8 Color Grading Mistakes Every Beginner Makes

the mistakes that I'm about to show you in this video are inevitable I've made these mistakes I know many friends and people that are in my master class make these mistakes all day every day so you're not only gonna see the mistakes but you're also going to get the solution and please do me a favor smash the like button if you're enjoying this content so we can reach more people subscribe to the channel and let's jump in all right so let's look at our first example which is too saturated what do I mean by that if we look at this shot in our Scopes it looks very nice everything is right in the middle perfect right but this just looks too flat so what we need to do usually is to convert it from log to rec 709 color space and we're gonna do that by using our color space transform plugin and I'm basically taking my red footage converting it to DaVinci white gamut this is going to give me the most amount of room to work with when I'm manipulating colors and then on my back end I'm going to convert it from DaVinci wide gamut to rec 709 so it's going to look like this and this looks right if you were on set filming this the colors probably looked very similar to what we're seeing here now if I go back and just keep your eyes on the vector scope right here so this is before this is after okay so every time you juice up your image it's gonna get saturated rated automatically let's take it a step further let's just say that in this node I want to do some basic contrast adjustments using my curves so I can go click on these three dots turn on edible splines and then all I have to do is just click right here raise this up and I'm just like eyeballing it to where it looks good so even like something like this and then I'm gonna grab a bottom point and then I'm gonna pull this down keeping an eye on my hero I'm gonna go back here and then crank this out a little bit and if I do before and after very nice right great adjustments nothing is blown out everything is still looking good but what is happening with saturation look at this right here our Vector scope so basically every time we push our image even just by using lift gamma gain it's gonna keep adding saturation keep this Vector scope saturation in mind and now let's go look at some of yours and my favorite images by professional colorist so if I turn on this image right here and look at the saturation levels in my Vector scope by looking at the image it looks like oh my God this red must be peaking right like that there's so much color but then you go to your vector scope and now let's compare that with what we got going on you know exactly what I'm talking about let's just look at this example right here this looks like oh my God this red would be out of control going back to the vector scope look at it where it is compared to where our Reds are and what our image looks like like this red right here so when you're identifying like what makes a professional grade professional compared to what you got going on these are the things that you need to be aware of so in this case I'm not gonna just make all these other adjustments and not mess with my saturation so there's a couple of ways to go about it number one would be Global saturation I can just pull that down go back and see where everything looks good my eyes are locked on my hero so I'm just looking at his skin tones his lips and I don't want to lose too much but even if I park it somewhere around here and if I do before and after it does a little bit right like I mean and I'm only down to 46 from 50 in saturation so it's not a whole lot uh can I pull it back again I don't want to just take out the juice but I can even go down to 44 and it looks pretty good okay but in this case we don't even need to concern with like What's Happening Here our main concern right now is this red and whatever is happening here so one of the ways I can attack it is that I can just go under my Hue versus luminance right here click on this area right here and then just pull this down okay and I can just eyeball it I don't need to go too far so even if I just bring it down here so look at my Vector scope how we did a damage control right here so before it's like flatlining and we're bringing that back and then look at my waveform how again we're controlling that so this is not the brightest part in the image and now if I do before and after selective saturation is always the best way to go because it doesn't really take out the juice from everything but it just gives you the ability to only manipulate areas that are distracting now we did a pretty good job to do damage control but I think there is still ways to go to make it look again cinematic and what we are seeing is that in our Scopes the Reds and oranges are still kind of peaking okay so I'm gonna go under Hue versus saturation this time I'm going to click on this area right here and this time I'm just going to start bringing it down and just look at my Vector scope so I don't need to go too far okay I can just go down this much and it's looking better than before I can do the same thing with my Reds I can click right here and then I'll go under my Reds and I'll pull it down and again you know don't just rely on the Scopes also use your eyes too so like right now I'm just looking at it my actual image and I'm seeing like okay this is doing a really really nice job so overall now we're looking really soft can we now go in global saturation and pull it down like the overall image a little bit so I'm just looking at my guy now