BCST 1180 - Premiere Pro's Lumetri Color Panel

The Lumetri Color Panel has most everything you'd need for basic color correction and grading.
It's now equipped with revamped scopes a unique and balanced toolset for making color
changes to a clip, and even some basic masking and tracking features which you can apply to
the Lumetri effect in order to make changes to a small portion of a clip.

For projects with a quick turnaround, the Lumetri Panel can get you top notch results quickly
and easily without the need for a round trip to more complicated color correction programs such
as Davinci Resolve.

In everyday usage, the term color correction is interchangeable with color grading.

Color correction is the term our clients and peers use when talking about the larger craft of color
grading. Just as racing is much more than steering, accelerating, and braking, color grading is
much more than correcting problems.

No matter which words you use, as long as you know the proper order of things (correct
problems first, then shot match, then stylize and control the eye), you’ll make it to the finish line.

More often, professional colorists use “color correction” to define the task they are performing.
Some examples:

• Fixing exposure problems

• Fixing white balance problems

• Repairing excessive noise from aggressive ISO settings

• Expanding contrast from LOG- or Flat- recorded images

• “Developing” the image from RAW recordings

• Setting the initial black-, white- and gamma points

Almost every shot needs one of these corrective actions applied to it.

Not all jobs require full color grade. Usually, quick turnarounds or extremely tight budgets
prevent us from doing a full color grade.

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Color grading in Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro provides you professional-quality color grading and color correction tools that let
you grade your footage directly on your editing timeline.

These Color tools are available within a Lumetri Color workspace in Premiere Pro. Using these
tools, you can adjust color, contrast, and light in your sequences in new and innovative ways.
With editing and color grading working hand in hand, you can freely move between editing and
grading tasks without the need to export or launch a separate grading application.
The Color workspace is designed not just for experienced colorists but also for editors who are
new to color grading. You can apply simple color corrections or complex Lumetri Looks using
intuitive sliders and controls. Or you can easily adjust cuts or fine-tune grades using advanced
color correction tools like curves and color wheels.

Set up a Color workspace

Premiere Pro provides a preset Color workspace that makes your task of color grading quicker
and more efficient.
Select Window > Workspace > Color, or choose Color from the workspace switcher. The
Color workspace opens a Lumetri Color panel to the right of the Program Monitor and a Lumetri
Scopes panel to the left of the Program Monitor.

Setting up a Color workspace

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 A. Lumetri Scopes panel

B. Lumetri Color panel with curves, color wheels, and slider adjustments

The Lumetri Color panel offers powerful and easy-to-use color tools, like curves, color wheels,
and slider arrangements, arranged in different sections. Each section of the Lumetri Color panel
focuses on a specific task of the color workflow.
Note:
To see a before and after comparison of your color adjustments, you can display the master clip
in the Source Monitor for comparison with the Program Monitor.
The Lumetri Scopes panel displays different analyses of luma and chroma as waveforms based
on your adjustments, letting you evaluate as you grade your clips.

General color correction workflow

1. Ensure that you have set up the Color workspace.

2. Place the playhead on the required clip in your sequence.

When the Lumetri Color panel is open, Premiere Pro automatically selects the Selection Follows
Playhead option from the Sequence menu. The auto-selection of the clip ensures that any color
adjustments you make are applied to the selected clip.
Note:
Automatic clip selection is applied even for the linked audio clips in the audio tracks. To focus
your color adjustments only to video clips, turn off audio track targeting.
3. Start making color adjustments using the Basic Correction section.
The controls in the Basic Correction section guide you through applying a LUT (Lookup Table),
and making other technical corrections to exposure and light through easy-to-use controls.

4. Use the Creative section to apply Looks. You can then make further adjustments using the
Adjustments sliders.
5. Use the Curves section to further refine the look using RGB Curves and the Hue Saturation
Curve.
6. Adjust shadows, midtones, and highlights using color wheels for more precise color
adjustments.

7. After making all the color adjustments, create a high-quality vignette to make your video stand
out.

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Apply basic color correction
Using controls in the Basic Correction section, you can correct video that’s too dark or too light,
and adjust both the hue (color or chroma) and luminance (exposure and contrast) in your clip.
To adjust a control, drag the slider until you achieve the desired result. Or, you can set a
specific value in the box next to the sliders. Click the current value to select the box and type a
new value.

