How to COLOR GRADE LANDSCAPE in Capture One 20: Tutorial + DOWNLOADABLE Assets

in this video we will focus on color grading this image taken in koh lanta in thailand we will be focusing primarily on color because color is a very important factor when it comes to nature photography when it comes to landscape photography simply saying color can make or break your image in case of this seascape composition is spot on everything is in place however the color is just not interesting it can be adjusted a lot there is a lot of potential in this image so if we zoom in a bit we can see that we have a lot of these nice colors but they are way too dull they are just the saturated and if we put a little bit of work we will get much more impactful image so let's begin i'm going to first examine the image for the typical issue so let's just zoom in and take a look at the edge and around these branches because typically you would have either chromatic aberration issues visible here or purple fringing so here we are so let's now move over to the lens tab and you can see that chromatic aberration is already enabled so this is not helping let's touch the purple fringing slider and let's push it towards the right if i go all the way to the right you can see that it helped it didn't remove completely the purple fringing we still have some of these artifacts visible here but this is all we can do in case of this image we can crop out maybe near the edges to get rid of these problematic areas if it will be needed in the end so let's again see before and after correcting the purple fringing let's zoom out and as a next step i just want to straighten out the horizon so let's get our straighten tool and let's drag the line along okay so something like this and done so we have straightened the image we have corrected the purple fringing as the very next step i just want to perform on my background layer let's jump back to the exposure tab on the background layer i want to set the base contrast so i'm going to use the levels tool and i'm going to go for the auto option so let's click on the second icon and that way i have set the base contrast i might push the middle slider slightly towards the right to make those mid tones so it will be darker because we'll be working a lot with curves in this image and we will adjust these tones i just want to have this really nice rich darks so as a next thing let's recover some detail in the sky if we enable the exposure warning we can see that we have a lot of blown out highlights okay so let's use now the hdr tool the highlight slider to recover some detail in the highlights so the value around negative 18 already fixed the issue so let's switch off the exposure warning you can see that we are crushing a little bit of blocks here but this doesn't bother me i'm going to be adjusting the luminosity range with the curves in case of this image i'm going to take a little bit different approach so typically when you are working on color in capture one you would be using either color balance tool or color editor however i want to show you that you can use as well curves when you are color grading in capture one this could be helpful for you especially if you have a lot of experience when color grading images in photoshop with curves okay so let's begin the proper edit i'm going to create a new layer and on this layer i will be still adjusting the brightness and contrast with the hdr tool so i'm going to create new filled layer and i'm going to rename it so let's just call it hdr and here we will maybe for the beginning try to recover some shadows so on the background layer i have already applied corrections to the highlights but here i want to have just a separate layer so when i will be color grading the image when i will be working with curves i can just very quickly switch it off and on and see the adjustments how it works together this wouldn't be possible in the background layer i would have to just go here and either disable everything just reset the tool so having the hdr tool just on a separate layer is very very helpful so now on this layer i'm going to target a little bit of shadows and let's try to push shadows towards the right just to recover a little bit of detail in the dark parts in the image so i don't want to overdo this i think 35 is a little bit too much let's go down the value around 32 is fine so now i can see that the sky again got a little bit too flat in comparison with the rest so i am going to again touch the highlight slider but i will do this here on the the separate layer so let's move again towards the left and let's just darken the sky a little bit to balance the whole image to balance the highlights with the midtones and shadows okay so the value about negative maybe a little bit less negative 27 is fine okay we are ready now to start working with curves so i'm going to create a new field layer and let's just rename this layer to curves to keep things tidy and organized and here on this very layer i'm going to be adjusting contrast i'm going to be adjusting luminosity levels and i will color grade the image so let's pull our curve tool out of the tools and let's maybe hide the tools so this way we will have a little bit more space we will have a little bit more room for this tool we can even put it here okay so on the rgb curve i'm going to create a very subtle s-shaped curve to add a little