When you assemble a composition, you often need to adjust or correct the colors of one or more of the layers. Such adjustments can be for any of several reasons. Some examples:

• You need to make it seem as if multiple footage items were shot under the same conditions so that they can be composited or edited together.

• You need to adjust the colors of a shot so that it seems to have been shot at night instead of day.

• You need to adjust the exposure of an image to recover detail from the over-exposed highlights.

• You need to enhance one color in a shot because you will be compositing a graphic element over it with that color.

• You need to restrict colors to a particular range, such as the broadcast-safe range.

After Effects includes many built-in effects for color correction, including the Curves effect, the Levels effect, and other effects in the Color Correction effects category. (See Color Correction effects.)

The Camera Raw plug-in can be used to correct and adjust still images in JPEG, TIFF, and various camera raw formats.

The Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse plug-in included with After Effects includes excellent color-correction tools. Synthetic Aperture provides tutorials and additional information about using Color Finesse on their website. For more information, see the Color Finesse documentation in the folder that contains the plug-in. (See Plug-ins.)