Before (left) and after applying basic color correction (right)

Input LUT

You can use a LUT (Look Up Table) as a starting point for grading your footage, and then use
the other color controls for further grading.
Premiere Pro provides several preset LUTs that you can apply to your footage, or you can
select a custom LUT that you saved.

White Balance
The white balance in a video reflects the lighting conditions under which the video was
shot. Adjusting the white balance can effectively improve the ambient color of your video.
Adjust the white balance in your clip by changing the Temperature and Tint properties. Use the
slider controls to fine-tune the values until you achieve the desired color balance.

Temperature
Fine-tunes the white balance using a color temperature scale. Move the slider to the left to
make the video appear cooler, and to the right for warmer colors.

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Tint
Fine-tunes the white balance to compensate for a green or magenta tint. Move the slider to the
left (negative values) to add green to the video, and move it to the right (positive values) to add
magenta.

Tone
Adjust the tonal scale of the video clip using the different tone controls.
Exposure
Sets the brightness of the video clip. Moving the Exposure slider to the right increases tonal
values and expands highlights, and moving the slider to the left decreases tonal values and
expands shadows. Adjust the slider until the video looks good with the desired brightness.
Contrast
Increases or decreases contrast. Adjusting the contrast mainly affects the midtones of color in
your video. When you increase contrast, the middle-to-dark areas become darker. Similarly,
decreasing the contrast makes the middle-to-light areas lighter.
Highlights
Adjusts bright areas. Drag the slider to the left to darken highlights. Drag to the right to brighten
highlights while minimizing clipping.
Shadows
Adjusts dark areas. Drag the slider to the left to darken shadows while minimizing clipping. Drag
to the right to brighten shadows and recover shadow details.
Whites
Adjusts white clipping. Drag the slider to the left to reduce clipping in highlights. Drag to the right
to increase highlight clipping.
Blacks
Adjusts black clipping. Drag the slider to the left to increase black clipping, making more
shadows pure black. Drag to the right to reduce shadow clipping.
Reset
Reverts all Tone controls to the original settings.
Auto
Click Auto to set the overall tonal scale. When you select Auto, Premiere Pro sets the sliders to
maximize the tonal scale and minimize highlight and shadow clipping.
Saturation
Adjusts the saturation of all colors in the video equally. Drag the slider to the left to decrease the
overall saturation. Drag to the right to increase the overall saturation.

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Apply Looks
The Creative section lets you further expand your creative range when adjusting color. You can
easily apply complex Lumetri looks and adjust other parameters like vibrance and saturation
using intuitive sliders and controls.
The Lumetri Color panel provides a Looks Preset Thumbnail viewer that lets you click through
the Looks presets beforeapplication. If you like what you see in the preview, you can apply that
look to your clip.

Applying different Looks

Look
Apply looks to make your video look like a professionally shot film. You can use a look by itself
or apply a look before or after a custom grade.
Premiere Pro also provides preset film stock and camera looks under Lumetri Presets in the
Effects panel.
Intensity

Adjusts the intensity of the applied look. Drag the slider to the right to increase the effect of the
applied look, or drag to the right to decrease the effect.
Adjustments

Faded Film

Applies a faded film effect to your video. Drag the sliders to the right or left until you achieve the
desired vintage look.

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Sharpen

Adjusts edge definition to create a sharper-looking video. Drag the slider to the right to increase
the edge definition, and drag to the left to decrease the edge definition. An increased edge
definition makes the details in the video more pronounced. So, make sure that you don't
sharpen the edges too much that it looks unnatural.

Note:
To turn off sharpening, set the slider to zero (0).
Vibrance
Adjusts the saturation so that clipping is minimized as colors approach full saturation. This
setting changes the saturation of all lower-saturated colors with less effect on the higher-
saturated colors. Vibrance also prevents skin tones from becoming oversaturated.
Saturation
Adjusts the saturation of all colors in the clip equally from 0 (monochrome) to 200 (double the
saturation).
Tint wheels

Adjust the tint values in the shadows and highlights using the Shadow Tint and Highlight Tint
wheels. Wheels with empty centers indicate that nothing has been applied. To apply the tint,
click in the middle of the wheel and drag the cursor to fill in the wheels.

Shadow tint applied and highlight tint not applied (empty wheel)

Tint Balance
Balances out any excess magenta or green in the clip.

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Adjust RGB and Hue Saturation curves

Using RGB and Hue Saturation curves to enhance brightness and contrast and create a high-
contrast look

RGB Curves

RGB curves

RGB Curves let you adjust luma and tonal ranges across the clip using curves.

