Adobe Premiere CS6 Lesson 10E – Color Balance, HLS & Equalize

The Color Balance effect allows the user to alter the amount of red, green & blue in an image but also within the ranges of Shadows, Midtones & Highlights. The effect control parameters are as follows:

For example, let’s increase the Highlight Blue Balance parameter and observe the effect upon our Sunset 1 image:

If the Preserve Luminosity box is checked, then the overall image retains a good brightness balance and representation while changing the colours within an image.

Color Balance HLS Effect
With this effect, the color balance of an image or video clip may be altered with just three parameters; Hue, Lightness and Saturation. The Hue parameter changes the overall color of the image using 360 degrees to represent the full color spectrum. Lightness (brightness) may have a value of -100 to +100 and the Saturation (how much color is in the image) may also be set from -100 through to +100 in value.

Equalize Effect

In simple terms, the Equalize effect smooths out the brightness distribution within an image. Just like an audio equalizer works to smooth out peaks in certain frequencies. We are able to apply the effect to an image that may appear a little dark in the shadows for instance.

Let’s take our “Interviewee 1” clip and drag it to the Timeline. Apply the effect and change the “Amount to Equalize” to 10%. At 100% (default) the effect is way too extreme.

Original image:

Effect applied

We may set the Equalizer effect to work by Brightness, RGB, or in Photoshop mode.