I always do my exposure correction in conjunction with the histogram. The histogram will give you a visual reference of the amount of highlights and shadows in your image. I try my best to get a "full" histogram, meaning the curve doesn't fall off on the left or right side. Many say that Color Curves is more powerfull, and it may very well be...however I've found I have very good control with the "Levels" filter while monitoring my histogram. From "Levels" I can adjust my inpoint (black point), outpoint (white point), and gamma (greys).
What NLE are you using? Vegas has a little info button for each filter- if you click it for the "Levels" filter it'll describe how it's used in much more detail.

Now correcting your "color" is completly different than exposure. I use the standard "Color corrector" for this. If your footage is exibiting a color cast, say it is overly orangy and warm (for example), you want to drag the color wheels in the opposite direction of the cast. In this case the blues would be opposite of the reds/oranges. Adding the complimentary color will help equalize the color on an improperly white-balanced cam. There are short-cuts available, including the one-click option of using the droppers. You simply choose the dropper for one of the 3 wheels and click a part of the image that is a pure white- pure- grey or pure black for each of the wheels. When using the "hightlight wheel" dropper and you click on, say, a white dress. If the dropper notices shades of "blue", for example, it'll AUTOMATICALY equilize the color so it's neutral white without a color cast. Often times this is good enough- other times it doesn't nail it exactly and more manual tweaking of the wheels is needed.

Color correction is a perplexing subject- much broader than the scope of what I can write in a thread on a forum. There are entire books written about the process. I suggest starting with your NLE and seeing if they have read-me files or help files built in to the individual filters. Read up, experiement, and find what works best for you. Best of luck to you.

Hello Glen,

Thank you for sharing your color correction technique.

I am a later comer on this thread. The URL that you have stated earlier cannot be found, I will appreciate it if you can put up the clip for download again. Can't wait to see another of your masterpiece.

hello Glen, this really helps. :) thanks you for sharing your color correction technique, for the meantime, i really have to cope up doing this, i am just starting to learn vegas and premiere. whichever is more handy and user friendly which will not trade quality and features.

i was wondering if the link still works
 

id love to see the clip if possible,, the link wasn't working for me on july 30th, please and thankyou for your time

Ok - I'll put in my vote too. I've been hoping to see this thing for months now...

:-)

I'll see what I can do- I'm not even sure if the clip is still on the HD. Might have to be after my trip to Vegas next week. Thanks for the interest non the less.

Maybe someon who has already downloaded the clip can send it or put it online if glenn will not be able to find it.

Thanks a lot
Chris

Good idea Chris - or maybe Glen will find it now that WEVA is over...