Important Note - Because AutoGrade uses the MacColor Picker to select its reference colors, it is important that your display is correctly calibrated if you wish to achieve optimum results.
AutoGrade One - The AutoGrade One module allows you to get a one-hit instant correction from one single sample of your image. Very simple to use but with really impressive results.
Click on the white swatch and pick something from your shot that is that you would expect to be anything from white to gray as long as it was originally meant to be monochrome.
If there is an area that is not white but you would like to turn white, then it's a good idea to pick this as a reference point.
AutoGrade One is enabled by default so once you've made a pick you will see an instant result. Should you wish to try again uncheck the Enable checkbox, make a pick then re-check.
Dial the amount of correction up or down with the correction Amount slider depending on the precise look you prefer.
Boost - The Boost switch gives a quick boost to the correction amount.
Fine Tune - Click the Fine-Tune checkbox to reveal the Fine-tune controls in the inspector.
There are controls for Saturation, Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. The shadows control is especially useful if your footage is overexposed and you need to bring down the blackpoint.
But if you’re needing a lot more fine control, as well as more powerful auto correction tools, then you’ll want to try the main AutoGrade module.
AutoGrade Overview - The automatic image correction in AutoGrade works by sampling any combination of three reference points from your source image, for Global, White and Black.
A Global pick will correct most of the image whereas White and Black picks will act more locally on the brightest and darkest areas of your image respectively.
The White and Black pickers will enable the auto levels correction as well, but the Global Picker option leaves the image's luminance untouched.
The Skin Picker, which is bypassed by default, allows you to correct your shot based on selecting the skin tones in your image. Use it either on its own or in conjunction with any of the White Balance pickers.
All four corrections can be adjusted (either up or down) using the sliders provided, so you can really fine tune the correction for the perfect result.
While you can use the Global or Skin options on their own to get an impressive instant, one-hit result, by far the best results will come from using the separate pickers in combination, especially if your shot needs a lot of correction. You will probably find however that it is best to use either the Global correction or the Skin correction in conjunction with Black and/or White, since Global and Skin both target the same type of overall correction.
Note that in this manual we will be using images from FCP X to illustrate the workflow, but you fill find that with the exception of the pick operation, the layout of the UI and the functionality of the plug-in are identical across all the supported host applications.
Pickers Overview - While the overall operation of the plug-in is identical across each of the host applications, the operation of the picker is slightly different in FCP X.
In After Effects, Premiere, FCP7 and Motion 5, simply use the eyedropper (for each of the four pickers) to select the chosen area in the Viewer.
For FCP X, click the relevant swatch to bring up the Mac OS X Color Picker and use the magnifying glass to make your selection.
In this manual we will show the FCP X operation only to avoid duplication.
Global Picker - Click the Global swatch to bring up the Mac OS X Color Picker. Use the picker tool (the magnifying glass)
to select an area of your shot in the Viewer that you would expect to be anything from white to gray as long as it was originally meant to be monochrome. If there is an area that is not white but you would like to turn white, then it's a good idea to pick this as a reference point.
Now click the Auto Balance button to automatically correct your shot.
Note that while the black and white selections will automatically enable the corresponding auto levels correction, there is no auto levels correction when selecting Global only.
While you can get good results on many images using Global, you'll find that you can usually get a significantly better result if you use the White and Black Pickers as well, especially if your shot has flat contrast.
Toggle the enable switch on or off to check your correction or bypass its effect.
White Picker - Click the White swatch to bring up the Mac OS X Color Picker. Use the picker tool (the magnifying glass)
to select an area of your shot in the Viewer that you would expect to be white.
Now click the Auto Balance button to automatically correct your shot.
When making your selection, remember that you should be picking an area that would have been white if your camera's white balance had been correctly set.
Note that picking a "white" value that is excessively dark will result in the auto levels correction over-compensating by lifting the whites more than you would want. It is best to try and pick the brightest white available in your scene, always assuming it's not so bright that it doesn't have any colour left in it which would mean that the correction would have no effect.
Toggle the enable switch on or off to check your correction or bypass its effect.
Black Picker - Click the Black swatch to bring up the Mac OS X Color Picker. Use the picker tool (the magnifying glass)
to select an area of your shot in the Viewer that you would expect to be black.
Now click the Auto Balance button to automatically correct your shot.
When making your selection remember that you should be picking an area that would have been black if your camera's white balance had been correctly set.
Toggle the enable switch on or off to check your correction or bypass its effect.
Skin Picker - Click the Skin swatch to bring up the Mac OS X Color Picker. Use the picker tool (the magnifying glass)
to select an area of of skin tone from your shot.
