Transcription
[Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Over the past couple months, since I've been posting here on YouTube, I've been getting a ton of requests on how I color grade. And to be honest, nothing I do is original. Everything that I do and have learned is from proc colorists and non-procolorists. And I take bits and pieces of information that I've learned in the past couple years, and I utilize it into my workflow.
In this video, I'm going to show you exactly what power grades I've used in the past. And if you don't want to spend money, I'm going to show you a power grade that you can use and download for free. And I'm going to walk you step by step on how to do it all within Da Vinci's native tools. Let's get started.
Starting off with the first one, Film Vision by Sir was one of the first power grades I ever used. It comes with LUTs and different camera log profiles, and for $60, it's honestly a solid value. The look it gives your footage, it feels very intentional, and you can tell that they put a lot of time into crafting it. The only downside is with all the nodes turned on, it can slow your system down. But if you can handle it, it's a powerful tool that delivers a beautiful, stylized image. Fun fact, this is actually where Gauss got a lot of his inspiration for his color style.
Number two, Cineyprint 16. Cineyprint 16 by Tom BS is one of the most unique power grades I've used so far. And for $47, it's a solid buy. It nails that 16 mm cine look, especially with its color palette and those rich, stylized greens, which is really hard to get sometimes. It's also really easy to use, which I love personally. The only downside is that it can get a little noisy, and for me, it's not the most versatile. I wouldn't use this for client work, but for personal and creative projects, it delivers a super distinctive look that stands out.
Number three, Film Unlimited. Film Unlimited is hands down the best power grade I have ever used and the most versatile. It's priced at just under $100, but honestly, it's worth every dollar. Unlike CinePrint 16, the look isn't over stylized and makes it super versatile. And I've used it on pretty much everything. What really stands out to me is the way it handles blues. There's this perfect blue tint in the shadows that just feels so cinematic, and it makes grading feel so effortless. The only catch is the price. But if you're serious about your look, it definitely delivers.
And that's the beauty of filmmaking. It's not always about the colors. It's about making something that actually connects. But here's the thing: in order to make that vision come to life, you're going to need the right resources. And that's why I want to talk to you about what Art List is doing. These guys are giving out $100,000 to creators like you, me. All you got to do is just submit your crazy idea and hope to God you win. If you got a concept that you've been dreaming about, this can be what makes it real.
I've been using Art List for years, even before I started working with them. And it's a place where I get all of my sound effects, stock footage, all of my soundtracks, and even their new AI tools. They even got LUTs. And if you're a creator, this is an all-in-one place that you can get everything in one platform. If you were to click the link in the description, I can give you two months off for free. I know it sounds crazy that they're giving out $100,000, but this is their third year actually that they're doing this. And this year, that person can be you, and then you can buy all the power grades you want.
All right, let's get back into this color grading tutorial.
Okay, so if you want to just save money and want to use something that's totally free, that's built in all within Da Vinci, and you don't want to pay for anything, this is how you do it. I have a link in the description so that you could download all of the videos and the power grade so you could follow along with me. And also, if you don't know how to import a power grade, I'm not covering that, but I will link a tutorial in the description. Let's get started.
Okay, before we jump in, let me go through the project settings and show you my settings real quick. Uh, this is what they are. Just copy and paste them. I'm working in a timeline color space of Rec 709 Gamma 2.4 and the output RC 709A. Now, if you were using Film Unlimited, you would be working in a timeline color space of Da Vinci widegamut intermediate. This is just what I've done research on, and this is what works, and this is what gives me minimal color shift on my exports.
Let's go into the general options and make sure that everything looks like this on yours. Main thing is: use legacy log grading ranges and curve check. And then use S-curve for contrast. That's just going to give you guys more of a filmic way of changing uh the contrast with the color wheels. So, cancel that. Another one. We're going to go into preferences and then we're going to go into general. And just make sure that if you are working on a Mac, this is what it's looking like. If you're not using a Mac, have this checked off. And then if you're not using a Mac as well, this one should just be Rex 709.
