A Really Fast Way to Color Correct an Image in Adobe Premiere Pro

I was going to title this article: “Divide and Conquer,” but no one would ever find it in a search. Sigh… so much for literary titles.

This is SO COOL! Watch.

Here’s the source clip. Dim & green. While I could fire up the Lumetri panel and manually color grade this, let’s assume that I don’t know how to use it.

How can I make this better? Easy: Divide and conquer.

• Put the clip you want to color correct into the Timeline. Any track will work, but I’ll use Track 1 for this example.

• Choose File > New > Color Matte. Adjust the size to match the sequence. (My source image is small, so I created an SD timeline. This process works for any sized image.)
• Pick any color, it doesn’t matter, we’ll change it in a few steps.

• Name the clip whatever makes sense to you, then place the color matte on the track above the clip you want to correct.

• Here’s where we are now, image to be corrected on Track 1, color matte on Track 2.
• Turn off the “eye” next to the V2 track header to make the color matte invisible.

• Double-click the color matte in the Timeline to display the color picker dialog.
• Select the eye-dropper tool and click something in the image that is supposed to be gray, or white. (In my example, I used the white patch on the hide of the Holstein dairy cow. This selected a medium-gold color.)
• Click OK to close the color panel.
• Click the Track 2 eye to make the color matte clip visible, then select the clip.

• Go to Effect Controls and change Opacity > Blend mode to Divide.

Ta-DAH!!! Amazing…!

OK, my work is done here.

EXTRA CREDIT

If the highlights are blowing out (becoming over-exposed), adjust the B (Brightness) level in the color matte clip (red arrow). Generally, you’ll need to raise this about ten percent.

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