Improve contrast with layer blends
Discover a technique that will boost contrast without losing detail in the brightest highlights and darkest shadows
When shooting footage with your camera set to Auto you may encounter problems with tone, with some areas over or under-exposed. Recovering missing tonal detail can be tricky. Pro videographers shoot with their camera set to a neutral mode, which creates flat contrast clips more likely to feature detail in the shadows and highlights. You could use Final Cut Pro’s Color Board to increase contrast, but this risks blowing out highlight detail or clipping shadows.
Thanks to an alternative layer-blending technique you can boost contrast without losing detail. We’ve provided a flat, desaturated Gopro-sourced clip and we’ll show you how to increase its contrast and boost colours while preserving detail.