Color and effects
Color correction belongs to the camera: set it once and every slide that shows that camera looks the same. Effects belong to the layer: blur the camera on one slide, give it a glow on another, and leave it clean everywhere else.
Open the Color window
Select a camera layer on the canvas.
In the Format inspector, open the Camera tab.
Next to Color, click Adjust….
The Color window shows the live camera on the left and the controls on the right. The menu at the top left picks which camera you're correcting. Once a camera has a correction, the Camera tab shows Corrected next to the button.
Before / After in the toolbar splits the picture: the original on the left, your correction on the right. Drag the divider to move the split. Click Done to keep your changes, or Cancel to put every camera you touched back the way it was when the window opened.
Changes show on the camera right away and are saved to the show a moment after you stop, so a whole slider drag is one step in . The correction is stored in the show, per camera.
Cameras are shared by every open show. If another show is playing, the Color window says so: your changes are saved to this show but don't preview on the camera until it plays.
Basic: pick what looks right
The window opens in Basic, a guided picker that works like an eye exam. Each step shows four versions of your camera; click the one that looks best.
Which looks most natural? Pick the picture where skin and whites look right.
And now? The same choice with smaller differences.
Pick a look: softer or crisper, natural or more colorful.
Add a cinematic look? Optional. Choose one of ten built-in looks, or None to stay natural. Strength sets how much of the look to apply.
Use Back to change an earlier pick, or Start Over. When you're done, you can fine-tune everything in Advanced.
The built-in looks are Teal & Orange, Bleach Bypass, Warm Film, Cool Night, Vintage Fade, Matte Portrait, Punchy Vivid, Moody Green, Black & White and Golden Hour.
Auto
Click Auto in the toolbar to set white balance and exposure from the current camera frame. It sets Exposure, Temperature and Tint, which you can adjust afterward.
Advanced
Switch the toolbar's Basic / Advanced control to Advanced for four sections and the scopes. Enable Correction turns the whole correction off and on, to compare against the plain camera. The Reset menu resets Adjust, Wheels, Curves, or everything. Double-click a slider's value, or a wheel, to reset just that control.
| Section | Controls |
|---|---|
| Adjust | Light: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows. Color: Temperature, Tint, Saturation, Vibrance. |
| Wheels | Master, Shadows, Midtones and Highlights. Drag toward a color to tint that range; the slider under each wheel sets its brightness. |
| Curves | Luma, Red, Green and Blue curves over a histogram. Click to add a point; drag a point off the graph to remove it. |
| LUTs | Two slots, each with Import .cube… and an Intensity slider. Camera LUT converts a log or flat camera profile to normal video and is applied first. Look LUT is a creative look applied after everything else. |
Saved looks
The Saved Looks menu saves the whole correction under a name so you can apply it to another camera or another show. It also renames and deletes looks, and Show Looks Folder opens ~/Library/Application Support/ArcLight/Looks, where each look is an .arclightlook file.
Scopes
In Advanced, the scopes sit under the picture. Choose Waveform, RGB Parade, Vectorscope or Histogram. They read the corrected camera, before any layer effects.
Effects on any layer
Every layer, including cameras, text, images and video, can carry a stack of effects.
Select the layer and open the Format inspector's Style tab.
Under Effects, click Add Effect and choose from a category.
Adjust the sliders. Effects that draw light or shade also have a Color.
| Category | Effects |
|---|---|
| Blur | Blur, Zoom Blur, Motion Blur, Bokeh |
| Light & Shadow | Drop Shadow, Glow, Bloom, Gloom, Vignette |
| Stylize | Comic, Pixellate, Hexagons, Crystallize, Pointillize, Halftone, Edges, Sketch, Posterize |
| Distort | Bulge, Pinch, Twirl, Vortex, Light Tunnel |
| Color | Noir, Mono, Chrome, Instant, Fade, Process, Thermal, X-Ray, Invert, Sepia, Hue Shift, Vibrance |
Effects apply from top to bottom. Use the arrows on an effect to apply it earlier or later, the switch to turn it off without losing its settings, and the × to remove it. Filters work inside the layer's mask; Drop Shadow and Glow are drawn outside it, so they follow the masked shape.
Effects are part of the slide, so the same camera can look different on each slide. Magic Move blends effect settings between two slides.
Any Core Image filter
At the bottom of the Add Effect menu, All Core Image Filters… opens a searchable list of the macOS Core Image filters that work on a single image, with sliders for their settings.
Blend modes
The Blend menu under the effects sets how the layer combines with what's beneath it: Normal, Multiply, Screen, Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Add, Lighten, Darken, Difference, Color or Luminosity. Screen and Add are handy for light leaks and flares on a black background.