This section has laid the foundation for color correction in After Effects using its most fundamental tools. The truth is that there are lots of ways to adjust the color levels of an image. Some alternatives for achieving a specific look layering in a color solid, creating selections from an image using the image itself along with blending modes, and more are discussed later.

Even with these basic tools, there are more usage alternatives. For example, you can apply these basic color correctors using an adjustment layer rather than directly to your footage. This gives you the added advantage of being able to dial back the correction by varying the opacity of the adjustment layer.

Will After Effects ever have a more sophisticated color correction system, and does the lack of one mean your output will be inferior? The answers are, it already sort of does, and in most cases, no, although more sophisticated tools might offer particular shortcuts to a given look. Color Finesse is a sophisticated color correction system included with After Effects Professional; unfortunately, it runs as a separate application, and does not allow you to see your corrections in the context of a composite, making it more suitable for overall color adjustments. Furthermore, it is made up mostly of tools that resemble the ones described in the preceding section, so you'll still want to master them. And although I love the way it allows easy isolation and adjustment of specific secondary color ranges, I rarely use it for compositing (other ways of isolating color for adjustment are revealed throughout).

Do the controls in Color Finesse seem familiar? Although snazzier looking, they combine the fundamental tools covered in depth thus far in the chapter: Levels, Curves, and Hue/Saturation.

Meanwhile, owners of the Adobe Production Suite (Windows only) may have noticed that Adobe Premiere Pro includes a Three-Way Color Corrector, and for the sake of support across the suite, this is a hidden effect inside of After Effects (again, Windows only) that appears only when it has been applied in a Premiere Pro project that is then imported into After Effects. Unfortunately, the effect is less useful in After Effects because its graphical user interface (consisting of color wheels) is missing; hopefully, this tool will make its way fully into a future version of After Effects, but for now, trying to use it is probably not worth the trouble for those few users who even have it.