(suspenseful music) - What's going on guys? This is Qazi. Welcome to another amazing video. This is a must watch for anyone that's getting into color grading or for all beginner colorists, okay? This is my three-step
color grading process, and basically this is the foundation for any grade that I do. If it gets super complicated, even the stuff that I've done in the past, these are the rules and these are the foundations that I'm using to build my grade, okay? And for all my brothers and
sisters that have been asking me to, hey, can you grade some Sony footage or eight-bit footage? Well, all your wishes came true. This is shot on A7S II,
in 8-bit in S-Log 2, so we're gonna be grading this, but guys, as a bonus,
you guys know how I do. I'm not gonna stop at
the three-step process, we're gonna take it to the next level. I'm gonna be showing you
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dropped every single day, let's roll the intro. (upbeat music) All right, guys, let's jump right in. First thing that I always
do, let me just name this, and basically I'm hitting Tab. This is just a custom keyboard shortcut, so you can just create
yours, however you want. You can just go right here,
keyboard, customization, and just call it whatever,
I'm calling it Tab, and then as soon as I do
that, it's a name labeler, so I can just name it. And then I'm gonna go in here and I'm gonna call it exposure. So the first step is to set the exposure. The second step is balance and just a little bit of look. Not too much, a little bit a look, it'll make a lot more sense. Third, I'm gonna put this over
here, is going to be my pop, and this is very important
to know what I mean by that, and again, you guys are gonna
see what I'm talking about. So we're gonna start
off with our exposure, and as always we're gonna start
with our contrast and pivot. One thing you need to know when you're working with 8-bit footage, it can crack very easily, so we're not gonna be pushing it too much. Eventually we will get it
to where we need it to go, but we're just gonna massage it. You have to be very gentle with it, okay? You can't really do push
and pull there you can, but say Alexa Pocket 6K, you
know, those kinds of cameras, so just keep that in mind. So let's just start going
with the contrast and pivot. So when you get going, keep
it somewhere around here and I wanna lift it up, 'cause I wanna see her a
little bit more, right? Always, always, always
focus on your girl, right? She's the main focus,
so less just keep her where she's supposed to be. So something like that. I'm gonna keep pushing
the contrast a little bit, not too much. And how's this looking? Let's just see. I'm gonna bring my Gain down a little bit, lift my Gamma up a little bit and then take my Lift and bring it down. Gamma up, something like that. It's not looking bad. I'm gonna keep it somewhere around here. And just remember, like I
said, don't push it too much with Sony, be gentle with it and we'll keep massaging it. So that's my basic exposure. This is what we had,
this is where we're at, not bad at all. Balance. I'm gonna start with saturation,
so I'm gonna crank it. Look what I'm doing. I'm gonna crank it,
I'm gonna bring it down to maybe like 92-ish and keep it somewhere around here. Now, what do we got going on? We can see it here that it's a little bit
more blue biased, right? It's up here, like it's a
little blue heavy up top and red is kinda down here. So the reason why I called
it balance slash look, because we're gonna do
a little bit of that. And let me show you what I mean. I'm gonna take my Lift and I'm gonna pull it down a little bit and don't be afraid of moving these around because I'm gonna show you a technique that really takes the
fear out of the equation. Because like what I just
did, you could be like, man, what did you do to the skin? Looks outta whack, what just happened? Lift Gamma Gain, the beauty of it is that you balance everything out. So if I push this down, my lift down, then I can take my Gain up and go in the opposite direction and look, it makes up for it. But look what happens when
I do before and after, how much of a look we created. So it does this really organic dance that you need to understand and big things can happen once you really have a
good command on it, okay? And that's what we're gonna be doing here. So maybe I'm not gonna push it that far, so I'm gonna bring it somewhere
around here, pull it up and then bring my Gamma down just to balance it out. I'm just looking for like
a pretty good balance and natural looking skin. You know, the whites are looking okay, I'm not too bummed about it, but let me just take my Gain and pull it down a little bit. Let's see if we can get
a little bit more of a balanced image out of it. So, I mean, this is where we were, this is where we are,
not bad at all, right? So I mean, if I do