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• The master curve controls the Luma. Initially, the master curve is represented as a straight
white diagonal line. The upper-right area of the line represents highlights and the lower-left area
represents shadows.
• Adjusting the master curve adjusts the values of all three RGB channels simultaneously. You
can also choose to selectively adjust tonal value only for Red, Green, or Blue channels. To
adjust different tonal areas, add control points directly to the curve.
• Click directly on the curve line and then drag the control point to adjust a tonal area. Dragging a
control point up or down lightens or darkens the tonal area you’re adjusting. Dragging a control
point left or right increases or decreases the contrast.
• To delete a control point, press Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd (Mac OS) and click the control point.

Hue Saturation Curve

Hue Saturation Curve

A. Click to add control points manually B. Drag the white circle inward or outward to adjust
saturation C. Use Quick Color Selector to add control points automatically
The Hue Saturation Curve wheel lets you saturate or desaturate specific hues.
• Drag the white circle in the wheel outward to increase saturation. Drag it inwards toward the
center to decrease saturation.
• Pressing Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd (Mac OS) and dragging a control point constrains movement
such that the control point is always aligned at a straight line from the center to the outside edge
of the wheel.
• You can isolate a specific color in your clip and saturate or desaturate only that color. For
example, if you want to desaturate all green colors in your clip. Click the white circle to add
control points in the green area of the wheel. Or, a quicker way is to select the green color dot in
the Quick Color selector. Three control points are added in the green area of the wheel.

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 Adjust midtones, shadows, and highlights

Adjust midtones, shadows, and highlights

Use the color wheels to adjust intensity levels of shadows, midtones, and highlights. You can
also use the accompanying sliders instead of the wheels to make these adjustments.
You can adjust the shadow or highlight detail to brighten or darken areas in an otherwise well-lit
clip. You can isolate the regions that need correction and apply these adjustments. Use the
Midtone color wheel to adjust the overall contrast of the clip.
• Wheels with empty centers indicate that no adjustments have been made. Click in the middle of
the wheel and drag the cursor to fill in the wheels and make adjustments as required.
• If you use the slider control, drag the slider up to increase the value or drag the slider down to
decrease the value. For example, drag the Shadow slider up to lighten shadows, and drag the
Highlights shadow down to darken highlights.

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Apply Vignette
Apply a vignette to achieve a look that is faded out at the edges, and bright at the center.

Before (left) and after applying a vignette (right)

The Vignette controls let you control the size, shape, and amount of lightening or darkening of
the edges.
Amount
Sets the amount of lightening or darkening along the edges of an image. Type a number in the
box, or move the slider to gradually shade the clip.
Midpoint
Specifies the width of area affected by the Amount slider. Move the slider, or type a lower
number to affect more of the image. Type a higher number to restrict the effect to the edges of
the image.
Roundness
Specifies the size (roundness) of the vignette. Negative values cause an exaggerated vignette
effect, and positive values cause a less visible vignette.
Feather
Defines the edge of the vignette. A smaller value creates a harder, sharper edge, whereas, a
larger value indicates a softer, thicker edge.

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Refine and reset using Effect Controls panel

Adjust color settings from Effect Controls panel

Apart from adjusting color settings in the Lumetri Color panel, you can reset and adjust settings
from the Lumetri Color section in the Effect Controls panel.
In addition, you can use the Mask tools in the Effect Controls panel to draw free-form masks
and shape masks. You can draw a mask to correct a specific area in your clip using the Basic
Correction color tools. Or, you can use an inverse mask selection to exclude the masked area
from color corrections applied to the rest of the clip. In addition, you can add multiple shape
masks with different color adjustments applied to different areas of a clip.

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Color correction

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Export Looks, LUTS, Presets

Save Looks, LUTs, and presets in a few clicks

Premiere Pro lets you easily save and reuse your color adjustments in different projects or
applications. You can export all color grading information as a .Look file or a LUT file to use in
Adobe Premiere Pro or a third-party application.
Select the Lumetri Color pop-up menu, and choose:
Export .look
Exports color adjustments as a Lumetri Look preset file in .look format.
Export .cube
Exports Lookup tables in .cube format for import into other color grading applications.
You can also customize individual color effect settings and save them as presets.
Select the Lumetri Color pop-up menu, and select Save Preset. In the Save Preset dialog box,
specify a name for your preset. If desired, enter a description.

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