FCPX Color Wheels vs Color Board vs Color Curves for beginners?

Hi all,
I have been making youtube videos for a few months of myself playing piano, recorded with iPhone 11 Pro and a separate mic. I have been syncing audio in FCP, and then editing the rest including titles, color correction etc on my iPad Pro with Lumafusion. Lumafusion was more simple than FCP and had less options which was easier for me to deal with when I started as a total beginner. But now I want to do more with color correction and exposure control, and need something more powerful so I told myself its time to learn how to do good color correction and other editing in final cut pro X.
I started watching some videos and beginner tutorials, some people base their tutorials and swear by Color Wheels, some say Color Board is best, and some people in their videos used just Color Curves for their tutorials. I followed different methods in tutorials, trying each color correction method and I’m just overwhelmed and want to focus on one thing. But it seems that most people say Color Wheels is the most “powerful”
In your opinion, as a total beginner which one should I focus on primarily and get good at and study? And are there any sites with tutorial with sample footage I can follow along with to experiment and learn with?

As a Premiere Pro user first and FCPX users second I have to say I like the color correction tools in FCPX. They all work and can be very effective. Use what works best for you. Don't worry about what other people prefer.

There are several free color correction training tutorials online if you google "color correction in FCPX". You might watch a few of these, but I would highly recommend Ripple Training color correction tutorials for more consistent learning and interacting with sample footage. I generally prefer using color wheels, but there are many times that curves have benefits and I almost never use the color board anymore. The color board is a bit more limited but will suffice for most basic corrections. This is largely preference and once you know basic color correction you will understand the UI for each method you mentioned and how to use them.

Each tool has a purpose (except the color board which I will never like at all). As suggested, and I second, take a proper color grading course. But the process is always the same. I teach color grading and suggest Ripple.
1- white balance
2- contrast
3- correct for memory colors

Color Wheels:
Good for adjusting colors in Global, Highlights, Midtones and Shadows. But you have to understand that their ranges overlap.
Curves:
You can set an exact point, indeed many points, below or above which you want to bend them. So for example if you want to lift the range just beneath the skin tones without affecting those, you better do this with curves.
Color Board:
An FCPX / iMovie special. Fastest way to pretty intuitively color correct, and in this respect totally underrated. Doesn't encourage you to dive deeper but tends to deliver pleasing results. Whereas someone who is overwhelmed by too many options often destroys the image.

Besides knowing what the specific tools do, you need to establish a reasonable workflow (see FCPX guru).

Superb summary, Axel, chapeau!

I also recommend the tuts from RippleTraining (the free ones on YT, as the commercial ones).

As a beginner, you have - independently of what UserInterface! - to understand the concept how video/photography handles ‘color’.

Only then you’ll understand, what happens when you push some puck in some Interface…

And: the Scope is your friend, in any form of Color Processing.

Personal experience: used, as a beginner, for years the ColorBoard = reduced interface to the max. Meanwhile a fan of curves (alone that puck-by-pick feature - now, that is intuitive!)

Thanks guys, this is truly one of the most amazing forums

I used to be of the school that makes sure blacks are properly black before I make sure the whites are white. But with the Hue/Saturation Curves panel I don't really need to do that any more. Still, I shoot in LOG so I always have to make sure to push the blacks down and raise the whites high before I do anything.

This is perhaps the most racist post I've ever written.

Redifer wrote:

This is perhaps the most racist post I've ever written.


Did you notice the ambiguity afterwards? Wouldn’t have struck me if you hadn’t added that sentence.

There is an explanation by Larry Jordan why colorists need to be, er, colorblind and not believe in races in the first place: all human’s skin is on the skintone line in the vectorscope because their blood is the same red. There are billions of luma variations.

Ha! I had never thought of it that way. Actually really interesting to think about.