Chapter 3. Primary Contrast Adjustments

In the color correction process, all digital images can be broken into luma (video signal lightness and darkness) and chroma (color) components. In this chapter, we’ll examine how adjustments to an image’s luma component let us control image contrast.

Contrast is the foundation of an image, representing an image’s underlying tonality from absolute black through the dark gray of shadows, the light gray of midtones, and the whites of the brightest highlights, as shown in Figure 3.1.

Image

Figure 3.1 The original image on the left appears with the color removed in the version on the right, making it easier to spot ...

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