Color monitor overview

The Color Monitor is designed specifically for color grading, with a layout that prioritizes image evaluation while keeping essential controls easily accessible. By streamlining transport controls and introducing color-focused features, it provides a larger viewing area and a more focused workspace. This makes it easier to navigate your sequence, isolate clips, and make precise adjustments without unnecessary distractions.

Why is the Color monitor different?

The Color monitor has evolved to be more space-efficient by moving the customizable transport control buttons to be in line with the other controls above the time ruler, as well as exposing additional controls to aid with various color adjustment workflows. The result is an even larger viewing area for your sequence and a greater ability to focus on as many or as few of the sequence clips as you need as you work.

Color-specific features

This section describes monitor features that are unique to Color mode.

Sequence and Clip mode

This button lets you toggle between the Sequence and Clip modes, which mainly affect how much of the sequence is navigated via the time ruler. The loop button’s functionality depends on which mode you’re in. Here’s the difference between the two:

• Sequence mode lets you navigate the entire sequence duration in the time ruler and is good for quickly navigating and playing through the entire program. When enabled, Loop only loops the entire program unless you’ve set In and Out points.
• Clip mode limits the time ruler to the Clip’s duration. When enabled, Loop will loop playback of that one clip so you can focus on it when making tricky adjustments.

Solo Mode

Toggling the Solo mode suspends compositing effects and ignores superimposed clips appearing in tracks above the currently selected clip so that you may cleanly monitor clips that are obscured by other clips at the position of the playhead. This lets you make color adjustments to individual clips in a multi-clip composite without distractions from the other clips. Toggling this control a second time puts you into Composite mode.

Clip Navigation

While in Edit mode, Next/Previous edit moves to the next or previous edit. In Color mode, Next/Previous clip (also available by pressing Up or Down arrow) selects the next or previous clip in the Clip Grid, making it available for color adjustment. This is a fast way to navigate the clips in the Clip Grid without having to click around with the pointer.

RGB Channel Selection

It’s often useful to examine the contents of specific color channels when troubleshooting image artifacts or noise. For this reason, a dedicated menu lets you switch among the available color and alpha channels of the current clip being monitored, or the Composite mode, which shows the overall image.

Default Monitor Controls

The Color Monitor has a different set of controls than the Source Monitor and Program Monitor in Edit mode. These contain color-specific controls for your convenience, as well as a specially chosen set of controls suitable for color workflows.

These are as follows, from left to right:

• Go to Previous Marker: Jumps to the next previous sequence marker. Currently only sequence markers can be navigated in Color mode.
• Add Color Reference Marker: Adds a color reference marker to the sequence, allowing that frame to be quickly filtered and referenced in the Comparison View.
• Go to Next Marker: Jumps to the next sequence marker. Currently, only sequence markers can be navigated in Color mode.
• Go to Previous Edit Point: Change the selected clip to the next previous clip in the clip grid.
• Play: Toggles between initiating playback and stopping playback.
• Go to Next Edit Point: Change the selected clip to the next clip in the clip grid.
• Loop: Toggles looped playback on and off. While looping is on, the current clip will loop repeatedly if you’re in Clip mode, or the sequence overall will loop if you’re in Sequence mode.
• Toggle Proxies: Lets you toggle proxy workflow on and off. The state of this icon indicates whether proxies are enabled.
• Global FX Mute: Toggles all effects off and on. When off, the image remains color-managed. Good for seeing a quick overall before and after of the current frame.
• Mute: Toggles audio playback off and on. Can be useful when you’re looping clips repeatedly as you evaluate clips and make color operations.
• Comparison View: Puts the Color monitor into Comparison View mode.

These controls can be customized in the same way as the Edit mode monitors.

To customize Color Monitor Controls: