Final Cut Pro X Cinematic Color Grading Tutorial

I was suffering go family I'm about to take you through a quick color grading tutorial and Final Cut Pro so just bear with me here I usually color grade and DaVinci Resolve but I actually use Final Cut Pro for several years prior to getting the venture resolved and you can still produce great great great color grades out of here all the systems are a little bit different but the tools are generally the same you just need to learn how to master your tools once you master your tools and learn the Scopes you can color great in just about any system because all the principles stay the same and they go from software to software get a plan when you're color grading and stick to that plan everybody's going to look a little bit different and that's okay at the end of the day you just want to produce a great-looking image at the end product regardless of how you get there so get a plan in place and stick to that and get used to that and then build from there so first thing we actually shot this in a very dark alley a couple of years ago I shot this on my G h5 & V log and this 8-bit codec so the codec was not very good the alley was dark and we used the streetlight as key light and as you can see here so the key light is shining off the left side of his face and there's big gray water I was over here kind of act as a bounce to bounce some light back into his face on the shadow side of his face so it kind of worked out pretty decently but the color of the light was very yellowish so it put meta skin tones horrible looking so we need to make get his skin tones corrected so first thing we're gonna do is a basic color correction I always remember you want to do a color correction before you do a color gray color greatest the color grade is the look the color correction is just getting the white balance and the proper contrast and things into the image you want to kind of bring the image to look normal alright so first thing we're going to do is add contrast so we want to go into Final Cut Pro and go into an add a color board once you add that color board there's three tabs at the top here color saturation exposure go over to exposure and here are three buttons three circles alright yeah your shadows your mid-tone or your gamble and your highlights so let's drag down the shadows a little bit until you start to get some nice contrast and then boost up your highlights slightly slightly all right toggle it on and off it's starting to look good and just add enough contrast to you kind of get the look that you want as far as contrast wise again we're doing a basic color correction we're not necessarily adding the look right now we're just trying to get it to look normal all right there we go so now we're gonna click this tab again and we're gonna add another color board now let's add some saturation to the image go ahead and do me a favor and boost it all the way up we're not gonna leave this image looking like this because it's very well oversaturated we're just adding it right now just so we could see the colors and what we're dealing with while we're color correcting so now as you can see his skin tones are very very yellow so we need to get that closer to natural skin tones as possible if you look over here at the vectorscope you'll see this line right here that's the skin tone line so we need to get this your little skin as close to it as possible don't always have to be exactly on it but we just still want to get it close to it and that's usually a good indication that our skin tones look a little natural and if you look up here in the RGB parade you can see that there's a lot more red and green in this image then blue so it's not it's not color balance properly at all yet we shot the white balance to one and the light was wrong so what we need to do next is come and click this tab again come down to your color wheels add a color wheel alright so I'm actually gonna use my temperature slider and just kind of cool off the image somewhat while I'm doing it I'm looking at my scopes I'm looking at the image too but mostly of my scopes you see as I slide this back and forth this blue wave here is moving and the red wave is moving all right and we want to get those kind of balances possible all right don't I always have to be exactly balanced because just depending on the type of lights and the look of the area that you're in it might change but we want to get it somewhat in the general area and when you do that as you can see it's start to look a little bit more natural all right now the skin tones are still kind of yellowish and and look a little unnatural so what we 9o what we need in this aim is just from looking at it there's a little bit more magenta so we can use the tint slider here and add the magenta if we want but what it does it has magenta to the entire scene I don't generally like to use that I like to come do it manually because I can be more selective with where I add the magenta to so I know the skin tones generally lie in the mid-tone area so I'm gonna come add a little magenta in the mid-tones and it's still kind of adding it in other areas that I want to especially in my shadows as you can see here so let's add a little bit in the mid-tones and what we want to do is come down to my shadows and counter that and pull away from magenta to kind of get my shadows back to a natural black all right let's toggle that on and off and we're getting pretty close we're not all the way there yet but we're getting pretty close my skin tone line has gotten closer my skin tones has gotten closer to the skin tone line so we almost did the shot starting to look a little bit more natural just click this tab over here click this effects panel and let's see what we started to where we're at now all right we're already looking better for sure click back to the color tab now what I want to want you to do is I want you to grab another color board all right and we're gonna add a mask to his skin so I want you to grab that skin that mask click just tap click add color mask and once you do that drag that drag that over his skin tones and as you can see everything that it grabs the grabs the skin tone is grabbing some other things as well so what we want to do is wanna come down here and just kind of clean clean them up a little bit click view mask you see everything has highlighted and we want to kind of come down to this HSL and just kind of clean the image up a little bit that's gonna take a little time to get used to using this but the more you do it the more you kind of understand how it works and what it affects and there we go that's pretty [Music] all right okay alright so that's pretty good so now click view mask again and get it back to the natural look now what I want to do now that I have that selected so just the skin tone so whatever I do to this color board so we should come over to this tab and click this so whatever I do this color boy it should only affect the skin tones now I know I need a little bit of magenta engine shots I know the skin tones lay in the middle mid-tone area some will come grab this circle here the gray circle which is the mid-tone circle I'm come to magenta and I'm just gonna drag a little bit of magenta we don't want to overdo it because it starts to look unnatural like that so we literally just want to add just a little bit just to kind of make it a little bit more natural chocolate on and off see the difference alright so next I want to actually come and grab my shadow circle and I actually want to come down to my red and add a little bit of red even when the reason I had red into the shadows because you could think of adding red it's like adding blood to the face and it kind of brings