Altering the colour of material to match the requirements for the overall colour look as defined by the Director of Photography (for film) or director/producer in television. For film, the Colourist checks and corrects each shot – which is typically done as the material, usually cut camera negative, is scanned in a telecine and recorded to a server or tape. This Primary Colour Correction separately controls the lift, gain and gamma for the red, blue and green channels and is applied to whole pictures. This may be provided within the telecine itself or from a separate unit e.g. Pandora or da Vinci. The camera negative is usually cut with handles – adding say 20 frames extra at the beginning and end of each shot to allow for later adjustment of edits.

The wider use of diverse material such as video and film shots of various ages makes greater demands on colour correction. Some, of necessity, would be tape-to-tape rather than negative-to-tape – limiting the range of correction available. Documentaries often draw on diverse material and so do some features.