One grade for many clips with adjustment layers

Grading clip by clip gets tiring when a scene has thirty cuts. An adjustment layer solves that. In Video by Zaweba you add one from Graphics, then Adjustment layer, and it lands on the timeline like any other clip. It has no picture of its own. Instead its colour settings, its effects and its masks change every track below it, for as long as it runs. One grade or one effect can therefore cover a whole section of the edit.

Think of it as a sheet of tinted glass laid over the timeline. Wherever it sits, everything underneath is seen through it. Shorten it and the change stops sooner. Move it and the change moves with it.

Setting one up

Put the adjustment layer on a track above the clips you want to change. Drag its ends so it starts and finishes where the look should begin and end. Then select it and work in the Inspector just as you would with a normal clip: colour correction, curves, wheels, a LUT, or effects from the Effects tab.

If the whole film needs the look, stretch the layer from the first frame to the last. If only a dream sequence or a flashback should feel different, cover just those shots. You can have more than one adjustment layer, at different heights, each doing its own job.

Jobs it does well

A shared grade is the obvious one. After each clip has been balanced on its own, so the shots match, an adjustment layer on top adds the creative look in one place. Change your mind about the look later and there is one clip to edit, not dozens.

Effects that should sit across cuts are another. Film grain, a vignette or an old film treatment looks odd if it restarts or changes on each clip. On an adjustment layer it carries on smoothly across every cut beneath.

Masks make it more precise. Give the adjustment layer a mask and only that part of the frame changes, so you can darken the edges of every shot in a scene, or blur the lower part of the frame behind a caption, without touching the clips themselves.

Keyframes add timing. An adjustment layer's settings can change over time like anything else, so a scene can drain of colour slowly or a blur can build as a character faints.

Choosing between an adjustment layer and the alternatives

Video by Zaweba has more than one way to spread an effect around, and each suits a different case. Picture effects can be put on a whole track from the track Inspector. That follows the track wherever it goes, for the full length of the project. Source effects, from the clip Inspector, follow a file everywhere it is used, which is good for fixing a problem in the footage itself.

An adjustment layer is about a stretch of time on the timeline, across every track below it. Use it when the change belongs to a scene rather than to a file or a track.

Mistakes to watch for

Order matters. The adjustment layer only changes tracks below it. Titles or logos on higher tracks are left alone, which is usually what you want, but if a title is being tinted along with the picture, move the title up above the layer.

Don't use an adjustment layer to fix shots that don't match. If one clip is too warm and the next too cold, a single layer on top keeps that difference. Balance each clip first, perhaps with Colour match or Auto colour, and save the adjustment layer for the shared look.

Heavy effects on a long adjustment layer cost time on every frame it covers. The badges in the Effects tab mark the heavy ones. If playback slows, it helps to work with the effect switched off and turn it back on before export.

Used this way, adjustment layers keep a long edit in Video by Zaweba tidy: one place for the look, and every clip below it free to be trimmed, swapped and moved.