blood back to the face it makes it a little more natural give it a natural reddish orange look but don't overdo it because it'll look crazy like that so just add a little bit just enough to get that natural feel let's toggle and as you can see my skin tones are lining up on that line a lot better alright that's probably look too much all right and now let's toggle that on and off start to look a lot lot better okay so now I want to start adding the look so come down here add a curve I want to add a color s-curve to my image to kind of really make them pop out of that background so I don't do only add a but circle down here towards the bottom and I want to add a circle towards the top and I want to pull down on the shadow area and then I'm gonna pull up in the highlight area and as you can see as I do that it really starts to make him pop up out of that background and that's the goal and you want to make sure you find a sweet spot to what's gonna look the best once you find a sweet spot and just kind of dial it in and this is ultimately tea to your taste like there's no exact rule to this it's just really what you want the image to look like you wanna go a little bit more extreme by all means go for I think we're gonna try that on this shot a little bit more back in the shadows let's talk a little it off see what it did to the image looks a lot more dramatic all right I actually kind of like this it's like a little saturation look crush my shadows just a little bit I kind of like this actually alive we're gonna go to the teal and orange look what kind of a green a hint of green in the overall image once I finish up so I add the green glass so what I want to do is actually add another color curve and now what I want to do is grab the red curve I want to drop a circle right in the middle and the reason is because that kind of where your skin tones lay so what we're gonna do is add a little a little teal in the shadows and you do that by pulling to the right with the red curve at the bottom pulling that to the right now as you can see it's starting to add teal into the shadows but the skin tones are staying pretty steady they're getting affected a little bit so maybe I'll come out one here just kind of pull that back up a little bit just so it doesn't adjust it too much all right let's look at that ah ah yeah there we go so now let's also come to the highlights a little bit and let's pull that down to the right and it's starting to add a little bit of teal into the highlights images actually started looking really really good all right so now I kind of doubt in somewhat of a look there's a couple more steps and we'll be done I'm gonna add another color wheels I'm gonna come to this master up here at the top when I grab the button and I just want to pull it down to the green a little bit just to kind of give it a little bit of a different vibe see I like that a lot and we don't want to overdo it I always remember when you color great slight adjustments are critical you had slight adjustments to impact the overall image all right so now that image is starting to look pretty good but we would still want to continue to separate them and I want my blacks to become a little bit more true blacks so what I want to do is come grab a hue and saturation curve all right and you want to go all the way down to luma versus set and you want to kind of click the tab and down here on the left side of the skull add a button and then you want to pull this side down and the reason that is because this side to the left is your shadows to your right is your highlights so when I pull this down you can just look at the beard it's kind of greenish right now when I pull it down it gets back to more of a black why is that because what I'm actually doing is pulling the saturation out of my shadows now I don't want to affect it too much so I'm gonna drag this tab over to my left a little bit more just so I'm not pulling too much green out cuz I kind of like that green look and there we go now let's talk a little and off and see the difference see the difference now Allah just amazed kind of made her skin tones a little bit less saturated so what I want to actually do is come to this orange versus saturation and just kind of pull this up just a little bit not too much just slightly ah so now let's click that on and off so I still want to create a little more separation so what I want to do is I'm gonna come down I want to add another curve and now I'm gonna add a shape mask click the shape mask I want to put this right over his face and go ahead and kind of add a wide shape mask a big one right over his face and then feather it out all the way to the edges a little bit past the edges all right that's because we don't want to see any hard shadows because we're gonna actually add a little vignette around him just to kind of help his face and his presence pop out the image a little bit more so now we got the mask at it and what I want to do is come down to this tab here which says mask and click outside for me and we're just gonna do effect the outside of the mass versus inside of the mask so now what we need to do is come down and add a circle right here in the middle of this curve the luma curve and let's pull it down as you can see as I pull it down it starts to add a vignette around them all right and I'm actually adjusted a little bit more and bringing in just a little bit more there we go so now let's talk that on and off all right let's go back to this tab and click the effects tab and see what it before and after I started look really good I still want a little more grit so what I'm actually going to do is I'm gonna add some film grain film grain is your best friend when you try to create something that looks aromatic so add a fear of film grain to the clip I don't typically like the iMovie grain because it kind of adds like a sip you look on this so click this tab over here and come down a realistic grey there we go and just add how much you want to taste I generally like to come to the 30 to 40% range that's not a man a little bit and you can see the grain that is heading into the image all right so the images started look really good there's a couple more things I like to do is kind of like my final touches I kind of signature things that I do some people might say this is a little crazy that I do this but I actually like to add prism to my images and I usually pull it down to about two two percent and what it does just kind of gives it a different different feel almost almost like a VHS look but not quite it depends on how much you're using kind of softens up the edges just a little bit for me and make it look a little bit less digital video ish so I mean I kind of like to add that on my shots you should try it out you might like you might not but I definitely like it so um I'm gonna do one more thing let me actually add a little shopping the tool most people tell you not to do this which I agree in most cases um but just depending on your image and what you shot it and how it looks it's really all up to you so I'm add a little bit on here and that's I think we're done so check out this before and after before after and that's my quick color-grading tutorial and Final Cut Pro alright don't forget to hit that like and subscribe buttons I appreciate your time today and I always remember love God love people and stay creative

Channel: The Film Goat

Views: 37,485

Keywords: color grading, Final Cut Pro, colorist, gh5, Final Cut Pro x, cinematic, cinematic color grading, color grade, film, film goat, ray knowledge, film grain, Davinci resolve, adobe premier, the film goat

Id: NXz7ZPaejEE

Length: 18min 39sec (1119 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 08 2020