bit more contrast to this image so i'm going to start with adding the middle point and i just want to brighten the mid tones those highlights in the darker part so something like this and i don't want to darken the shadows they are already quite dark but just to go a little bit lower here and i will try to darken the sky to get a little bit of a matte effect so i will drag this point a little bit downwards just to have some just to flatten the curve a little bit here so the effect is very very subtle i don't want to go for anything dramatic here and i can always readjust it later on let's now move over to the luma curve and here let's try with first adding the control point in the middle of the line and let's just push it upwards so that we will be brightening the image i don't want to affect highlights so i will add one more point here and let's move with this one downwards something like this so we'll have the sky a little bit more on a matte side without crushing these highlights something like that here okay it looks good so let's now move over to our red green and blue curves and on all of them i want to add a subtle s-shaped curve and once this is done i will be readjusting them to manipulate with color so let's begin with the curve in the red channel if i create a control point and if i push it upwards i will be adding red to the image if i push it downwards i will be adding cyan because cyan is the complementary color to the red so let's create this very subtle s-shaped curve here let's just go a little bit upwards and push this point downwards and in the shadows i will go with the control point a little bit downwards okay let's repeat the same operation in the green channel so something like this this point let's push a little bit downwards to mimic the shape of the curve in the red channel and here one more control point to add some magenta to the shadows because magenta is a complementary color to the green let's now move over to the blue channel and let's again repeat this operation so here i'm go up and by moving this point downwards i'm adding yellow to the highlights and if i would go upwards i would add blue so here let's move the control point downwards and let's warm up a little bit of these shadows okay so we have created the basic shaped curves in all our three channels let's now readjust those curves so starting with the red channel i would like to warm up a little bit of the mid tones here in the image they are still a little bit too dull they are grayish so most of the data here in this image is in the midtone area which is reflected here in the graph in our histogram so i will be operating a lot in the middle part of the curve and that way i will be influencing color in the mid tones range so let's maybe push the control point a little bit upwards and that way you can see that i'm adding more rest of the midtones this is maybe a little bit too much so let's go maybe somewhere around here and let's flatten the curve so it won't be affecting the highlights because i don't want to definitely have the red sky here i don't want to have this greenish cast so let's maybe zero the point let's move it to the position where it was at the very beginning so let's just flatten the curve so that way i have injected red into the mid tones and i've made the sand a little bit warmer so now to create a color contrast let's add another control point and let's introduce some cyan to the shadows and to the darker midtones in the image so we can push this point a little bit lower and remember that if you want this super precision you can always operate with arrows on your keyboard to move these points around okay let's move over to the next channel to the green channel so here i will be operating either with the green or with the magenta so when it comes to the mid tones let's maybe try to add some green as well so i will be pushing the point upwards and let's flatten the curve as well let's do the same as we have adjusted in the red i have flattened the curve and i move this point back to the input and output to five five so let's do similar thing in the green channel and let's maybe flatten the curve a little bit and here i'm going to add one more control point and just make this shape a little bit deeper okay let's now move over to the blue channel and here let's reset this point as well and here if i move control points upwards i will be adding blue to the image if i will move them downwards i will be adding yellow okay so let's try to inject a little bit of warmer yellow tones to the shadows i'm going to create one more control point and push it downwards as you can see you can get really creative when working with curves okay so this way you can play around with these control points and in a super precise way you can affect color in your image so let's maybe take a quick look at the before and after so i'm going to get back my tools so let's switch off our layer to see the before and after so this is before adjusting color with the curves and this is after so i have achieved this nice color contrast let's just put our tool back i really want wanted to get those yellows and blues more intense because that way i'm working with complementary colors so we can continue working that way now we will be introducing the color balance tool so let's zoom out and let's create a new layer let's just create new first layer and maybe