In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create the solo color effect in Premiere Pro (otherwise known as the Sin City effect). This effect has the potential to be incredibly powerful as it creates an image that is completely black and white except for one specific color. With this effect, you can draw your audience’s attention to a specific part of your video and guide their experience by directing their focus.

While this default effect may seem simple, but it would have been an incredible marvel at the time of the release of the Sin City movie in 2005. By selecting the example color directly from your footage, the effect quickly and effectively isolates the color you would like to remain saturated.

Now, let’s go over how to do this in Premiere Pro CC!

Make an Impact with the Solo Color Effect

Start the process by placing a clip that you want to add the effect to and place it on the timeline. Next, head on to Effects > Leave Color. Drag it onto your clip. Next click on Effect Controls. Here, you will find all the parameters that can be added to this effect. Now, enter the color that you want to leave in the footage. To do this more precisely, use the Eyedropper to grab the right hex code directly from your shot. Choose the most average shade from the color you want to select. Next, choose the Amount To Decolour. Setting this to 100% will only keep the color you selected. Also, be sure to adjust the Tolerance which will give a percentage allowance of the color you selected that will remain saturated. Play around with this until you’re happy with the look. Everything outside of this amount will remain black and white. Edge Softness simply feathers the cut off point between the colors to be left and the desaturated colors. Including a bit of Edge Softness can avoid harsh pixelation. Using a mix of these parameters will help you find the best combination for this effect.

It’s that simple! What’s great about this effect is that you don’t need to go to the extreme with it. Another common use for this effect is in wedding or corporate videos. You can highlight a specific color to catch your audience’s attention with a little less drama.

We hope you liked this tutorial on how to create the solo color effect in Premiere Pro! If cool color inspiration is what you’re after, check out the thousands of Premiere Pro color presets available in the Motion Array library.