Magic Bullet Colorista V

Curves

The Curves control offers four groups of Curves parameters to give you precise control over smooth contrast and color adjustments. There are individual controls for adjusting the red, green, and blue channels as well as all RGB channels together. The RGB curves are good for power users and color finishers. Curves provide a quick way to boost colors or get a film-like contrast in the image.

How the Curves Work

Curves in Colorista give you the ability to create strong contrast, but they keep you from automatically losing color data. With other Curves tools, like After Effects' Curves plug-in, the weighted curve will clip or crush itself at the blacks or whites by default. As a result, you will at times accidentally overcorrect and lose shadow or highlight information.

Colorista’s Curves make it really hard to lose information in shadows and highlights. We give you blended curves, so you're not pulling individual color values as you would in a different curves control, and you’re not clipping or crushing. (You must set Curves to their extreme values in order to clip or lose data.) When you adjust midtones, you never touch the pure white or pure black at the end of the curve. This lets you add a pleasing contrast adjustment.

Curves graph

Curves is weighted for three regions: shadows, midtones, and highlights. Each control is weighted to a segment of the graph, and an aggressive tapering is built into the curve.

• Shadows: These controls are weighted along the curve’s bottom portion, blending into the midpoint. Shadows are represented by a black circle.
• Midtones: These controls are weighted to the middle point, but they blend all the way into the shadows and almost into the highlights. Midtones are represented by a gray circle.
• Highlights: These controls are weighted to the top portion of the curve, blending into the midpoint. Highlights are represented by a white circle.
• Contrast: These controls create an S-curve between the shadows and highlights. Contrast is represented by a half white/half black circle.

RGB, Red, Green, Blue Curves

Clicking a Curve button activates the controls for either a single color channel or all three channels together. For instance, when you click the Red button, you activate the red color channel. When you click the RGB button, you activate the red, green, and blue channels.

Each color channel has its own graph display and subgroup of controls. For instance, when you adjust the green contrast slider, the Green button and Green graph are active.

The subgroups are RGB curves, red curves, green curves, and blue curves. Each of the four Curves subgroups allow adjustment on individual color channels or all channels together.

The green channel's button, graph, and subgroup.