Premiere Color Correction Help

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I shot some footage with my GH3 at a big surfing event that is held locally every year, the footage looks great straight out of the camera however it was a very overcast day and I'd like to add some saturation.

 

That got me thinking about a few things, what's the best way to add saturation to my footage? Because it was very overcast the waves looks very grey and dull, I'd like to maybe add a little saturation to the whole thing but I'd also like to saturate blues if that's possible (how would I do that?)

 

I shot at -4 sharpness and it looks good to my eye but I am not as experienced as others, if I did need to sharpen it what way should I do it? There are several sharpening options.. Which one should I be using?

 

Same goes for contrast though this is probably the last thing I think it needs, the contrast looks fairly good to me but if I ever did need too add some contrast what's a good way to do it?

 

Anything else I should think about when color correcting? Thanks.

[Axel]

By increasing contrast you will get a more 'punchy' image, as many tutorials put it, but if 'overcast' also means slightly hazy, foggy, misty (choose the right word, I often don't feel the subtle differences) you would take away the mood of that day with it's diffused light. Also, low saturation could be the pastel-colors caused by light absorption. A too punchy image would take away the depth (contrast and saturation fade with greater distances). A master colorist will know the right dose here.

 

On the other hand, an image that's balanced for contrast will look sharper. It can be further sharpened by introducing (or enhancing) color-contrast: If the lights are warm, the shadows should have the complementary color cast (3-way CC-tools). Usually Cyan. You can use this only, if there is no clearly predominating light like candle light on X-mas. At a sunset, the shadow color must be blue, because the sunlight is orange (color temperature low, about 2000°K) and the sky is deep blue (over 20.000 °K). 

 

To increase the saturation of 'Blue' equals lifting the values of the blue channel of RGB. This should be a curve, because the shadows in the RGB model mean low (between ~10-30 percent) or no (0 percent) saturation.

 

The tools are RGB-curves (experiment with them) and the 3-way-CC.

 

There is a temptation to do too much. Experienced colorists add subtle changes in reproducible and reversible steps. They allow their eyes pauses, they work with the unerring scopes, asf.

 

 

That got me thinking about a few things, what's the best way to add saturation to my footage? Because it was very overcast the waves looks very grey and dull, I'd like to maybe add a little saturation to the whole thing but I'd also like to saturate blues if that's possible (how would I do that?)

 

 

The sky probably is evenly bright grey, a combination of hue, saturation and luminance with little tolerances that elsewhere in the image only occurs in a few contemporarily visible pixels in the waves (since the water reflects the sky). You could sample the HSL-values of the waves with the pipette tool of the secondary color correction (I can't tell you where in Premiere, cause when in CS5.5, I use Color Finesse or Colorista) and exclude those very few of the sky. You could fill the holes by feathering the matte or mask (depending on whether you want to change the selection itself - aka 'inside' - or the inverted selection - aka 'outside'). Instead of 'tinting' the waves blue, you could enhance their natural saturation. In a second step, you could select the sky and very carefully color it. This will only work if you exposed correctly and the sky doesn't clip. With one RGB value cut off during recording, every change you apply in post will look weird.