Digital Color Control

Digital color grading — tuning every pixel's hue, saturation, and brightness in post-production — transformed cinema after 2000. It gives directors control the Technicolor pioneers could only dream of.

A single scene can drift from warm to cold as a character's mood changes, and entire emotional arcs can be told through gradual color shifts. But the core lesson has not changed since The Wizard of Oz: color is not decoration.