VT | Fiddling with Color

Concept: Fiddling with Color
Module: VT-Edit
Assets: None
Time: 5 minutes

It is also really easy to work with each clip’s color tones and even change color to black & white or negative. You can work with the slow motion clip we created in the last segment of this tutorial, or choose another one on your Video Drive (we chose clown.rtv). Select the clip by left clicking on it, and Edit Properties should appear. If not, press F8.

Along the top of the Edit Properties panel is a drop-down selector for the function you wish to perform on the stream. In this case, let's modify the color, so choose Video: Color Correction. Here you can nondestructively modify many of the clip's color and brightness settings, including the ability to make the clip a negative by selecting the 'Invert' checkbox in the right column. Any of these settings can be keyframed and played back in real-time.

With the clip selected in Timeline view, click the Stop button at the bottom of VT-Edit's transport panel, and the timebar will snap to the clip's first frame. Turn Saturation down to zero, and you'll notice any changes made are reflected in real-time and in full resolution to avoid any guesswork on final output. Click the 'key' next to the Saturation value, which assigns this value with this frame in the clip. Now, hold the CTRL key and press the keyboard's right arrow once, which will advance the time bar one second in this clip. Double-click on the Saturation knob, which returns it to its default value of 1.0. You'll notice that the 'key' lit up by itself, setting our next keyframe. Press Stop and then Play, and you will see the clip's color begin black & white, but smoothly ramps up to full color.

Even the clip's in and out points now reflect this change in Timeline, as VT rapidly re-calculates views and values in software.