Introduction to Apple Color Interface

If you are new to Color, here's a quick tour of the interface.

The large video scopes window represents your video content using a set of graphs.

The most common graphs are the waveform and vectorscope.  

These two graphs represent the luminance values and color values of a video image.

For example, this waveform graph is showing that the white areas of this image are only a a value of 60 IRE units, which means the video image is a bit grey.

There are also various tabs that display different areas of the graph.  

You can also view additional graphs right clicking within a graph area.

For example, you can display a histogram of colors, and then a 3D view of the color space.

The main interface window contains a set of tabs or 'rooms'.  

Each room serves a unique purpose.

The setup room is where you'll adjust preferences and access media content.

It's important to note that each room will have an additional set of tabs to access specific functions.  

For example, these tabs within the Setup room allow me to move between my shots and user Preferences.

The 'primary in' room provides the main interface for color collecting individual shots.  

These controls affect the entire video image.

The Secondaries room is similar to the Primary In room, but contains the added ability to affect specific areas of the image.

There is also a Color FX room that's used for adding visual effects.

Within the Color FX bin, there are also presets you can use to apply a series of effect filters with a simple double click.

The Primary Out room provides a duplicate set of controls found in the Primary In room.  This allows a master adjustment that comes after all other processes.

The Geometry room is where you can draw shapes to project areas of an image.  

For example, I've drawn a quick shape that allows me to adjust the colors of the war memorial without affecting the background.

As you can see in this example, the geometry room is designed to work closely with the Secondaries room.
 
The still store room allows you to compare your video content to various stills so you can match the color space.

And finally, the render Queue shows clip's that a ready to be rendered and sent back to Final Cut Pro.

This short tutorial is designed to compliment a series of video tutorials from GeniusDV.  

You can view the master tutorials by visiting GeniusDV.com and clicking on the tutorials menu to access our rental videos.