and I'm looking at his lips like I don't want to lose too much color in his skin so even if we just park it somewhere around here 46ish like overall we're looking way better than what we started with so this is before this is after okay this also gives us the license to kind of go back and push our image a little bit more so I can just grab it here and I can push it a little bit like that I can grab it right here and I can just like really start creating a nice pushed image and once again the more we push it the more saturation we add so if I were to take these two and do on and off like look at how far we came and then especially how everything was just kind of blown out like right here made it look unprofessional or even the reds or just too much on the nose and and also just look at how much more detail we brought out like now we can actually see the variations in red like before it was just like one big red and now we can see that this is a little bit darker compared to what's happening here there's probably LED lights inside that are doing that so we can start to see nuances moving on to the second example if I had a dollar for every time someone says I like Rec 709 better I wouldn't be making this video I would be in Fiji living my best life but unfortunately everybody who thinks that is absolutely wrong in all caps Rec 709's only purpose is to mathematically convert the image for proper viewing and isn't intended for final delivery I see so many people just convert their image from Lock to x709 and call it a day they want to preserve like all the detail and the highlights and the Shadows but it comes at a really huge cost let me prove it to you so let's go back to our gallery and look at some images from say joker and let me pull up this image right here so now look at my Scopes and see what's happening here compared to what you got going on so once again like I can barely make out any detail in the in the hair right like it's kind of gone but I can barely make out any detail under his eyes right and that's the point because this is the battle that the colorist has to fight like where are you going to put your emphasis and what are you gonna let go okay so the highlights are flat lining we can see it in our waveform um and and the Shadows are pretty dark the blacks are gone but then it looks so juicy it looks so good let's look at another example this right here once again look at the detail in the hair it's pretty much gone and it looks phenomenal we can see it again and again we can see it in this example like look at right here you see no detail but then the overall image is just mind-boggling okay same thing with the highlights they're they're pretty harsh okay and that's what I'm getting at now look at your image so do you think that this is good enough and that's what I mean by like this is just a starting point let's manipulate this a little bit and then compare it and see if this still looks juicy to you and we're gonna keep it simple so I'm just going to click right here use my editable spline and let's just like really really push it so I'm going to do something like this I'm going to click right here I'm going to grab a point and I'm gonna do something like that and let's go back here and see if we can do more push and pull or are we good here so let's even do something like this so now if I go back to your Rec 709 conversion compared to what we got going on just look at how much more is happening how much more personality our image has and even again if we bring in an image from say joker like you know they're they're starting to kind of be in the same world right like in terms of the contrast like how how much juice we're adding right and then at this point I can just literally go under my Global offset and start creating like a really crazy look so I can do something like this and now I can just go under my curves and I can just do Q versus U and I can just grab my yellows and then just pull it so they have like a nice little magenta happening in there and now if I do before and after like yes it's a very pushed look but let's just say we're kind of going for it so or we can just go back and pull it up a little bit right so like even something like that so now look at like what we got going on we can go under Hue versus saturation and I can just take my blues and I can kind of just like simmer them down right so like I can just pull them back a little bit I can also do Hue versus Hue and I will take my blues and I will swing them into that like cyan world right so we're closer to like our palette and if I do before and after and now if I take these two and turn them on and off you tell me which one you like more so I wanted to just kind of give you an idea of like what you're leaving on the table just because you think oh my God man left work seven or nine like don't change anything it looks perfect because I gave you real world examples to see the stuff that we cherish and love so much and what's really going on there I mean we can even look at uh stuff from let's just say Euphoria and I can click on this shot right here and bringing bring it in and just look at the Scopes just look at how pushed this is and now it looks like they kind of belong right like I can add some green and I can uh add some halation and we could be in that Euphoria world but this ain't okay like look at the Scopes here and then look at euphoria so that would be that let's move on to the next one so this is going to be the opposite of the last example let's just go ahead and delete these two nodes and