complete before and after, I mean, this is not bad for Sony. You guys can agree. I mean, look at the skin tones, right? Guys, you know how big I
am with Lift Gamma Gain. Big things can happen
with Lift Gamma Gain. Now, if you're thinking, man, it's a little bit more on the red side and we can see it right
here in the mid tones, we can pull that down, right? We can just take my Lift,
pull it down a little bit. Not too much, we don't
wanna stylize it too much. I can take my Gain and do the same thing, pull it down and then take my Gamma and just make sure that
I put enough juice in it. I'm just looking at her
skin right now, okay? So even something like that. This is pretty good. I don't wanna move it more. So guys, so far, we're at two steps coming a long way, right? Now I'm gonna go to my pop, I'm gonna do it the Editable Splines way. So I'm gonna turn on Editable
Splines in my custom curves. I'm gonna click on the top. I'm gonna take this guy,
I'm gonna pull it up, okay? I'm just trying to give it
a really nice pop, okay? And obviously I don't wanna max out here. So I'm keeping everything kosher, but just look at before and after. And now everything got lifted, so I wanna give the skin a bit more juice. So I'm gonna pull this down and I'm gonna be kind of
aggressive with it a little bit. I'm gonna show you why. So this is a little aggressive, right? Like what I'm doing here, that's okay. 'Cause let me show you this
technique, it's really cool. It gives it a really stylized
look, it'll blow your mind, and it's perfect when you're
working with 8-bit image because it controls macro blocking on a very, very massive scale, okay? So this is a huge step here. Under low soft, grab this guy, pull it up and look what's happening on the lower end, okay? So now if I do this, like look how much of
a film look we created? All of a sudden, it just looks
like Alexa footage, okay? So I'm gonna keep it
somewhere around here. See it lifts it so much. So if I cancel this, just
keep your eyes right here. I'm gonna kill this. Look at this and then how much it lifts it, and it gives it like a
really nice film look. Now if this is a bit too
stylized for you, that's okay. We can control that, and we're gonna control it by
going back into our exposure. I'm gonna go into my log wheels and we're gonna pull it down
a little bit, not too much. And then we're gonna go into
our lower range right here so we can control how much, like I don't wanna affect the eyes, I just wanna affect
the bottom of the hair. So I'm gonna control that, like this. Just like that. And I wanna leave this
image like that, right? It has a really nice filmic look and I love it. So guys, come on, just look
at what we created, right? We were here and now, we're here. And we can still do a
little bit of push and pull. First of all, you need to realize that she does live in that world. Like her skin is kinda dark and she will be in that world. One thing that I wanna do in my balance and the reason why I called it slash look is because I do wanna take
advantage of it, right? I'm gonna pull this up so you
guys can see what I'm doing. So I'm gonna go under
my hue vs saturation. I'm gonna take pretty
much, I'm leaving my red and yellow alone and I'm pulling everything
else down, okay? So you're gonna see what I mean. I can actually just do this. I can take all of these and pull it down quite a bit,
like somewhere around here, and I can take these two and pull it down quite a
bit, somewhere around there. And this just takes the
color out of the background and everywhere else, and it just leaves the color in her skin and even like makes my
white really proper. So if I do before, like, see, there's like a little bit of blue sipping in here and this just cleans it
up, quite a bit, okay? It puts the focus where
it's supposed to be, gives it a stylized look
a little bit, right? And again, we're not pushing it too much. So this could be our base grade and it all got done in three steps, okay? This is what I meant
by how easy it can be. Now, if you wanna pull overall
saturation a little bit back, like if you're like,
man, it's a bit too much, you can control it, right? Like you can control it here. And I think, let me just
go into my saturation, now we're at 85. 85 is not bad, so we can park
it somewhere around here, it's totally fine. Again guys, color grading
is all about layering. So you're gonna be adding more
things to give it the juice. But if you just want
to go from here to here in simple three steps,
this is not bad at all. One thing that I do wanna do is I wanna bring up her
skin a little bit, okay? So I'm gonna take my
Gamma, I'm gonna lift it up and look, see how much of
her skin comes up, pops. And then I'm gonna take my Gamma and I'm gonna pull it
down a little bit, okay? And then Gamma up, Gain down. So that kinda evens it out. So it makes a pretty big
