No matter how well you try and white balance etc., sometimes the footage will just not look how you need it to. So then you need to colour correct or colour "improve". As far as I know colour correction is not a "compulsory" process. And in fact you are probably more likely to have to reduce the saturation of colours in post to meet NTSC limits than to pump them up.

I agree - white balance whenever possible when shooting, but sometimes we get caught , and Colour Correction, and C/Curves are wonderful tools.

Yet, apart from comparing differences, I still don't really know what I'm doing between using the Choose Adjustment Color or the Choose Complimentary Color eye dropper.

Appreciate any clarification...

p.s. I just edited this ok, mjroddy

With the choose adjustment color you're picking a color and amplifying it. With choose complimentary color you're picking a color and reducing it by adding it's opposite (complimentary color). In color correction I use the complimentary eyedropper most times and I don't think I've ever called on the adjustment color eyedropper because I'm normally REMOVING color casts.

The trick with the complimentary eyedropper is to find something within the tone band (low/mid/high) that should have been neutral in real life and then pick on it to neutralise incorrect coloration within the band. If there is nothing in the pic that would have been neutral then you've got to pick the next best thing and then eyeball it from your real-life experience. Also remember that the tone bands overlap so for example correcting the mid tones will also affect the low and high tones somewhat.

There's no right way of doing these procedures, and Vegas has so many different effects now that it's possible to achieve the same effect with a whole variety of different tools.

Billyboys tutorials are a good starting point: http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7ewvg/tutorial-menu.htm

Take pains to sample the blacks and the whites with the eyedropper and the rest will be a lot easier. You may have to do it several times before you get an accurate sample. Enlarging the still frame a little bit will help before you take the eyedropper sample. Split the video up into as many segments as you need if the lighting is changing a lot within the video.

John

Besides "simple" matching footage you can take in really great areas where you just play with the original footage and get really chelenging results. All the care in shooting and you will still want to use CC to enhance the stuff.

I think none of my films on this page:
http://www.patrykrebisz.com/films.html

were non-color corrected.

When you're picking the complimentary colour for your lowlights and highlights, don't necessarily go for the very darkest or lightest areas of the frame because these may be so close to 100% black or white already that they don't give you enough of the complimentary colour you need, or even the correct complimentary colour. In particular avoid picking on a light source in the image (lamp, candle, sun) or a bright reflection of a light source.