It is preferable to choose an area that is neither too much in shadow nor too blown out but you should be able to great a great result from almost any selection.
Now click the Auto Balance button to automatically correct your shot.
When making your selection remember that you should be picking an area that would have been black if your camera's white balance had been correctly set.
Toggle the enable switch on or off to check your correction or bypass its effect. Note that the default for the skin enable switch is Off, so you will always need to activate it in order to see the results of the skin picker.
Correction Adjustment - If you find that the automatic correction has corrected the shot more than you would like, use the Global, White, Black and Skin Correction sliders to adjust it to your taste. Or you can increase any value if you would like to push the correction even further. You can also increase the values beyond the slider limits if you need an extreme result.
Note that these are not mix sliders - adjusting the sliders actually recalculates the effect based on the new input value. Well, we did mention that AutoGrade is a very powerful effect!
The maximum value for Global, Black and White is 1.0, whereas the skin value can be pushed all the way to 2.0, if required - but remember, more isn't necessarily better so only adjust these values enough to get the look you want.
Skin Temperature - By default, the skin tone correction gives you a nice warm look, but if you'd prefer a more neutral, naturalistic look, you can select the Neutral option from the Skin Neutral/Warm dropdown menu.
You might also find that the Warm option suits non-Caucasian skin tones better but this is not necessarily always the case, so use your judgement and choose the look that works best for you.
Mix - Use the mix slider to dial back the overall amount of the effect. Note that this is not the same as the Correction Adjustment sliders which actually recalculate the correction value, which is why in most cases you are advised to use the correction sliders instead. (Note that this option is not available in After Effects ot Premiere Pro.)
Legalize - enable the legalize checkbox to clamp the signal to broadcast levels. It is best practice not to enable this until you have finalised your shot to avoid unnecessary clipping of the values.
Quick Fix Looks - AutoGrade comes with a range of quick adjustment options via the Quick Fix menu.
Click on the Quick Fix Enable button to activate this option which is bypassed by default.
Then select from the options in the dropdown menu, which include general adjustments for exposure and contrast and specific looks such as Orange & Teal, Cross Process, Bleach Bypass, S-Curve and Log.
Adjust the amount of each of the quick corrections using the Quick Fix Amount slider.
Note that these Quick Fix options are available even without use of the main auto correction mode, so you can simply use Quick Fix to get an easy instant look, even if your shot is otherwise well balanced.
Note that the Black & White option is more than just a monochrome switch. AutoGrade emulates the color response curve of classic black & white film stock to achieve its distinctive look.
Fine Tune - The automatic correction in AutoGrade is so good that you shouldn't normally need to make further adjustments to the color, but the Fine-tune section offers you a really poweful range of options if you want to get serious.
Click the Fine-Tune checkbox to reveal the Fine-tune controls in the inspector.
Use the Exposure control to make straightforward overall adjustments to the global exposure of the image.
You can choose from two different precise, high-quality contrast options, Contrast RGB and Contrast HSV, which give you much greater control and more pleasing results than standard Contrast options.
Log Expander provides an alternative to using a LUT to expand Log footage to a rec709 range. Move the slider to the right until you have a pleasing look. You may also wish to use the Shadows Y slider to set the black point.
The Vibrance slider offers a more precise form of saturation control which allows you to push the saturation without making a mess of your skin tones, but there is also a standard saturation option as well.
Use the Cool-Warm and Magenta-Green sliders to make additional manual corrections to the white balance.
For really fine-grained control step into the individual color controls which offer separate Exposure, Red, Green and Blue sliders for the Shadows, Midtones and Highlights.
Onscreen Buttons - available only in FCP X and Motion 5, a set of three onscreen buttons (in the area below your image in the Viewer) allow you to toggle and/or view the state of various parameters, all without having to visit the Inspector.
Presets - the presets button is a dropdown menu that calls up the presets Open and Save dialogue box or allows you to choose one of your already-saved presets (see Presets below).
Auto Balance - the Auto Balance button allows you to toggle the auto balance correction on and off. When illuminated blue, the correction is active.
Quick Fix - this button allows you to toggle the Quick Fix looks on and off. When illuminated blue, the quick fix looks are active.
Quick Fix Menu - the fourth button along is a dropdown menu that allows to choose your Quick Fix look. The default is Cross Process.
Presets - In each of the hosts applications except FCP X 10.0.9, you will find at the bottom of the effect controls the option to Open, Save and Choose a preset that you have already saved.
In FCP X and Motion 5 you can use the onscreen Presets button to access this option.
This allows you to save the current state of all the parameters the plug-in to a folder of your choosing and re-open it for use either in the same project or another project, or any other project in any of the other supported applications.
