Color Grading Research

For my movie I will be playing the main role in editing everything. Because of this, I want to make sure I am doing a good job so the quality of the movie is at its best once I have to submit it to Cambridge. One way I can enhance my editing skills and improve my movie is by earning a high understanding of using color grading. To learn about color grading and be able to apply it to my movie I am watching a YouTube video which is a color grading tutorial for adobe premiere pro (the editing software I am using for the movie).

First, I must mention one of the things that was mentioned immediately in the tutorial: LUTs or Look-Up Tables. These are actually a mathematical formula in video editing which enhances colors and tones in footage. It is a preset color profile for editors to better the color profile in their footage. The reason this stood out to me is that the person who posted this YouTube video had mentioned LUTs being in the description but coming with a price. Considering the fact that they cost money to use, it seemed like LUTs are a very powerful tool when it comes to color grading. After figuring out LUTs were essentially a shortcut to the long hours one would usually spend color grading, I understood why LUTs have such high worth.

The entire tutorial was also split up into 2 main parts: Basic correction and color wheels.

Discussing basic correction, there is an actual tab in Adobe Premiere Pro which is labeled "Basic Correction." The main parts focused under this tab were contrast, highlights, and shadows. There is are curves in Adobe which you can change that edit these parts. In Adobe you will see multiple different graphs for curves where it is labeled "Hue vs Hue" or "Hue vs Luma" and so on. These also edit the light of the image just as contrast, highlights, and shadows do. There is even a color section under Basic Correction which edits the temperature of the image (cooler or warmer), saturation, tint of the footage and more.

For the color wheels, there wasn't a lot to it; however I believe its little impact still made a big change. Color wheels work where it goes into editing parts in the basic correction tab further. For example, the highlights under basic correction. What color wheels allows you to do is take a specific color and make it more something like green for your highlights. You could even do a more blue highlight or red highlight. This can also be done with the shadows or midtones.

Lastly, 2 quick extra things I learned from the tutorial that don't involve the basic correction or color wheels tab that I wanted to share. One feature I found extremely cool was clicking lumetri color while color grading. What this does is allow you to be able to compare the original shot you have with the original and even how it was before you made a small edit. This makes a great comparison while editing. 

Secondly, there is a tab called Vignette. What this does is not completely noticeable by the human eye, although its effect is great. It essentially darkens the outside area that you want around a subject in case it is too bright. This is mostly used when you want the focus to be on one subject.

Here is the link to the video of the color grading tutorial I followed on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wZym4fQGig