The Color Workspace

ORAPHIM features a Hollywood-grade color grading engine within the Color Workspace, utilizing a 32-bit floating-point processing pipeline for absolute precision. This workspace is designed for primary color correction (balancing shots, matching cameras) and secondary color grading (creating stylistic looks, isolating specific colors).

The Grading Node Graph

Similar to the Compositor, the Color Workspace uses a node-based architecture, but specifically tailored for color manipulation.

  • Each clip on the timeline has its own node graph.
  • The most basic graph starts with a single node where you apply primary corrections (like adjusting lift, gamma, and gain).
  • To isolate the sky and make it bluer, you would right-click in the node area and select Add Node > Corrector. You would then draw a mask (Window) around the sky and apply the correction only to that node.
  • Nodes can be processed sequentially (Serial Nodes) or in parallel, allowing for highly complex and non-destructive grading trees.

The Scopes

Relying solely on your computer monitor for color grading is dangerous, as ambient light and uncalibrated screens can deceive your eyes. The Color Workspace relies heavily on mathematical Scopes (located in the bottom right corner).

  • Waveform: Displays the luma (brightness) values of your image from left to right. Ensure your shadows do not crush below 0 and your highlights do not clip above the peak limits (100% or 1023, depending on your scale).
  • Parade: Displays the individual Red, Green, and Blue channels. Excellent for quickly fixing white balance issues.
  • Vectorscope: Displays the hue and saturation of the image. The center represents absolute gray (zero saturation). Use the "Skin Tone Indicator" line to ensure human subjects look natural.

Primary Color Wheels

The primary color wheels (bottom left) are the fundamental tools for balancing an image.

  • Lift: Affects the darkest parts of the image (Shadows).
  • Gamma: Affects the midtones.
  • Gain: Affects the brightest parts of the image (Highlights).
  • Offset: Moves the entire signal up or down globally.

Qualifiers and Windows

For secondary corrections, you need to isolate specific parts of the image.

  • Windows (Power Windows): Draw shapes (circles, squares, custom polygons) to restrict a color correction to a specific physical area of the screen. ORAPHIM includes a built-in planar tracker to make these windows stick to moving objects.
  • Qualifiers: Isolate a specific color (like a red shirt) by picking a range of Hue, Saturation, and Luminance.

For a comprehensive breakdown of advanced grading workflows and LUT management, refer to the Color Overview manual.