Colour (MasterColor)
How to do a grade as one thought instead of eleven nodes.
BS_MasterColor
The whole colour page in one node: balance, tonal wheels, contrast about a pivot, mixer, saturation and hue, six vector zones, curves and a qualifier — in a fixed order, because the order is the craft. One node because a grade is one thought.
Grade
The workhorse colour tool: blackpoint/whitepoint set what maps to black and white, then lift/gain/multiply/offset/gamma shape the result. Whitepoint-sample the plate's white, then balance.
ColorCorrect
Colour correction in zones: master, shadows, midtones and highlights each get their own saturation/contrast/gamma/gain/offset — grade the tones separately.
ColorGrade
Lift / gamma / gain grading in the classic three-way style — shadows, mids, highlights as colour wheels.
ColorCurves
Per-channel curves — click to add points, shape the response exactly. The surgical grade.
GradeMatch
Solves a grade that makes this image match a reference — automatic colour matching between plates.
BS_HueQualifier
Pulls a matte by colour the way a colourist does: three soft windows — hue, saturation and luminance — multiplied together, so a colour qualifies only if it satisfies all three. The selection is drawn ON the spectrum bars, so you see what you're taking. Drag to move the centre, Shift+drag for width, Alt+drag for falloff.
Getting started
- Drop a BS_MasterColor on the plate.
- Balance first, then tone, then contrast about a pivot, then the mixer, then saturation and hue, then the vector zones, then curves, then the qualifier.
- That order is not a suggestion — it is the order the node applies, and it is the order because the order is the craft.
How it works
One node holds the whole colour page: balance, three tonal wheels, contrast about a pivot, a channel mixer, saturation and hue, six vector zones, curves and a qualifier. They apply in a fixed order, so a grade is reproducible from its knobs alone — no stack of eleven nodes whose order is an accident of how you built it.
When to use something else
| Situation | Node |
|---|---|
| One quick exposure/balance fix | Grade |
| Matching a plate to a reference | GradeMatch |
| Isolating one hue to work on | BS_HueQualifier |
| Surgical per-channel response | ColorCurves |