… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #1180: Color Tricks for Surreal Effects

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The Channel Mixer provides opportunities to play with color in surreal ways.

Most of the time, I want my images to look “real” or “normal.” However, sometimes, reality is the LAST thing you want. How can you make your images look surreal – or down-right other-worldly?

Time to meet the Channel Mixer effect.

The Channel Mixer maps the three color channels – red, green and blue – to the other two channels. Every pixel contains values from all three channels to varying degrees.

This effect says: Take the red values in each pixel and instead of increasing or decreasing their red content, increase or decrease the blue (or green) content instead. This very quickly takes a normal looking image and makes it surreal.

This effect needs to be played with to appreciate what it can do.

Apply Effects > Color Correction > Channel Mixer to a clip, then drag the sliders around and watch what happens.

The screen shot is a perfect example. In it, I’m mapping blue elements in each pixel to boost the red.