Apply one color look to your whole video in DepCut

Shots from different times of day, or different cameras, rarely match. A single color look laid over the whole edit pulls them toward one mood. In DepCut a look is an effect, so it is a bar you can trim, move and stretch across as many clips as you like.

The color looks

The looks live in the Effects tab, under the Filters toggle.

• Vintage gives warm, slightly faded color with soft dark corners and light grain.
• Analogue horror drains the color, darkens the picture and adds heavy corners and visible grain.
• Halation makes bright areas bloom with a warm glow.
• Modern tech adds a cool blue cast and a little extra contrast.
• Noir drains color toward black and white, fully at an Amount of 100, with added contrast and a touch of grain.
• Pastel lifts the picture into soft, light, gently muted color.
• Blockbuster warms the highlights, pushes the shadows toward teal and raises contrast.
• Dreamy lays a soft glow over the whole picture.

Film grain and VHS sit in the Moving group, and Blur and Vignette sit beside the looks in Filters.

Cover the whole edit

1. Open the Effects tab and choose Filters.
2. Drag a look onto the first clip. The bar opens covering that clip.
3. Drag the right edge of the bar out to the end of the last clip.
4. With the bar selected, set the Amount slider in the right panel. A new look starts at 50. Raise it toward 100 for a stronger look, or lower it for a lighter one.
5. Play the edit from the start and watch the cuts. The same treatment should sit over every shot.

If you only want the look on part of the video, trim the bar to cover just that stretch.

Match your shots first

A look works best on footage that already sits close together. The Color tab fixes that one clip at a time.

1. Select a clip on the timeline.
2. Click Color in the right panel.
3. Click Auto. DepCut reads the clip's frame and sets a starting exposure, contrast and temperature. It leaves saturation and hue alone.
4. Adjust Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Exposure, Temperature and Hue until the clip sits near its neighbors.

A live histogram above the sliders shows the red, green and blue levels of the preview. The small reset button beside a slider returns that value to zero, and Reset all clears the clip's color adjustments.

Do this for any clip that looks out of line, then let the look sit on top of all of them.

What the look covers

The look treats the footage and anything on the timeline rows beneath its own. Subtitles are drawn above every effect and keep their normal color. A title that sits beneath the effect's row picks up the look, so drag that title's bar to a row above the effect to keep its color.

Check it before export

Step through a few cuts with the look on, then switch the bar off with its eye icon and look again. If the footage looks better with the look off, lower the Amount.

Put it to work

Open a project in DepCut, drag Blockbuster or Vintage over your first clip, and stretch the bar across the whole edit.