let's rename it to color balance so as you can see i'm mixing different tools and in the end we readjust everything to get the best result so here with the color balance tool i have the possibility of injecting colors into particular luminosity ranges so i can add color to the shadows mid tones or highlights and if you would use master you would add a color cast to the overall image so let's move over to the shadow and here in this range i would like to add a little bit a blue to the shadows because right now if we zoom in and if i take a look at the color readouts here if i hover over we can see that this is just pure black the numbers are almost equal they are even on the warmer side i have five for the red four for the green and four for the blue so let's just move over and add a little bit of blue to the shadows so it got cooler significantly when i have done this and i'm going to darken them a little bit as well here so let's just pull that slider downwards let's now move over to the midtones range and here i will add yellow i want to warm up all the mid-tones in the image the slider on the left hand side controls saturation so i can go maybe around here and i want to darken the mid-tones as well let's maybe zoom out and if i go down i will make this color much stronger so let's just see the before and after so this is before and this is the after okay so let's move over to highlights and to create a color contrast i'm going to actually add a little bit of cyan to the highlights just a bit not and a crazy value maybe something around here let's readjust the color something here and saturation at this level maybe it's a little bit too much something about here and i'm going to darken the highlights range as well so let's just touch this slider and this affects a lot the sky so this is before and this is the after i just want to balance out the sky and the rest of the image the day when i was taken the image was quite foggy quite dreamy there was no strong shadows there was no contrast in the light so something like this represents the mood and atmosphere quite well okay so on this layer we've been working with the color balance tool let's now add to our mix color editor so let's add new filled layer okay so now with the color editor i'm going to fine-tune selected colors in the image so i will be targeting the blues the yellows the sky the sand and the greens so let's move over to our color editor and let's go for the advanced tab let's maybe pull it out as well let's hide the tools and here i'm going to be using the color picker to create my initial sample so first let maybe sample the blues so i'm going to click around here in the cloud let's click on the second icon to go for the whole saturation range and now i'm going to fine tune the selected sample i'm going to push my hue slider towards the left because i want to go from my warmer blue towards more cyanide color so if we zoom in if we focus here on the clouds and here on the rope you can see that this is before and this is the after so this way i want to create this nice contrast between the saturated cyans those blues and the yellow sand and these stones that we will target in a few seconds so let's maybe go all the way to the left to make that color even more on the greenish side when it comes to saturation i'm not going to be making it more saturated because it's already quite strong and let's maybe brighten the color to make it stand out more okay 30 is too much something around 24 is fine so this is the blue before and after the adjustment before i go further with colors i want to readjust the sky let's get back to the tools i'm going to jump back to the hdr layer and let's go to our hdr tool so i want to correct the sky this is way too bright we are losing again the details here in the highlights so i'm going to push further the highlight slider and maybe the white slider as well so that way i can see that i got my detail back but the color is now too strong so now i can get back to readjusting it so let's jump back to the color editor and here i can actually go down with saturation so the color won't be that prominent this is too much something around negative eight and maybe let's try with lightness so this is too much that's zero out and let's start from here let's just push it a little bit to the right so maybe lightness around 13. okay perfect let's sample next color now i'm going to focus on the sand so let's get the picker and let's sample around here okay let's make sure that we have the whole saturation range included so let's click on the second icon okay so let's now manipulate with the hue slider let's try to the right so now this is making the sound more lemony i want to make it warmer so i will go to the left and here i'm going to make it actually darker so this is too much let's go around here and let's make it darker i think it's a little bit too orangey so let's just push it a little bit towards the middle and let's now target the greens so i'm going to sample somewhere around maybe here and again let's click on the second icon just to make sure that the whole saturation range is included in my targeted color sample and let's try to adjust the color so let's see if i go to the left i will be making it warmer now i want to get more color contrast so i don't want to definitely get it warmer actually i don't want to touch it at all maybe something like