this time let's just say our beginner knows how to convert the image but then they struggle with the next step which is getting to the base look so what they would do is they would use their liftgam again um and go pretty heavy they have they have a heavy hand and that's very common with beginners so I'm gonna take my game put it somewhere around here I'm going to take my left pull it down somewhere around here I'm gonna take my gain and keep pulling it to something like this and you know at first glance I mean it's just kind of cool like it's just like oh my God so this is my log uh or this is my Rec 709 and then this is this is the look that I'm going for but the problem happens with that is now you're going to be doing so much damage control so you're gonna have to fix this you're gonna have to fix any other areas I mean the red is out of control and they wouldn't know as the first example to saturate it how to control those colors so then what they would do is they would create a window and it quickly becomes a game of whack-a-mole so they'll create a window they'll put it right here I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they know what they're doing they'll go in their gain and pull this area down and then in their window they'll soften it and go under tracking and then track it back and forward okay so again I'm giving our beginner a lot of uh the benefit of the doubt that they will know these things but you see like how we're adding so many extra steps to get to where we want to go so this is extremely common like whatever changes beginners make they're always on the nodes what do I mean by that let's just go and type in Globe so let's just say somebody who's just starting out in resolve and just learn how to use glow they'll drop on the glow effect and they'll be using it something like this okay so they'll go in their game let's just say and pull it up a little bit like in terms of a music video look it could work but you can just kind of tell that it's a glow effect like I can just look at it and know that it's a glow effect that's being applied okay same thing with like let's just say if they're using halation and grain they can drop that on and then again let's give them the benefit of the doubt that they can uh figure out how to control the intensity of the halation or whatever so they'll leave it somewhere around here and then turn on the Grain and most of the time if they're using grain it's going to be like something like this so it's almost like they want to be discovered that they're using certain tools but a good edit is where you can't even tell where the cut is right like that's what they say so in this case what I would do is this like let's just turn this off go in my glow what I would do is I would pull this up a little bit I would go and kill the gain again and then in my spread I will come back to something like this and I will keep messing with my threshold and then I'm going to go under my gain and I'm gonna lift it up a little bit and let's go in our spread again and just like mess with it a little bit and then I'm gonna go under my Global blend and I'm gonna pull it back to something like that so if I do before and after we can still tell that there is glow that's being used but it's very subtle it could also look like there was a pro Mist filter on your lens okay so now we're getting in a more realistic territory same thing with like grain inhalation I'm gonna just turn off the grain first and then let's attack halation and I'm just going to pull the saturation back and pull the strength back even more okay so we can still see that it's being um it's an effect and then I'm gonna go under grain and I'm gonna kill the saturation first of all I'm gonna reset these and I'm gonna bring the size to half and then I'm gonna bring the strength to half as well so if I do before and after you can still see the texture right here that there's grain applied and there is a glow effect applied if I take both of these and turn them on and off so it's still there but it's not so much on the Note this one is a dead giveaway that somebody's new to color grading what I'm talking about is like usually you want to create color separation and it's also known as split toning so say a beginner is attacking that concept on this shot they will start with their lift kind of adding that green or teal and then they'll go and take their gain and add that warmth okay and then they'll keep doing that to to keep separating the two images right or or the highlights from the Shadows they'll keep doing it to separate the highlights from the Shadows so say something like this and then keep pushing that now the problem with this is that on its own it kind of looks cool uh it has a nice look I I have to admit but what's happening is this like look at what's happening to the skin tones what's happening to the black mouse pad and anything that's black is not black look at the hair and that's a very massive problem and the easy fix is I can go in my blog Wheels I can go under my Shadow and counter that green okay so just look at what I'm doing I'm countering that green until it's just completely gone and now I can just like lift my Shadows a little bit not too much and this was like a really extreme example but I'm happy that I did this to kind of show you even if we're creating such a pushed look like look at the arms again like look at how we got our blacks back like look at the pad again look at the hair and if I were to undo this step like look at this look at the difference before and after so