Changing the Color Balance Over Time

What happens if the color begins to shift in a shot you need? This can happen due to changes in lighting or circuitry going bad in a camera. Fortunately, Premiere's Color Balance Filter allows you to easily compensate for most shifts in color occurring over time. Or maybe you want the color to gradually change over time for some type of effect. The trick to having an image's color balance change over time is to use keyframes.

tip

To achieve a warmer feeling when trying to get a black-and-white image, do not drop the saturation level all the way to zero. Leave about 20% of the original color value to give it a nice warm look.

Do the following to change the color value scheme over the duration of the clip:

1. Open the Effects window (if it's not already open).

2. Scroll down or double-click the Image Control folder to display the effects inside.

3. Select the Color Balance Filter, and drag it onto the desired clip in your timeline.

4. Scroll down to expand the view of your timeline tracks so that you can work with keyframes.

5. Enable keyframes in the Effect Controls window.

6. Click either the starting or ending keyframe to adjust its properties, or add a new keyframe where necessary. The keyframe should be highlighted to indicate that it has been selected.

7. Adjust the sliders in the Effect Controls window to the appropriate positions until you get the desired look, as shown in Figure 6.28.

   Figure 6.28. Adjust the sliders for each keyframe to change an image's color balance over time.

   

You can add as many keyframes as necessary throughout the clip's duration. Premiere interpolates the changes that need to occur between the keyframes. This functionality is called tweening (short for in-betweening). Tweening is the program's ability to calculate the percentage of change that needs to occur in each frame from the settings of one keyframe to the settings of the next keyframe. The farther apart the keyframes are (depending on the settings' variance), the more gradual the changes will be between keyframes. The closer the keyframes appear (assuming the same setting changes), the more radical each frame's changes will be as Premiere plays back the clip.