this is fine i'm very happy with the green as it is from the beginning let's now maybe make that green a little bit less prominent so i'm going to push it slightly towards the left something around negative eight and let's maybe make it a little bit brighter not much value around 11 is fine okay let's maybe see the before and after let's get back to our tools let's put it back so this is before and after fine tuning color with the color editor so again before and after so now i'm tempted to jump back to my curves let's just go to the curves layer and let's find the curves tool i think i left it somewhere here okay let's maybe create a new one add tool curves and now i'm going to take it from here let's hide the tools and let's just see what else we can do with our curves okay so with the rgb curve we have added a bit of contrast to the image let's maybe fine tune it so let's maybe add a little bit more light to the mid tones range okay so let's now move over to the luma curve and let's see if we can fine tune it so let's try to push this point downwards i think it's fine as it is so let's just revisit our tunnels let's go to the red and let's look at the image so i think i might want to darken a little bit the sky this can be done maybe by injecting a little bit more of blue in the highlights so let's go to the blue tunnel and let's push this point upwards so that way i will be adding more blue in the highlights but this way i'm affecting color so let's go back to the green and let's manipulate with that point as well to keep the cyan shade that i have just created with the advanced color editor let's see if we could add more blue into these stones because they are now on this neutral side let's just revisit the blue channel let's just make the tool a little bit smaller so if i hover over the stone i can see the vertical line showing me more or less where that luminosity value lies so if i push this point upwards i will be adding blue but the same i will be removing yellow so this is tricky i prefer to keep the yellow in the sand rather than to add more blue to the stones so let's maybe try to readjust this okay let's hide the curves tool and let's jump back quickly to the color editor and here i'm going to try to readjust the color of the stones okay here it is and let's just sample here in the stones let's just zoom in so i want to change a little bit of this color okay so here it is let's just include the whole saturation range so let's first try to manipulate with saturation so if we go for the positive values something around 35 i already achieved the result that i wanted so this is before and this is the after i got this nice hint of blue in the color of the stones this affected the sky as well but it still looks good so let's maybe try to affect the hue a bit let's maybe try to go for a little bit of a bluish color okay something like this and when it comes to lightness i think we can just brighten the tone okay so at this point i'm very happy with the result i have achieved let's jump back to our layers and as the very last layer i would like to add overall clarity to the image so let's add new field layer let's rename this layer to clarity so let's add some clarity to the image i'm going to go for quite a strong value okay so this is adding this nice mid tone contrast to the image and let's maybe compare with punch no i think this is too aggressive and it is affecting color so the natural method creates this nice balanced effect so if we zoom in we can see let's maybe take a look first at the stones and the rope here if we switch off or our layers let's maybe go for medium size so we see all the layers so if we switch off this is the image before our color work and gradually we were able by building up these layers first we have started with hdr with recovering the highlight and shadow detail and then we were working with curves on color grading with the color balanced wall and finally we were fine-tuning our colors with color editor in the end we have added clarity so in capture one we are working in a non-destructive way so at any point you can jump back to these particular layers and adjust these tools you can adjust the colors or you can adjust saturation color grading it's always a very subjective process and it is open process so we can always get back to our browser and we can clone the variant and just work on a different version so this one if i would like to see the image with a little bit less saturation so i can just jump back to my exposure tab and i can just push the saturation slider a little bit towards the left now i can compare these two images so i hope you will find introducing the curves into your color grading workflow helpful and i hope you will enjoy color grading your images in capture one

Channel: Kasia Zmokla

Views: 2,016

Keywords: Kasia Zmokla, capture one 20 tutorial, capture one 20 processing raw, digital photography class, capture one, digital photography school, capture one pro, photo editing software, raw converter, color editor, how to edit photos, capture one pro tutorial, landscape photography, capture one tutorial, capture one workflow, capture one color grading, photography basics, color grading, color grade, capture one pro 20, capture one color, capture one 20, color balance

Id: ngpW8PrrYpo

Length: 27min 3sec (1623 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 06 2020