Use the Auto button in the Color tab as a starting point

When you open the Color tab on a clip that looks a little off, six sliders can feel like a lot of decisions. The Auto button makes three of them for you. It is a fast way to get a clip into the right neighborhood before you fine-tune.

What Auto sets

Auto looks at one frame of the clip and fits a grade to it. It sets three sliders:

• Exposure moves so the frame's overall brightness lands near middle gray.
• Contrast stretches the tones so the darkest and brightest parts of the frame use more of the range.
• Temperature warms or cools the picture so the red and blue in the middle tones balance.

Auto leaves Brightness, Saturation and Hue at zero. Those three are creative choices, and a quick fit has no way to know your taste.

The corrections are cautious. They are softened and capped at the slider limits (a very dark frame can push Exposure to +50), so the result is a starting point you refine. On a frame that is one flat color, such as a title card, Auto leaves Contrast alone because there is no spread of tones to stretch.

Use it step by step

1. Select the clip on the timeline.
2. Move the playhead to a frame that represents the clip. Pick a mid-shot with normal lighting. A frame from a fade, a flash or a deep shadow will mislead the fit.
3. Click Color in the right panel.
4. Click Auto, the button with the wand icon at the top right of the tab.
5. Watch the sliders move and look at the histogram. The curves should spread across the graph.
6. Fine-tune by hand. Adjust Exposure first, then Temperature, then add Saturation if you want more color.

Auto reads the clip's own frame before any color settings are applied. Pressing it again on the same frame produces the same fit, whatever you did in between. It replaces the clip's current grade, so press it first, then make your own adjustments. If you press it after a hand-tuned grade, the hand-tuned values are replaced.

When to trust it and when to override it

Auto aims for average brightness. That suits an underexposed interview and a color-cast clip. It does not know your intent, so a night scene may come back brighter than you want and a snowy scene may come back darker. When the mood of the footage is the point, take the Auto result and then pull Exposure back toward the original feel.

Auto also assumes the middle tones should average out neutral. A scene dominated by a single strong color can pull Temperature the wrong way. Look at a surface that should be neutral and correct by eye if needed.

Check one clip, then the rest

Fitting each clip alone can leave neighbors slightly different, since each fit responds to its own frame. After you run Auto across a scene, play the cuts and compare. Where two clips disagree, set the odd one by hand until it sits with the others.

Undo and reset

Auto is a normal edit, so undo takes it back. Reset all appears once any value is non-zero and clears the clip's grade. The small circular arrow beside a slider resets only that slider, which is useful when Auto got Exposure and Contrast right but Temperature wrong.

Try Auto on one clip

Open DepCut, select a clip that looks slightly off, and press Auto in the Color tab to see the starting point.