difference to where we were, to where we are now. I'm actually gonna go to my log wheels and I'm gonna pull it down a little bit and then open up my lower
range just a little bit. So we can just like bring this down and just have like a really nice contrast. So look at that, right? And we're just doing it effectively. And obviously I'm commentating and I'm taking you through it, but once you understand and latch onto this concept,
you can burn through it. So three easy steps, right? Just think about it. Start with an exposure,
give it some saturation, so you can start seeing
what's happening in the image, balance it out slash give
it a little bit of a look, go and create your pop, and the reason why there's this much gap is because this is where we're gonna have a lot of fun with it, okay? So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna create a really fun look and let's see how we're gonna attack it. So I'm gonna put it up here. This is gonna be based on layer mixer, and it's all gonna make sense, okay? So I'm gonna start with my
left, I'm gonna pull it down. And be something like
that, something like that. And I'm gonna take my Gain and I'm gonna push it towards
that warm tones, okay? Like really just give
it a pretty cool style. So maybe pull it back a little bit. Let me just do this. So let's just park it
here somewhere, right? So, I mean, it's a pretty
extreme look where we're going. That's totally fine. Like, look what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go under my layer mixer, and I just created a layer note. I'm gonna go in here,
I'm gonna pull her skin and you have to be very careful. Look, what's happening, man. This is the deal with Sony. You just have to be so pixel perfect or else it's just gonna be outta whack. So I'm gonna park it
somewhere around here. This is not looking bad. I'm gonna go in here and I'm gonna give it about ten-ish and this is totally fine. So now what I wanna do is
I wanna come back out here and look at what's happening. So what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna go under my Gamma and I'm just focusing
on her skin right now, and what I wanna do is
pull the saturation out. So I'm gonna go under my saturation, pull it down a little bit, and then I can just work on her skin and give her that olive back, right? So I'm just focusing on that. I can pull the skin
back a little bit more. And now if you look at it,
before it was like this, when we created our look and then we pulled our
skin out quite a bit. Now, obviously it's adding
these things right here. The artifacting is happening because that's just the name of the game. When you do a key like that, you know, it's gonna be really hard
to pull a super clean key. We can try it, but you can see what's what I mean, right? So if you mess with it more,
you're gonna make it worse. You're not gonna help your case. So the best way to go about
it in a case like that will be really, really simple. I mean, that trick is
just used all the time, so it's not a big deal at all. You can just do this right here, turn it around a little bit, extend it so we can grab the hair. And let me just go close. Now, just remember, okay, one thing that you really,
really do need to remember is that if you were working on a high end commercial, I know for a fact that
you're gonna be working with a much better image than say, you know, this kind of footage. But that won't be always the case. So sometimes you will be
working with lower end cameras. These are the ways to get around it, okay? So before we're pulling the key and fixing the skin, and this is after, okay? Now when you're working
on commercials or films, you're gonna have to put heart into it, and these things are totally normal. Don't think of it as like,
am I gonna have time? Like, will I be able to do it? You will be able to do it and you would wanna do it, okay? Another thing that I wanna
do is I'm gonna go ahead and create another layer mixer, and this time I just want to
grab the high end highlights. So I'm gonna do Shift + H, you
guys can see what I'm doing, and I'm just going to grab that and I wanna come out. So basically it takes that binge out and it gives me that
clean white that I had. So it's a really cool look. It does that to her eye too. So now if you see it, we
created this really cool look. If I take these three and turn them on and off, all of a sudden we went from
like a Rec. 709 sort of look to a really stylized look
with a perfect skin tone. We're not done yet. This is what I was trying to tell you. Like, we're just gonna
have fun with it, okay? And I'm gonna go in here, and what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna do the opposite of adding sharpening that we usually do. So I'm gonna go in here and I'm gonna do negative 50 here and just look at what's happening. This little blooming effect
