COLOR GRADING automation/keyframe Hell

Sherman-Hutchison wrote on 2/26/2026, 11:05 AM

I paid in full for Vegas Pro 23 months ago but ive barely used it because every time I try, I just spend hours frustrated and stuck on trying to do just one thing before giving up and going back to premiere pro.

The way effects works in Vegas 23 to me is basically incomprehensible parallel universes with strange connections. What I have spent hours trying to do.... is automate COLOR WHEELS (and other color FX). So far the only color related thing ive managed to get keyframes for is COLOR CURVES, by generating an EVENT FX window where it gives me its own track and transport with keyframe diamonds. I cannot replicate this for color grading or color wheels. I believe I had done automation for color wheels before but I just cant figure it out. Chat GPT cant help me.

If anyone knows what invisible thing I am missing here I would appreciate it.

Comments

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 2/26/2026, 11:23 AM

The way I do color grading is by using Vegas CGP instead of the FX chain stacked up with individual FX. To automate CGP, I apply it as an event-FX to cross-faded adjustment events on an adjustment track instead of key-frames.

bvideo wrote on 2/26/2026, 11:48 AM

@Sherman-Hutchison ... which is to say there are no keyframes in the Color Grading Panel (where the wheels can be seen). It acts like a LUT in many regards. So as @Howard-Vigorita says you can simulate the behavior of varying parameters by overlapping / cross-fading adjustment events that have independent CGP settings. Only the more traditional color curves etc. FX & chains have traditional keyframes.

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 2/26/2026, 1:11 PM

Btw, I used to automate cgp by applying it directly to the camera footage events and then splitting the event with a crossfade back on itself. Until I discovered that crossfading adjust events is much quicker rendering and previewing. Also works well with multicam if each camera track is paired as a compositing child of an adjustment track.

fr0sty wrote on 2/26/2026, 4:00 PM

Here's an easy way to automate the color wheels...

Place an event on the timeline. We're going to assume that someone walks into another room with different lighting in this clip, and we need to adjust the color corrector accordingly to pull off this transition.

Place a split right where the transition needs to occur. Now drag the split back over itself, so for instance, click the left side of the split, and drag it to the right so that it now overlaps the right, creating a fade.

Color correct each side of the split as you need (make sure the color grading panel is set to adjust individual video events, not tracks or the video bus. IIRC it is set to video events by default.). The fade you just created acts like a keyframe, gradually fading from one set of color corrector parameters to the next. You can adjust the length and position of the fade to fine tune it.

This avoids needing to mess with keyframes at all, and is compatible with every setting in the color grading panel.

Edit: I see howard got to it first... and I do like the idea of crossfading adjustment events as well! That way you can apply fades across areas of the timeline that contain more than one clip, like composite shots. This is why VEGAS will always be better than Premiere, there's multiple ways to do just about anything you need.