we're still creating that look because if I do on and off you can see that the look is Unapologetic and we're still going for it but if I were to just make the last change disappear compared to how much it helps it's absolutely insane let's just say if you don't want to lose all the character of the green you can go under your low range and start pulling it back so now my focus is on the hair I still want to keep the black in the hair but then I want to seep in the teal as much as possible on my in my lower mid and then this is where I would park it but just look at the difference of this tool again before look at the mouse pad and then after and then that would fix that problem when you're creating split toning so before we get into the next example here is another little nugget so we we created this very extreme look right so let's just say that you go man it's just a bit too pushed isn't it you can always go under your opacity like your key settings right here I can just take my key output gain and I can dial it back and I can go you know about three quarters in it looks pretty good so anything more than that is just too much on the nose once again so then that is another way to kind of just dial back the overall effect of the node trust me new feature updates are always exciting but nobody gets more lit on it than people that are new to grading I used to be the same exact way you're looking for the next magic tool that will make you twice as efficient and your grades 10 times more professional looking nothing could be further from the truth so let's just say the client came back and said hey I want to see a little bit more into the eyes of my main character and just like bring up the face but mostly the eyes Okay and resolve just did a brand new update and there's a tool called Magic mask so the beginner is going to be like perfect like this is the time to use it so they're gonna go and let's give them the benefit of the doubt that they know some of these things so they're gonna go under people right here by clicking here and then you can either select person or features so they're gonna click on features and select face nothing really happens when you do that because you're gonna have to go and do this like select this area and now if I click on this guy right here mask overlay it gets to select the face so let's just say they know all of this so far and then they go ahead and track it forward and backwards okay so so far so good I mean we can see that the mask is latching on really well okay and then at this point again the main objective was to bring out the eyes but they're just gonna go ahead and in their primaries go under shadows and just like lift up the face a little bit not too much so even something like that and for the example sake I'm gonna exaggerate it a little bit more so you guys can see what's really happening and what I mean by this okay so look at what is happening between here and here and then if I play it through you can see like how it just like jumps around like under his chin like you see this like how it's just like jumping around and doing this weird dance so let's just say that there are they know how to fix that too like you can click on quality to better and then it does get better but see that problem is still there so like if I go through now there are ways to even fix this but again beginner wouldn't know all of that advanced ways to do this right so now they're in this dilemma where they're using this new tool they've spent so many hours trying to use it and figure it out that it doesn't even work and then look at how slow it makes your system so like I'm playing it through and look at this the playback 10 frames a second okay and that's a 20 grand machine Let's create a new node and what we can do instead is this so they said just bring out the eyes right so I'm gonna go undo this and let's go somewhere around here I'm gonna punch in and all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go under windows and I'm going to create a shape like this like literally like raccoon eyes okay I'm gonna do this and now what I'm going to do is I'm gonna go under my lift and I'm gonna lift it up a little bit then I'm gonna go under my gamma and I'm gonna lift it and if I do before and after that's a pretty big difference and I'm gonna go under my softness and I'm gonna blend it in so it's like this and then at that point I can just go under my tracking and track it backwards and track it forward tracking and resolve is the best and there you go so now look at the eyes and how natural this looks and if we go through just look at the difference okay and let's see the playback speed real time all right now we're getting into the real juicy stuff and if you're finding this video helpful then do not forget to watch my free webinar link is going to be in the description this training will turn you into an ultimate beast just look at the screen of all the topics that I'm going to be covering in that training it's absolutely free link is in the description let's get back to the video chess if you're a beginner you will have a new opening every time grading is no different people that are just starting out they will attack every project differently that is probably the worst thing that you can do because it adds so much time to every project you work on not to mention it makes it near impossible to replicate your workflow now when I say workflow I don't mean you need to have like 30 plus nodes no tree that is as complicated as the one that you're seeing on the screen we can