… for Visual Effects

Tip #488: Tips to Improve Color Tints

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Tinting looks better when you first convert a clip to black-and-white.

All editing software has an effect that tints a clip, such as sepia. But, when you apply it, it looks awful. Why? Here’s what you need to know.

This screen shot illustrates the problem. The right side is the original image, the center has a sepia effect applied; which looks pretty awful.

The reason is that when you apply a tint filter, the software simply applies the color effect to the existing clip. If you have a highly saturated clip, such as these berries, the color in the clip overwhelms the tinting filter.

The solution is to first remove the saturation from a clip which converts it to black-and-white, then apply the tint filter. (The processing order of your effects is important here.)

Once the original color is removed, there’s nothing for the tint to fight against and the tinted clip looks the way you expect; which is what you see on the left side of this image.