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Question about color grading.

H

harmonica44

I was trying color grading some footage using curves, and I am pretty impressed. It seems that curves is the contrast, brightness, and lightness, all put in one and the different ways you bend the curves, applies those features to different areas of the picture.

But that's just for how dark and bright, and the contrast of the picture is. There is also RBG curves. Is their a curves or something like that for saturation you can get, in a program that will bend those changes in different parts of the picture, whether it will be the highlights, shadows and midtones, or can I only adjust the saturation of the whole picture in general, without a 'curves' type feature for it in any program? Or basically is their things I can do with the color rather than using dials that effect the whole picture, compared to different parts of the picture, such shadows, highlights, etc?

Thanks.
 
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It depends on the program you're using. Since you're an adobe user, I'm presuming you're using Speedgrade.

With that, you can pretty much do any combination and do what you need to whatever you need it done to. You just need to learn how to do it. Don't take my word for it though, I'm rather new to color grading and I have to say, I'm not good at it yet.
 
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Oh yes, sorry, I have AE, Premiere Pro, and Photoshop. I was also thinking of getting something like magic bullet, but not sure if I need it with these three programs already. When it comes to grading, so far I have just been playing with contrast, brightness, and saturation, by turning the meters up and down, but their is probably more I can do, right?

Also, when color grading a movie, does it matter if one scene is graded differently than another, or will that cause the audience to be distracted, and the whole movie should be graded as a whole, so it has the same consistent look? I was watching movies as examples, and it seems most movies have the same graded look throughout to maintain consistency. But it can be difficult to tell when going from dark scenes at night, compared to bright daylight scenes for example.
 
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None of those programs are made for color grading. While you can do it within them, the extra work you need to do just to make it work, isn't worth the time and effort. If I were you, I'd learn to use a proper grading software.
 
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You can isolate specific hue values if you wanted, and do whatever you want to them - including boosting or reducing the saturation.

You can also 'power window' a certain area and do whatever you want to it as well.
 
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Color grading in AE isn't so bad really, especially if you use something like colorista.

But yes, a proper grading tool; davinci resolve or adobe speedgrade, for example, will dramatically improve performance. Not to mention all of the available tools within the app being designed specifically for color grading.
 
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Colorista is pretty good, I like it for those jobs where you really don't want to spend time conforming something. You can pull keys or use shapes for power windows. It is limited though. A huge step up from the 3 wheel color corrector.

That said, if I really wanted to dive in and get creative on something Resolve, or Smoke on Mac is how I go about it.
 
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Well some programs are better than others in some cases, and one said that colorista is kind of limited. I am so far just planning on doing simple normal grades, though, and not anything heavy like a Sin City style looking movie. So if these programs are worth it for simple stuff as well then I will gladly get one. I was working with a guy on his movie, and he had different looks to apply, like 'John Wayne Western', which I thought looks very nice, so it's probably worth getting one that has pre-programmed looks based off other movie styles!
 
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It's not so much that some programs are better than others (although that is true).. but some tools are better suited to the job than others. For example, a repair that should be done with a wrench may be possible with a hammer, but that doesn't mean the hammer is a good choice for the job. :)

If you just want to make your footage look different, yes, magic bullet looks and the like will do that. If you actually want to do color correction and color grading, use the appropriate tools for the job.
 
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If you have the adobe creative cloud you should be most likely be using speedgrade, because you're already paying for it. If not, I dunno why you wouldn't use resolve, resolve lite is free and has almost all the same functionality of the full version.

Colorista does a decent job, but it's a much slower workflow because AE isn't really designed for working anywhere near real time, whereas speedgrade and resolve are dedicated color tools, and will work as close to real time as your hardware allows. (Resolve, for example, can be used for LIVE grading!)
 
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Negative. Hopefully in a few months. Need some footage to use to put one together first and foremost.. and I'm still assembling my gear. Won't have a proper setup until after my upcoming move (nowhere to put anything in my present location)
 
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