Dark and moody tone images have started to
make a comeback on Instagram and on TikTok. And rather than just applying a LUT and calling
it a day, here's how you can do it without a LUT, on the color page, so that you have
complete control over how the image looks like. And the best thing is it's very simple to
do. Here's how. So I have a clip here of a tram entering a
tram stop. So let's use the first node to do the primary
corrections. So this is just fixing the white balance,
your exposure and your contrast. The contrast could be a little more. So I'm just gonna bring down my lift, bring
down my gamma, and make sure my top end is not clipping. So I'm just gonna bring it down. So once your primary corrections are finished,
create another node, Alt S, and then in this node, we are going to do three things. The first thing is to reduce the exposure
by one to two stops. You can do that by bringing the numbers under
the offset wheel way down. So I'm gonna bring this to around, say six. And you can see that the exposure of the image
has already started going down. The second thing I want to do in this image
is go to the 'Hue vs Sat' panel and desaturate the entire image. So make it black and white. And the third thing to do is I want to increase
the highlights just so that it's just under clipping. Let's use the gain to bring the whites up
just under clipping. I'm okay with certain parts of the image clipping. All I want is my main subject to not clip. After you've done that, create another parallel
node for node two, so Alt P to create a parallel node. So in this parallel node, node number three,
I'm going to isolate the subject, which in this case is the tram, so that I can work
on it separately, and then I'll work on the background by itself. Now to isolate the subject, I'm going to use
a magic mask, which is a studio only feature, but you don't necessarily need the magic mask. You can manually create a mask around the
tram and then track it as well. So go to the magic mask, go into object mode,
and just select the tram. And let's track it forward and backwards. And now what I'm going to do is just unselect
this, and I'm interested in bringing up the colors for the tram only. So let's go back to the hue versus saturation,
and let's start pushing up the colors for the tram. Push the saturation slider even more to make
it stand out, and you can already see that the colors are starting to come through. Create another parallel node. And for this node, I'm going to send the mask
that we created for the tram into this parallel node. So this parallel node, if I show you the key,
it has exactly the same mask that was on this parallel node. But what we want to do is we want to work
on the background. So I'm going to invert this mask. So whatever I do on node number four will
affect everything other than the tram itself. So let's go back to the hue versus saturation. And now I'm interested in picking certain
colors and just working with them. So maybe I want to play with the colors of
the trees. So let's bring some life into that. So you can see that I can start targeting
the colors that I'm interested in and bringing some life back. So let's see what happens. So that's one way to bring it. The other way you can do this is just take
it the other way, and you'll start introducing a totally different color. So you'll introduce the complementary color
of the color that you've just chosen. So I kind of like this look. So I'm going to go with this. Let's also try to impact a few other colors,
maybe the red tail lights, maybe. So some of these colors, I can just start
pushing some life into the reds to bring some reds out. Other highlight of dark and moody images is
a lot of blacks exist in that image. And the way to do that is by adding a lot
of contrast and by adding vignettes around the image. I'm going to add another serial node after
this parallel node structure. And in the serial node, let's create a new
gradient power window. And I'm going to decrease the exposure and
make the sides very, very dark, something like this. And maybe another one for the bottom. (upbeat music) Add a serial node, increase
the highlights and decrease the shadow areas to bring the focus back into the tram itself. Let's take a look at the original. So we've gone from here all the way to here
and many of the colors that we do not want have been suppressed. The beautiful thing about moody dark images
is that these areas here that are quite messy and loud and there's a lot of things going
on, which is distracting us from the tram. We are able to remove the focus from that
and start focusing on the tram solely. So that's the beautiful thing about these
dark and moody images that you can now compose it in a way that your focus goes to where
you want the focus to go to. Now, one other thing we can do is to increase
the sharpness for the tram. Remember that node number three here has a
magic mask for the tram specifically. So I'm going to choose node three, go to the
blur window and reduce the radius. So I'm just bringing it to 0.44. Just add a touch of sharpness. Basically, this is the template for how to
create moody images. And there's another step that I like to do
is to add three more serial nodes. And in the first serial node, let's do a color
space transform. And I'm going to change the output gamma to
cineon film log. Now, once I've done that, you will see that
the image looks a bit washed out. And the reason I'm transforming the gamma
to cineon film log is because I now, in the next node on node number nine, I want to apply
a film lot, the Rec.709 Kodak lot. And I really like how that luck looks. Now for this lot to work, you need the input
gamma to be a cineon film log because it converts from a cineon film log to a gamma 2.4. So I'm just going to apply this. Now, these two steps are totally not necessary. I just like how the film look looks. And then if you feel that the lot is doing
too much, come to the key panel and just reduce the gain. And then in the last node, I'm just going
to add some film grain. And I like the eight millimeter grain and
just add the grain size. We basically gone from an image that looks
like this to a very dark and moody image that looks like this. So here's another clip. And this one's interesting because the subject
of interest is a human. So we need to be careful about skin tones
so that we don't make it look artificial. And there's a lot of color going on here. So let's ask ourselves what colors do we want
to emphasize? So I'm thinking we'll emphasize the blue in
the guy's T-shirt. We'll also emphasize the yellows in the cabs
and the oranges that there in the traffic lights. So that's kind of the theme that I want to
go with and we'll make it again look very moody. So let's start again by the first node is
