black is white? White is black? Up is down? Dogs and cats living together in sin?

[Josh Bass]

I've had FCP6 for about four years, but recently is the first time I've tried to color correct something to any degree using that program. I'm finding some very strange things, using the 3way CC tool and the. . uh. . .single way CC tool:

-lit actor against blown out white/limbo background, pulling down the blacks PULLS DOWN THE WHITE BACKGROUND. Is everything a black?

-same situation, raising highlights RAISES DEEPEST SHADOWS

-midtones affects everything

Granted there does seem to be some balance to it, i.e. messing with blacks affects blacks more than other tones, but really, can anyone offer insight into the design logic here? Why is everything affected by everything? I'd expect crossover, to a point, between mids/highs/blacks to keep from getting some really ugly results, but not to this degree.

Yes, I am aware of the RGB curves plugin, the free one, offered by one of our own here. Unfortunately, related to my other thread about 5D footage rendering differently than it looks unrendered, that, plugin wreaks holy hell with everything once rendered (green tint to footage, etc.) so I've been using 3way CC and the related tools only on this project.