that we're getting on the skin and like how much it's helping. And guys, these things
are very, very crucial when you're working with 8-bit footage. Sony cameras, Panasonic,
whatever, have you. Because just look at what
we're doing to this image. I mean, come on, we're taking this image from this gunky weird
thousand dollar camera that primarily is good for photography, but people use it for video and it has all these things
that you have to work around to like how cool of a
look that we're creating. So that's what I'm gonna do there. Then I'm gonna create
another note right here. I'm gonna go in here,
I'm gonna type in glow. You know, how much I love my glow, but I always try to use
it in a different way, so you guys can pick up something, okay. And I'm gonna go into my shrine threshold and just crush it all the way. So here's the beauty, okay? See, it just blew out this entire thing, which I didn't want it to do. The beauty of having this right here, that we pull these keys, the
good thing about it is that man, it comes in clutch so hard. First of all, what I wanna do is I wanna go under my brightness and I wanna control it. So I wanna pull it down a little
bit, control a little bit. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna say, hey, take this man, send it through and then reverse it. So now I'm saying reverse it. Affect everything else, leave this alone. And look at how cool this effect is. Because I use that, I took
the part that was blowing out, left it alone, and then affected everything else, and just look at this
look, I mean, come on. If I take these two and I do on and off, I mean,
Jesus, like what we've created. So now the final touch, the
cherry on top is gonna be green. And you will be able to see this, if you're watching this video in 4K, which I will highly recommend, I record all of my videos in 4k. And I'm gonna crank it
just for the sake of it, so you guys can really, really see it as you have to see what the green does and how much it affects. And guys, come on, come on. The beautiful thing here is that I've created multiple versions. So let's go look at our
basically Rec. 709 version, which was this. So this is where we parked it, right? Remember, like I said,
okay, this is the version, let's park it so we can remember, and then when we do the extracurricular, let's see where we end up, and then this is what we created. So I mean, the proof is in the pudding. You guys just saw this
whole thing being created right in front of you. So what I'm gonna do is first of all, I'm gonna park it on my hero frame, which I should have done,
which is right here. And I'm gonna take all of
this, I'm gonna kill it, and we're gonna do a quick grade recap. So let's just jump right in. Started with our exposure, and that was my first step to my workflow, color correction workflow,
then we did our balance and just basic look, and then we went and created this pop and here we already had
done a couple of things to give it a film look and make it look really, really nice. And that could have been
a perfect, you know, grade or color correction that you
could have easily turned in. Then we wanted to take it a step further. So I went in and created a really cool look. And then after that, once I
created this look, I went in and pulled her skin out. And especially with Sony,
you have to be extra careful. So we were able to create a
really cool effect right here. I'm gonna go in here, and then I pull the mask out and these are the little details that go a very, very long way, okay? So just always, always, always remember. So I pull the mask out and just give it a really clean look. And one thing that we
could have done with it is bring it back a little bit. So like right now it
got a bit too magenta, so actually, let's just do that. I'm gonna go under my game and I'm gonna pull some
of that magenta out. So I'm gonna put it somewhere around here. So it's still way better
than that dingy color that we had going on. I'm actually gonna balance
it out a little bit more, to be honest. I'm in my game, just
messing around with it. Okay, this is way better. So this is what it was before. Now it's looking like this,
much, much, much better. We're gonna leave it right there. I went and subtracted the mid-tone detail, just basically did a
beauty work on her skin and then went ahead and added this glow, and it just does all the magic man. It just makes up for
everything in the back, like the macro blocking and every single thing. And then added a ton of green. Let's check out the final
look in full screen. (suspenseful music) All this gave you a broader perspective of the color grading process. Make sure to sign up for the masterclass, link is in the description, it's available for limited time only. Smash that like button, subscribe to my channel
for more awesomeness. I will see you in the next video. (upbeat music)
