Exercise: Balancing colors
Click on the icon for a quick preview of the exercise and the final result.

Download an archive that contains the footage as well as the setups used in this exercise.
Put these files in your Flame system: for example under the /usr/tmp directory.

To learn how to load material into the Flame Library, see the exercise:
“Loading an archive”

Images are subject to copyright: please read the disclaimer at the end of this tutorial.

The Colour Warper toolset includes selectives that are used to isolate colors. You create the selectives with a Diamond Keyer to allow color correction of specific regions.

Start in Batch.
1. Click in the setup duration field and set it to 20 frames.
2. Click and drag the Library node to the Batch schematic.
3. In the Library, select the clip “CW_Selective_clip1”.
4. Press Load.
5. Drag a Colour Warper node to the Batch schematic.
6. Connect the clip to the front tab.
7. Select the Colour Warper result view, press F4.
Remember that the Color Warper is also accessible within several modules, such as Action and Keyer.

There are three selectives that you can use in the Colour Warper. In this case we will use one selective to isolate the red umbrella in order to modify its color.
Note that the Selectives have separate views called Sel, Matte and result. These views are only accessible when a Selective is enabled in the Work On area and are located under that section; you won’t see them when working on the Master.
The Sel view displays the selected colors while the rest of the image is desaturated while the Matte view displays the matte of the current Selective and the Result shows you the final combination of all corrections on the Master and the Selectives.


1. In the CW menu, toggle Work On Master to Sel 1.
2. Press Selective number 1 to activate the first selective.(little button 1 under Selective).
3. Click on Pick Custom and sample the color of the umbrella.
Note: Each time you sample a color with Pick Custom, you reset the selection.
4. By default the sampling is done on the Tolerance; continue to sample the red to be included in the key.
Note that the active region of the matte is black.

The Selective matte is particular: the region of the matte that is included in the selective is black and the white areas are not affected by the corrections. The grey areas add softness to the matte for a smoother result.

1. Switch the Colour Warper View to Matte.
2. You can use the Tolerance control to add more pixels into the selection and the + Softness and – Softness to add or remove softness. Select the colors by dragging the cursor on the image.
3. To refine the matte, click on Plot and sample an area that is grey but should be white.
4. A black dot shows the position of the sampled color in the Diamond Keyer.
There are two diamond shapes in the keyer. The smallest and paler one represents the tolerance range while the biggest and darker shape represents the softness range.
5. To exclude this value from the softness range, manipulate the diamond shape until the dot is outside the range.
Monitor the matte at the same time and adjust the shape accordingly.
6. To include colors that should be in the tolerance range, plot a value that should be in the black area of the matte.
7. To include this value in the tolerance range, manipulate the diamond shape until the dot is inside the tolerance diamond shape.
8. Continue to include or exclude colors from the tolerance and softness until the red color only is selected.
9. Add a touch of Gaussian Blur to smooth the matte:
Set Blur X and Blur Y to 2.
Enable G to activate the Gaussian blur filter.

Now that we have selected the color of the umbrella with the selective, we can color correct this selective without affecting the rest of the image.

1. Change the Colour Warper View to Result.
2. You should still use Work On - Sel 1.
3. Bring the Saturation down a little bit.
4. Use the Hue rotation slider to bring the color towards purple.

If you are now satisfied with the result after you have done a color modification, you can still go back in the Selective and modify the matte without losing the color correction. You can work with the matte view as well as on the result view of the selective.

We can switch between the master selection which affects the entire image and the selectives to achieve a look that demands color isolations.

1. Toggle Sel 1 to Master.
2. Modify the colours to your liking.
You can for example increase the contrast slightly by bringing the Black control down and the White control up a little bit.
3. Press F1 then press F4 to toggle between the original front and the result.

If you want to know more about the interface and the functionalities covered in this exercise, watch the following overview:

To continue practicing with the next exercise, click on the following link: