Effects and Color
Effects and grading both run on your computer's graphics card, so the preview updates as you drag. Effects stack on a clip in the order you set. Grading has its own workspace with wheels, curves, and scopes.
Add and manage effects
- Select a clip and open the Effects section in Properties.
- Use Add Effect, then search or pick from a category. You can also add built-in Presets or your own saved ones.
- Reorder the stack with Move up and Move down. Order changes how the effects combine.
- Disable, reset, or remove an effect from its panel. Numeric parameters can be keyframed.
The effect catalog
| Category | Effects |
|---|---|
| Color | Brightness, Contrast, Exposure, Saturation, Vibrance, Hue Shift, Temperature, Levels, Curves, Color Wheels, Gradient Map, LUT |
| Blur | Gaussian, Box, Motion, Radial, Zoom |
| Distort | Pixelate, RGB Split, Twirl, Wave, Bulge/Pinch, Kaleidoscope, Mirror, Fluted Glass, Ripple Glass, Glass Mosaic, Blocks, Droste, and more |
| Stylize | Vignette, Film Grain, Sharpen, Glow, Scanlines, CRT, VHS, Halftone, Dither, ASCII, Ink, Pixel Sort, Block Glitch, Color Glitch |
| Keying | Chroma Key, for green-screen and blue-screen removal |
ASCII can render its own characters: set Character Set to Custom, type your Custom Characters (densest to lightest), and choose a Font. Built-in sets include ASCII Ramp, Dense, Binary, and Symbols.
Color inputs and the eyedropper
- Every color control accepts a hex value. Type it into the field and the preview updates as you go.
- Where transparency is supported, the field takes 8-digit hex (
#rrggbbaa) and the picker adds an alpha slider. - Click the eyedropper to sample a color from anywhere in the editor or the preview. A magnifier follows the cursor so you can land on the exact pixel, then click to apply.
Grade in the Color workspace
- Switch to the Color workspace (
Alt+2) and select a clip. The wheels and curves are ready before a grade exists. - Color Wheels adjust Shadows, Midtones, Highlights, and Offset, with white-balance pickers and auto balance.
- Curves edit the Master, Red, Green, and Blue channels. Click a curve to add a point, and double-click a point to remove it.
- Compare with Before, After, and Split, and move a look between clips with Copy Grade and Paste Grade.
- Bypass grade previews the ungraded image and never affects exports.
Read the scopes
| Scope | Shows |
|---|---|
| Waveform | Luminance and color distribution, top to bottom |
| RGB Parade | The red, green, and blue channels side by side |
| Vectorscope | Hue and saturation |
| Histogram | The spread of tones |
Toggle them with Show Color Scopes. Waveform and Histogram also offer RGB, single-channel, and luma (Y) views.
LUTs and isolated corrections
- Add the LUT (.cube) effect, choose Import .cube LUT, then set Intensity to blend it in.
- Secondary Qualifier keys a correction to a range of hue, saturation, and luminance.
- Power Window limits a correction to an ellipse or rectangle mask, with feather and invert.
- Add an adjustment layer to grade or apply effects to every clip on the tracks below it.
Log footage (S-Log3 and similar) looks flat and washed out by design. Add a LUT or a grade to bring it back. Nothing is wrong with the file.