just reset that and we can literally have a simple let's just say a five node node tree and the first and the last nodes are going to be reserved for color space transform so here we know this is Alexa and then keeping it in DaVinci wide gamut for the most amount of juice and then here apply this again and uh let's go back and change it to DaVinci white gamut and Rec 709 at this point this could be our primary so let's just say that I'm not really liking all the magenta and blue in the shot so I can just go in my HDR palette and I can kind of pull that out and just make it a little bit neutral here I do my look so again I can go back here kind of pull my image to something like this bring it down to something like that and let's just say you know for the for the example sake that's my look this right here where I can do some windows okay so I can go here create a window hit shift h put that here okay and then go in my gamma and pull this down so that way we're just controlling the window and just look at how simple this note tree is so we have our IDT input device transform we got our primaries we got our windows we got our look and we got our ODT output device transform and we can basically reset all of these and we can now even save this as a power grade so I can go here and let's just say I do right click grab still and now I'm working on a brand new project I can always just come back to that still and say apply grade and boom so you can work on any number of projects apply this and now you're ready to go all you have to do is go under IDT and change it to whatever camera Source up top and the rest stays the same it used to take me hours to come up with the look let's just say if I was working on a brand new project I would just be like okay what do I want to do so say I got to my base right so this is my Rec Center Nine this is my base right here and then at this point I'm saying now what do I want to do like let's just maybe warm up the image a little bit right like let's just warm it up and then I'm gonna go under my lift and I'm gonna cool it off here but overall I'm just kind of keeping the image warm like this and that's pretty good like this could be a look and then I'm going ah but I don't know like what if we cool off the image and then like I just add some warmth on the low end and in my gamma I can just keep the image somewhere around here and that's a cooler look like what about this I don't know man like maybe it's just too push so let me take my gain pull it down a little bit bring up my gamma and then my lift is down a little bit like that's not bad that's pretty good uh maybe take my game back up a little bit okay this is pretty good let's go to the and then what do we want to do with the look again like let's just warm it up a touch and then I'm gonna go in my lift and I'm gonna counter that it's subtle but okay I like it let's create a new node and then I'm going under my halation and grain I'm gonna drop that on because everything should have grain inhalation right wink wink so I'm gonna go in here I'm gonna take the strength and I'm gonna bring it down and I'm gonna be like okay this is looking pretty good I'm gonna leave that there and then I'm gonna go under my grain and I think um I'm really good I think this looks good send it to the client and the client comes back with like what just happened this is supposed to be a futuristic sci-fi short film I don't want grain like we don't need grain and we need more color separation so now you're going oh okay like what am I supposed to do now but if you would have just asked your client before starting on a project we didn't have to deal with any of that because now our mission is clear so they need a lot of color separation okay if that's the case then let me add warmth in my highlights and then let me add a lot of like cold colors in my shadows I'm gonna go in my lock controls the technique that I showed you earlier and we're gonna just make sure that my hair look as black as possible and then I'm going to lift it up a little bit something like that and now we have like this nice warm look with a pretty good color separation okay so we can keep it somewhere around here I'm gonna go back in my gamma and I'm gonna kind of find that happy medium where everything kind of just like Blends in but still there's a lot of color separation so I'm gonna do that and then they said no grain so I don't need to waste my time on that okay let's grab a still send it to the client and see what they say and you see just by doing that I've saved hours and hours of time just wasting it on coming up with something because I have no Direction so there you have it what I want to know is which of these mistakes you're currently making drop a comment below if you have any video suggestions put it in the comments as well and on that note thank you so much for watching I'll see you in the next one [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Waqas Qazi

Views: 19,602

Keywords: davinci resolve, davinci, davinci resolve studio, davinci tutorial, davinci resolve free, resolve color grading, color grading davinci resolve, color grading, davinci resolve tutorial, davinci resolve color grading, davinci resolve effects, theqazman, davinci resolve 17, davinci resolve 17 tutorial, waqas qazi, color correction davinci resolve, davinci resolve 18, davinci resolve 18 color grading, davinci resolve 18 tutorial, davinci 18, resolve 18.5, resolve beta, resolve 18

Id: VEM8X7CU_4c

Length: 29min 28sec (1768 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023