Color Grading Final Cut Pro X - Get Pro Film Look

if your color grading sucks let's fix that so you get a pro film look that looks big budget in final cut pro 10. this is your beginner's crash course now you might be at that big make moment of having your work seen but you're worried about being passed over you're struggling with coming up with looks or getting that clean professional look that you envision in your mind the tools well they just seem overwhelming or too complicated well i've been there and i know how frustrating that is i've been a colorist on commercials and features created the instagram video filters film presets for the photoshop camera app developed grading software featuring point and click grading in the viewer and i've helped thousands of filmmakers like you get cinema quality results on their films which is why by the end of this video you'll know exactly what to do to make your films look professional and high-end even if you're just a beginner so you can stand out also if you stick to the end i'll show you something new that many have considered a game changer in final cut pro 10 so buckle up you're on your way to getting better looking films to get started we're going to get this setup right so we'll go to window workspaces then color and effects this will give us the color tools and video scopes now just before we jump in and start grading let's briefly discuss basic terminology of color the three basic terms to know are hue saturation and luma hue is the name we call colors saturation is the intensity or vividness of a hue and luma is the brightness or shade of hue it's also important to know how to read the scopes which can be super beneficial i'm going to change the view to show the three scopes that i use the most those are the luma waveform rgb overlay waveform and the vector scope the lumen waveform lets us correct for exposure if i overlay an image on top of the waveform you can see that the trace the stuff you see here actually corresponds left to right with the image of the girl walking with shadows at the bottom and highlights at the top the rgb overlay waveform is helpful for correcting white balance issues it reads the same as the luma waveform but it also shows the color channels in red green and blue this makes it simple to spot imbalances if either the image is too cool or too warm we'll see that as red or blue elevated above the other channels and the vectorscope corresponds directly with the color wheel and i've overlaid it here for convenience it shows what colors are in the image as well as their saturation the further the trace extends from the center of the scope the more saturated or vivid the colors are without explanation of the scopes out of the way what should we tackle first here's a simple but powerful workflow for color correction we first correct the exposure or brightness of the image second the white balance or color temperature if there are any issues and lastly the saturation by either increasing or reducing it this will make more sense as we get into it i'll choose this clip as our hero shot because it shows the main character and her surroundings let's first make a correction to the exposure of this image using the color wheels to the right of each will you'll find the exposure control the shadows control affects the darkest parts of the image the highlights affects the brightest parts of the image and the midtones control affects everything else in between the fourth wheel is the master control which adjusts the entire image and there's some circumstances where you'd use it now looking at this you can see that it's really flat this is a very common way to see it if you capture in a log or flat profile so how we'll correct this shot is we'll adjust the shadows while watching the waveform we want to bring the trace and the shadows down until the darkest parts of the image sit right above zero then we'll bring up the highlights so the brightest parts of the trace sit right below the 100 ire mark then i'll bring the mid-tones down just a bit this gives us good contrast and exposure this is the first step next we'll fix the color temperature since our image looks a little too warm we can clearly see the red trace dominating the mid-tones and highlights of our waveform our goal here is to neutralize or white balance the whites so the way to do that is to first find something in the image that should be white and identify its corresponding trace on the rgb overlay waveform in this case this spike here seems to correspond with this white bright billboard in the background a lot of people go straight away to temperature and tint sliders to fix balance issues the problem is they end up messing up the shadows or the skin tones because these sliders affect the whole image this is an exterior daylight scene that means light comes from the sun in a top-down fashion so if we fix only the highlights we'll get better color balance correction at the center of each color wheel you'll find a puck that adjusts the color so i'll drag the highlight puck towards blue and teal to compensate for the warm tones in the image until the trace for the billboard turns white and voila problem solved lastly let's boost the color by increasing the saturation with the saturation control at the left of the global color wheel here's what the clip looks like before and after the correction doesn't that look awesome alright now that our hero shot is color corrected let's move on on this next shot we'll repeat the procedure going for a nice balance of exposure with the shadows highlights and midtones controls the color temperature in the shot looks off too so we'll use again the highlights will to fix it lastly we'll add some saturation too moving to the third shot we want to match it to the first shot for obvious reasons since this was pretty much a tighter version of our hero shot to give us a good starting point let's copy the correction from the first clip to this one we'll go to the first shot select it and use the keyboard shortcut command c to copy we'll then go back to this clip go to edit and choose paste attributes from the drop down menu make sure that the color wheels effect is checked and click paste this copies the correction and gives us a good starting point but you'll see that we still have some matching issues the image is a little darker to help with matching we're going to set up a side by side view with the comparison viewer so we can see both images and their traces in the waveform at the same time to do this let's go to window show in workspace then comparison viewer this opens a new window to the left of the viewer where our reference image will show now the scopes are showing between the viewers and i don't like that so let's change their position by enabling the vertical layout now let's enable the scopes for the comparison viewer and set them to vertical layout 2. this gives us a more organized view where we can compare them more easily if we needed to compare our shot to the last frame of the outgoing or the first frame of the incoming shot just make sure that the comparison viewer is set to timeline and click on previous edit or next edit in this case we want to use our first shot as a reference so let's change the comparison viewer to saved mode move the timeline playhead to the frame you want as a reference and click save frame if you happen to save several frames you can open the frame browser to select the right one let's close the frame browser and move the playhead back to the third clip now that this is set up we can see both images and their traces at the same time to match the traces better we'll bring up the general exposure using the control on the right side of the master