I've never done color correction in Premiere Pro 1.5 before. Are there any good tutorials on the Web?

Matthew,

The tools are all there (curves, levels, HSB, three-way color correction), but they are very difficult to use from the Effects Pallette. After Effects has the same tools, but is much easier to use. Most importantly, it has an info pallette that displays the RGB values under the cursor. This is critical if you are trying to correct to a reference card and want to do a little better than eyeball it.

Josh

Thanks Joshua. What I should have said is that I've never done color correction before... period. I have no idea what tools to use or good techniques to employ. Any suggestions?

Keep in mind that the color correction interface completely changed (arguably for the better) in PPro 2.0

I'd be interested in learning a bit more about color correction too. From what I've heard, you need to start with blancing the white / black levels of your camera before shooting, then shooting a reference chart like the GretagMacBeth (http://www.gretagmacbeth.com) color chart, placing the chart right where you subject will be (i.e., under the same lighting you subject will be under). Then, once the footage comes into the computer, you can use those frames of the chart from the video to color balance.

The only thing I'm not sure of is how to properly correct your footage in Premiere. I assume you'd need a reference graphic (BMP/JPEG) of the color chart and would use some sort of eye-dropper-matching series of clicks? How do you pros out there do that?

In my opinion, balancing colors to a color chart (i.e. dsc labs / camaling, gretag macbeth) isn't necessary.

Take CSI for example. It has won many accolades for its cinematography and it does not adhere to lighting or color accuracy. The lighting changes a lot from setup to setup (i.e. hair lights only on the close ups)... but they get away with this cheating because no one pays attention to these things. Color accuracy is cleared and intentionally whacked in the re-enactment scenes.

My opinion is that you should try to:
A- Avoid noticeably color continuity problems. It should not look like the scene is changing locations or time when it really isn't.

Use the color corrector to change color balance. Start with the highlights/white/wheel on the right to affect overall white balance. Then adjust the midtones if necessary. Blacks generally don't need to change.
The curves and the midtone controls can control how bright/dark a scene is.
B- Make the image look better.
The Levels filter should be able to adjust the black and white points... aim for 0/7.5 and 100 on the scopes in Premiere Pro.
You can then use the color corrector to add a s-shaped curve to the Master curve.
That will work well for video-originated footage.

I'm not a big fan of Premiere Pro myself so I don't know all the ins and outs to it.