#17: Fixing White Balance Issues in Post
As a regular practice, anytime you move the camera in different lighting situations (for example filming inside, then filming outside) you should always white balance your camera.
White balancing is a way to manually tell your camera what is supposed to be true white in a shot. Your camera will then use that information to determine the correct hue of other colors in the frame. You can tell if a clip needs to be white balanced because it will be either extremely blue or red (usually blue if outdoors, and red indoors).
To White Balance within FCP:
- Double-click a clip that needs to be white balanced.
- Apply the effect: Video Filters > Color Correction > Color Corrector 3-way
- In the Viewer window, open up the Color Corrector effect tab to see the 3 color wheels (Figure 1).
- Select the Whites Eye Dropper tool.
- In the Canvas window, left-click an area that is supposed to be pure white. Our talent is wearing a white long-sleeve shirt, which will be perfect for this auto-correction. If your talent isn't wearing anything white, look for other areas in the frame that should be white. For example, a clock face hanging on the wall, a whiteboard, or styrofoam cup.
- After clicking, you can see the effect dramatically changes to the true hues of colors (Figure 2). However, the darker areas of the picture still have the blue tint to them. That's because all that has been corrected are the brighter values of the picture (also known as highlights).
- To adjust the darker areas (shadows) select the "Blacks" Eyedropper tool, and select an area of the image that is supposed to be pure black. The dark windows on the door in the background are great for this. The final effect can be seen in Figure 3.
