There are a million ways to create cinematic looking colour grades, but this has to be the quickest I’ve seen. All it requires is a single colour adjustment layer set to exclusion blend mode. In this two minute video from Phlearn, we see just how quick and easy it is to do.
How and why you need to colour grade your video footage
Colour grading seems to be the buzz term for video these days. It didn’t really exist until O Brother, Where Art Thou? but it quickly became standard practice. Colour grading helps to set the mood and feel of your footage, as well as make it more pleasing. When you’re using multiple cameras, colour correction and colour grading is almost a must just to help them all look like they belong to the same project.
But how do you do it? In this video, Matti Haapoja goes through his colour grading workflow in Premiere Pro. He explains why you need to do it, and how, with some great timesaving tips, as well as the reasoning behind his choices, along the way.
How to reverse engineer colour grades in Photoshop and reproduce them with curves
Colour grading is such a complicated and in-depth topic. Sure, you can cheat and buy some preset pack from somewhere, but you gain so much more when you learn to understand colour and its nuances. Then you can create your own grades and get them just the way you want.
That’s the point of the Look Creation & Color Grading series from RAWexchange. The whole course is four hours of video training that covers digital colour theory and principles in both Capture One and Photoshop. It’s a paid course, but there is also this free bonus videos, which shows us how we can analyse and reverse engineer a colour grade, and then apply it to other images using curves adjustments.
This is why colorists are essential in every movie
Proper color grading is something we often take for granted in movies. Sareesh Sudhakaran from Wolfcrow shares some thoughts about color grading and why colorists are an essential part of the industry. As a matter of fact, this video might make you wonder how come there’s no an Oscar category for colorists yet.
5 color grading mistakes filmmakers should avoid
Proper color grading is one of the important elements of your videos. It affects the mood of the scenes, and it can affect the viewers’ emotions. Proper color grading takes some time to master, and Matti Haapoja from TravelFeels points out to five mistakes you should aim to avoid during this process. They are common with newbie filmmakers, so if you’re still learning to color grade properly, you should pay attention to these.
Add different looks to your photos using only Gradient Map layer
There are several ways to color grade your photos, and plenty of different looks you can create. In this video, photographer Travis Transient will show you a simple and really versatile ways to do it – using a Gradient Map layer. All it takes is a single adjustment layer, so you can grade the images fast and achieve plenty of different looks.
How to make your digital footage look like it was shot on Super 16mm film
Shooting with real film is the dream of many filmmakers. Often, they actually get their chance, and fall in love with it. But these days, even more so than in the past, film is very expensive. Unless one is independently wealthy or wins the lottery, it’s just not viable for every project.
Simon Cade at DSLRguide has discovered this, too. Having recently started to try out Super 16 film, he knows he can’t justify the expense to use it for all his projects and ideas. So, he set out to recreate the look in post using DSLR footage. In this video, he talks about analysing the Super 16 format, and how to reproduce it digitally.
How to get that orange Bladerunner 2049 look in post or in the camera
The hotly anticipated follow up to Ridley Scott’s 1982 masterpiece, Blade Runner, is finally here. Blade Runner 2049 is largely being hailed as a cinematography success, although it isn’t performing quite as well as expected. One thing that has resonated with people, though, is the colour grade. Especially after yesterday in the UK.
In this video from Theo Miesner we learn how we to create this orange apocalyptic look look in post using DaVinci Resolve. Theo also shows us quickly how we can get a similar effect straight in the camera.
How to colour match footage from multiple cameras and drones
There was a time when shooting with multiple cameras was a luxury. Limited to big budget TV shows, Hollywood movies and live broadcasts. These days, most of us reading this site have at least two cameras. A DSLR or mirrorless and our phone. Many of us also have a backup camera, a drone, maybe an action camera or two. Suddenly that’s 5 or 6 cameras and all of their footage is different from each other.
Editing this footage together can result in a mess of clashing colour and contrast, taking our viewer out of the experience. But it is possible to make them match, and in this video from Matti at TravelFeels, we find out how. It’s not that difficult to do, and while Matti uses Lumetri in Adobe Premiere Pro, the principles are the same regardless of what you use.
Did you know you can colour grade and edit videos in Adobe Lightroom?
Lightroom isn’t the first tool that usually springs to mind when it comes to creating videos. In fact, most people don’t know Lightroom even supports video files. I certainly didn’t, but then I’ve never tried it. As it turns out, though, it does. And you can grade, cut and edit your footage all within Lightroom itself.
This video from photoshopCAFE shows us five cool tricks to edit our videos within Lightroom. From colour grading to rendering out your final video, it’s got you covered.
FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!