You'll notice that the control pucks move very slowly and this is by design. It helps you to apply a more nuanced result. Now let's take a look at another example. I'm going to the NinjaSonic Sequence. If this isn't open on your screen you'll find it in the Project panel and I'm going to take a look at this fourth clip which already has an effect applied. I can see that because it's got the Effects Badge lit up in purple. I'm going to remove that effect by single clicking on the clip to select it and I'm going to go to the Effect Controls panel. I'm going to select the Effect and press Delete. Now again with that clip selected I'm single clicking to make sure it's selected in the Timeline panel. I'm going back to the Lumetri Color panel and I'm going to adjust just the Midtones. I can see by eye that there's a magenta color cast on this clip, so I'm going to move the control puck away from that color and very quickly you see we get a more natural-looking result. Fixing a color cast in this way by just adjusting the Midtones means that you can still have some color in the Shadows and the Highlights if it's there and this can give you a more interesting result. You'll notice that there are sliders next to each of these Color Wheels and these allow you to make the Shadow, Midtones and Highlight areas in the picture brighter or darker. I'm going to pull down the Shadows and lift up the Highlights. And I suppose this is just a more subtle way of adjusting the contrast in the picture. Now I'm happy with the result, I’m going to go back to the Editing workspace to continue working on my project. You'll tend to get the best results if you experiment a little, pushing the colors too far and then coming back to get a more natural result. Once you're familiar with the Color Wheels you're on your way to mastering color adjustments in Adobe Premiere Pro.