PRIMARY AND SEECONDARY COLOR MANIPULATIONS USING HUE, SATURATION, LUMINANCE AND AREA ISOLATION

A color correction system that implements scene-by-scene color manipulation in the primary color domain to color correction regions of a video image isolated in the hue domain using hue, saturation, and luminance qualification. The system may be configured as a number of color correction blocks arranged in series or parallel. Each correction block typically allows a colorist to define up to sixteen non-overlapping hue sectors with associated corrected color values and qualification curves. Each color correction block has two video inputs, a first connected to the output from the previous block, and a second connected to an unprocessed video signal. Each block includes a video multiplexer that operates as a switch allowing the colorist to select either the output of a previous block or the unprocessed video input signal as the input for a given block. Delay buffers are positioned in the unprocessed video signal between each color correction block to synchronize the unprocessed video signal with the output video signal from the preceding color correction block. Thus, the color correction blocks may be applied separately (i.e., in parallel) or in tandem (i.e., in series) for each scene processed. In addition, a particular colorist may select the number of blocks in the system in accordance with that colorist's needs.