CHAPTER 10

Creating Looks

Creating “looks.” This is probably why some colorists make as much as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and drive around in Lamborghinis. This is the sexy stuff. It’s also the stuff that is virtually unquantifiable. It’s part of what takes color correction from craft to art.

Craig Leffel of Chicago’s Optimus explains some of his process for coming up with looks. “Well I think it’s always a process of working wider and then narrowing.”

I ask if some of the time when he’s spinning the trackballs, he’s not really color correcting as much as getting a sense of where the image can go. He explains: “Yeah. Sometimes when you make an extreme change you see that you’ve either grabbed the wrong thing or you’ve grabbed too much. ...

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