Chapter 20. Tints and Color Washes

Colours are light’s suffering and joy.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

One of the most basic stylizations in the colorist’s repertoire is the tint, or color wash, when you just need to add more. The distinction between a tint or color wash and a color cast is a fine one, because both are caused by the same thing: the asymmetrical strengthening and weakening of an image’s color channels above or below their original levels. Where digital grading is concerned, a tint is simply a deliberately severe color cast.

How Do Chromatic Lens Filters Work?

Before we start looking at creating artificial tints, let’s consider the original optical phenomena we’re emulating. For years, cinematographers (and to a lesser ...

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