wheel we can see in the waveform that both traces look like they're at the same level that looks great for exposure but the colors aren't quite right the hero shot is a little warmer so using the rgb overlay waveform as a guide i'll move the highlights a little towards yellow that's it we have a nice looking match now we can disable the comparison viewer and the vertical layout for the scopes in the interest of time i've already gone ahead and performed color correction to these last remaining clips but in this particular shot you'll see that her dress looks like it's a different shade of green compared to the other shots to fix this we'll need to do something called a secondary or an isolated color correction in other words we want to make a correction only to the dress for that we can add a hue saturation color effect and go to the huber's hue curve where we'll place two points on the color spectrum to isolate the green tones then add a center point and drag up a little bit to lean those green hues more towards yellow it looks better but a little too saturated so we'll go to the huber's sat curve isolate the green tones again and drag the middle point down [Music] finally it's looking a little bright too so we can go to the huber's luma curve isolate the green tones and bring the middle point down just a little in case we needed to further isolate the dress so other objects aren't affected by this correction we can always use a color mask to isolate all similar shades of green and then take it even further with a shape mask around her okay now that we're done with our base correction and shot matching it's time for the really fun part and that's creating an awesome look for these clips i'm going to show you a quick way to apply the same look on top of all of these clips and this will save you tons of time and ensure that you get a consistent look across the board of all your clips in fact this will save you so much time that you'll be able to binge watch ted lasso on apple tv plus to do that we'll highlight all the clips then right click and select new compound clip we'll give it a name in this case we'll call it the aviator since it's going to be inspired by the aviator by martin scorsese then click ok now when we make a color adjustment to the compound clip it'll apply the same correction to all the clips uniformly the aviator is pretty crazy in terms of color grading with radically different grades for different scenes and time periods what unifies the look of the film is that all the grades are always duotone and very unnatural for example in this scene everything is teal and red in this other red and green and here red and blue we'll create a watered-down version of this look so it feels a bit more realistic it'll be made up primarily of orange and green and you'll be able to download the look as a lot for the first part of the look i'll add a color curves effect which allows us to make complex adjustments to the exposure and color balance now just a quick crash course on the way this works the bottom point adjusts the shadows the top point adjusts the highlights and we can place as many points along the curve in between to fine-tune the contrast we can use the luma curve for overall exposure adjustment or do individual adjustments to the red green and blue channels in this case we don't want to affect the highlights or the shadows too much so we'll create contrast in between these areas known as the undertones and overtones i'll make a point here in the undertones and drag it down this improves the density of the undertones but makes the image a little too dark so let's add another point here in the overtones and drag it up there that looks nice now we have much richer contrast for color let's add a hue saturation effect looking at the trace in the vector scope you can see we have a range of yellows oranges and reds so we'll create points for those yellows and drag them up moving those hues towards orange and create points for red and drag them down more towards orange then we'll move the teals and blues towards green two creating points for them and dragging them up finally let's go to the hueversack curves create points for teals and blues and drag the middle point down if i toggle the grade off and back on again a few times you can see a huge difference and what a great look this is making it look like a fashion shoot as a final touch i want to apply one of the luts from the 70 luts master collection which you can download for free from color grading central i'll include a link to it in the card above let's go to the effects panel and under the color section you'll find the custom lut effect i'll drag and drop the effect on the compound clip go to the inspector and use the lut browser to select the three strip lut now at first it's too strong but that's perfectly okay because we can dial it back to taste with the mix slider this lut gives us the final push that the look needed now let's play this whole thing back what a really professional look now i promise you if you follow these steps it'll make a big difference and if you want to skip all this with something that gets professional results three times faster then i want to introduce you to cinemagrade it's a plugin for final cut that was conceived out of my frustration with learning complicated grading tools at the beginning of my career as a filmmaker i wanted to get a professional high-end hollywood look but without having to specialize as a colorist so it was built around this concept and here's how it works you drag it onto all your clips in final cut launch the viewer and now you can grade directly on the image by clicking and dragging rather than having to know what shadows are you can just click on the dark areas and drag up to restore their detail switching to the false color view you can see blown out or clipped detail in the highlights just click and drag down to recover the detail in the bright areas changing colors can be done by clicking and dragging to change the color of the sky reducing the color to nothing or darkening or lightening it when it comes time to match shots you can group them with the first clip being selected as the hero and switch to the match shots view to copy corrections from the hero to the other clips in the group and then further refine them in the side by side view in the final grading page you can apply a final look grade with the tools and get real-time previews of luts as thumbnails rather than as a list of names in a drop-down menu if you'd like to learn more about cinemagrade that's purpose-built to get a high-end cinema look without having to specialize as a colorist you'll find a link for it in the description below and for a limited time if you use code youtube20 at checkout you can get 20 off your purchase well i hope this crash course makes a difference in the look of your films and in your ability to stand out and if you want something even easier and is a shortcut then check out cinemagrade let me know if there's a grading topic you'd like to see more on and be sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell to be notified of our next one let's make cinema quality video so [Music] you

Channel: Color Grading Central

Views: 19,487

Keywords: color grading final cut pro x, color grading final cut pro x cinematic, final cut pro x tutorial, final cut pro color grading, final cut pro tutorial, color grading, how to color grade in final cut pro x, final cut pro x color grading, final cut pro x color grading tutorial, final cut pro x tutorial beginner, color grading tutorial, color grading central, denver riddle, final cut pro, final cut pro x

Id: gm5sqpbxICA

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021