Copy Color Corrector Filters to Other Clips With Ease

By Shortcutter | Published: Monday, August 2, 2010

When you are working with the 3-Way Color Corrector (as well you should be), you will find that once you have corrrected the color for a particular clip, that same correction will likely work for all the other clips on your timeline that were shot with the same camera in the session (unless the camera operator made changes to their while balance or exposure in mid-shoot or the daylight conditions were shifting).

In this case, it’s nice to know that there is a set of shortcuts that enable you to either copy the Color Corrector from the preceding clip (which you have already corrected) to your currently selected clip on the Timeline (CTRL 3)

or use CTRL 4 to copy the Color Corrector settings from your current (selected) clip to the next clip forward on the timeline:

Note that these both of these apply to clips that are on the same track, so if you have a clip up on Track 2 that you want to copy filters to from a preceding clip on Track 1, you will need to use traditional filter copying methods or, in the case of the Color Corrector, you may want to open the corrected clip into the Viewer and use the handy “drag hand” icon in the “Visual” tab of the corrector in the Viewer. Note also that the “drag hand” is located between the GUI buttons for today’s shortcuts.

If you are cutting “over the shoulder” dialogue or a scene where you are cutting back and forth between two cameras, you will find the “copy from two previous” command and copy to 2 forward commands handy. They are CTRL 2 and CTRL 5 respectively:

If you can remember that CTRL 3 and 4 copy clips from behind or forward, perhaps you will remember that the “copy from 2 back” or “copy 2 forward” keys are on the left or right side of the other commands. Generally however, I think this is one of those shortcuts that I wouldn’t bother trying to remember, but I would only memorize them “situationally” for the short term when you find yourself working on a big timeline that requires them. Once you’ve done that a couple of times, you might find yourself recalling them anyway.

Tomorrow, we’ll double down on this set of shortcuts with a very similar set…