just your primary balance. So let's make sure our balances are fine. Let's make sure nothing is clipping to begin
with. So something like this. Let's create another node, Alt+S. And in this
node, I'm going to reduce the exposure by around the stop. I don't want to go too dark on this one. So somewhere over here. And also reduce the hue versus saturation,
reduce all your saturation. And let's take the highlights and almost to
a place where it's about a clip. Cool, this looks nice to me. So let's add another parallel node. And in this node, I'm going to try it a different
way this time. So last time I used the node itself to isolate
the subject to begin with. I'm not going to do that this time. With that parallel node selected in the hue
versus saturation panel, let's go and qualify this person's T-shirt. So it's this area that's the blue color. So I'm going to bring up the colors for the
blue. And when I do that, you'll notice that some
parts of the blue are selected, but some are still gray. You want to fix that first by increasing the
width of the selection. Be a bit more generous than what the qualifier
does for you. Cool, and the other thing is, I also want
to make sure that the person's skin tone is correctly selected. So qualify the skin tone. So this area over here, every time you have
a person in frame, make sure that the skin tones are fine. So let's bring back saturation into the skin
tone and just go a bit wider than what is normally required. (upbeat music) Cool, we were here and we made
it to look like this. Let's create a brand new node, another serial
node. And in this node, I'm going to do a magic
mask on the subject. So let's go to the magic mask. What I found is that the person mode for the
magic mask actually doesn't work very well. So even when I'm trying to isolate a person,
I am going to use the object mode. So let's create a magic mask that looks like
this. So let's track. Cool, very nice. Let's remove the overlay. And now with the person selected, I want to
make sure that person is more brighter. There's a lot more focus on that person. So I'm just going to bring up the gammas on
that person. And don't do it too much else it'll look very
artificial. Just do it just enough so that they stand
out. And also I'm going to increase the sharpness
on this person just to tap nothing too much. And create another serial node. And in this node, I'm going to do the opposite. So I want to select the background and I want
to decrease the saturation. Remember when we, in node number three, when
we increase the selective saturation, unfortunately the saturation increased on the background
as well. So I'm trying to counter that saturation now. So in node number six, I'm going to send the
same mask into node six and then swap the mask by clicking the invert mask I can hear
in the key panel. So now I've chosen everything other than the
person themselves. Once I've done that, I want to decrease the
saturation and I want to increase the contrast of the background. Go into the hue versus saturation and just
decrease the saturation just a bit. And we said that we are interested in bringing
out the orange colors. So let's just target the oranges and maybe
bring some life back into the oranges. And the other thing you can do is go to the
hue versus luminance panel, choose the oranges and just bring up the luminance. Just make it brighter or darker, depending
on how you want it. Now, the next thing I want to do is I want
to create a power window on this person. (upbeat music) And let's invert it and let's
decrease the exposure outside. So make it a lot more darker, something like
this. So we've gone from that to this. And you can pretty much stop here. This is good in itself. I just want to add a couple more power windows. So maybe let's do a gradient. Nice, so we've taken the image that looks
like this into an image that looks like this. And the next thing we can do is my last three
steps as I've always do is add three serial nodes. First node is your color space transform. Make the output cineon film log. Node number nine, get me a Kodak LUT. And remember, you do not need these steps. This is just to make the film look come through. This has got nothing to do with the dark mode
itself. And in node number 10, let's bring in some
film grain. Nice, I might just go back into node number
five, which is the person mask and just increase the saturation a bit more just to make them
stand out. But don't make it too much so that it looks
weird. Yeah, something like that. Cool, so that's dark mode on this second image. So we basically gone from this to this. I've also previously done two more images. So I just quickly walk you through those two
as well. So let's take a look at this image that I've
gone through. I just walk you through what steps I've done. Let's remove all the nodes. So this is how the image started. Here's the first parallel node. I've reduced the exposure, I've desaturated
it and I've increased the gain. In the second node, I've introduced specific
colors. So I've introduced the blues. I've also introduced the reds. And in the next node, I've added a power window
to make the foreground a lot darker. And afterwards, another circular vignette
to make the surroundings darker. And that's the theme of these black and white
moody images is the places of the image that you do not want to emphasize, just keep making
it darker. And the places that you want to emphasize,
saturate it and make it brighter. Now in node number six, this is my color space
transform. So I'm a Cineon log. Node number seven is my Kodak LUT. And node number eight is my film grain. So that's how I created this one. And one last example of this couple who are
playing in front of the house. This is how the image looked like to start
with and this is how we made it look. So let's quickly go through the nodes. So the first node, you make it black and white. In the hue and saturation panel, the exposure
is down all the way to 6.5. And my gain is up to 1.21. In the next node, selective coloring. So I've just chosen the reds and the browns
in the wooden areas as well as in the house and I've increased the saturation of that
side. Then in node number four, in node number four,
there are two gradients that I've added to decrease exposure on the left-hand side and
at the bottom. In node number five, I've used a contrast
curve to make the whites whiter. Node number six is to increase the sharpness
of the image. Node number seven is your Cineon film log. Node number eight is your Kodak lot. And node number nine is your film grain. That's my way of creating these dark and moody
images. Now, none of this is gonna work well if you
did not color correct your image properly to begin with. And here's a video that explains four simple
steps to color correct any video from any camera. Go and watch that next. And until next time, bye.
