Color adjustment in Edit mode

An abbreviated set of global color adjustment controls that correspond to the first Clip Adjust operation in Color mode can be found in the Color section of the Properties panel in Edit mode. These controls are identical to those in Adjust; it’s just that the two-dimensional controls in Color mode have been broken up into separate sliders, and only the global controls are exposed.

These are exposed so that people working in Edit mode can make the fast corrections that are often necessary to fix problems or inconsistencies that most often distract an audience watching an edit, without needing to open Color mode. Since these controls correspond to those in Color mode, any color work you do in Edit mode serves as a starting point for more detailed work in Color mode, so the two sets of controls complement one another nicely.

The Properties panel color controls consist of the following sliders:

Chroma

• Temperature: Adjusts the color temperature of the image between warm (orange) and cool (blue) to make naturalistic lighting corrections.
• White Balance Eyedropper: You can click this eyedropper and use it to sample pixels in the image that are supposed to be neutral white or gray to automatically correct a color cast (color temperature imbalance) that makes the image look tinted.
• Tint: Adjusts the color temperature of the image between green and magenta to allow for corrections to artificial lighting sources with unnatural chromaticity.
• Saturation: Adjusts the colorfulness of the image to be more or less intense. At zero the image becomes monochrome.

Luminance

• Contrast: Adjusts how wide the difference is between the brightest and darkest pixels in the image, to widen or narrow luminance contrast.
• Pivot: Adjusts the center of image tonality about with contrast is widened; all lighter pixels above the pivot point are made brighter, while all darker pixels below the pivot point are made darker. Changing the pivot point of an existing contrast adjustment may tilt the image to emphasize the highlights or shadows more, depending on what you want.
• Exposure: Lightens or darkens the image by stretching the highlights up or down while keeping the shadows in place. All midtones are scaled linearly.
• Black: Adjusts how dark pixels near black appear by stretching or compressing near dark values to be darker or lighter.

Detail

• Texture: Intensifies the contrast of image details to give the appearance of crisp texture, or diminishes contrast to soften textures.
• Sharpness: Applies the illusion of sharpness emphasizing edge detail.