Once you imported the power grade, you end up with this, a very simple node tree. And I'm going to show you what each node does. First one, I have the noise. Everybody knows what D noiseis does. So I usually have it at like five right here. And I'll just bring this up and down anywhere from 0 to 10. I don't go any higher than that. The CST in. So, this tells you what flavor we're working with. Go ahead and put the color space that you are working with. I use Canon Cinema Gamut and Canon Log 3. This is shot on the R5C. So, this is what I shot that in. So, you're just going to go with the CST in right here. And then now, basically, glow. I have this set to uh soft light. I think soft light really does some really good looks to it. I usually take the saturation down because usually glow adds some saturation, but you could always add it later after your process.
So, this white balance node is in a gamma and linear profile, and it just works so much wonders. Been using this for so long, and every time I show people this, a lot of people don't know about this, and a lot of people have used uh the temperature wheels to kind of like white balance stuff. Don't use the log wheels. Use the primaries and use only in the game channel right here. And you're going to see it once you play around with stuff. You're going to be able to really see like where your white balance is. Um, because if you were to use a different node and like, let's just say if you were to use something like this, and then you were to use this, like, look at the difference to that. Like, you're not really getting anywhere with that. And then if you just take this guy off, turn it back on. Command D that joint. And then you start seeing like, look at it, it's just so much softer, and you're moving it just as much as I was on the other one. And if you want to fine-tune it, just go into the channels right here. And if you want to make it warmer, you want to put like, you know, some magenta or some green in there, you know, just go to each channel. And then you could also put the brightness down with this. And it does it in such a beautiful way that a non gamma linear way would do.
And then the exposure, go into the HDR panel, and I'll go into my color space. And then I'll tell this guy that the flavor is Canon Clo 3 Cinema Gamut. And then I will just look at my parade, and I'll go into my, you know, my blacks look pretty good right now. And I will lift the shadows, bring those highlights down because there's a little bit of, I feel like, almost clipping right here. I mean, it's sitting, if we're looking at it right now, it's probably sitting at that almost 900 part. Yeah, so, we're actually really good. That's, you never want your highlights above 8.96. So that's pretty darn good right there. Um, lift my blacks, my darks a little bit like that. And yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty solid right there.
This is my other favorite tool that I just, when I found this out, I was blown away because it's just such an easy tool. I only focus on the richness and the density of colors. I don't ever add colors, especially when you're working with like greens and reds. Those colors are so hard to like work with. And I learned a little while ago that if you just focus more on the density of it, then it looks more saturated, and it just doesn't look overpowering. So, this guy is in the color space of HSV. And all you do in this node right here is you go down to the primary color wheels, and in the green channel, you are just going to lift it up. Okay. I usually bring it up to like 120. And like, look at that. I mean, you could crank it, and it like looks pretty cool, but I'm not going to go all that way. I'll probably lift it up like that. And then, I mean, if you before and after, it brings it to life. And like the skin tones aren't like getting washed out. It's just giving that richness towards that red, and it looks so just natural.
The radials, this I don't ever use as much unless I'm going to put like some more emphasis on this. Um, I will probably invert this and probably just create a vid vignet. I don't know how to say that. Um, and then, you know, do something like that. But in most cases, I'm not going to use that. It all depends on the clip. If I want to put more emphasis on something, if I want to add a linear gradient, the saturation, I won't ever use this saturation tool. Never. I never use that. Stay away from it. I'm so glad they came out with this because these tools just work in a way different um color environment for me. And, and they react different than other methods. And I think like when you add the saturation, when you take the saturation out just really softly and you just add more dense density to that, like, look at that. That, I'm loving that already. That type of stuff gets me excited already. So this is all built-in Da Vinci, and it's crazy that you can just use all of these tools for free.
The contrast right here, I'll just kind of just work with this contrast and pivot. And this kind of just, I'll really just look at it at the end of my color grade, and I'll just kind of see like where I need to do it. Um, the tone curve, this one I just, you know, always keep it checked on. It just gives it a very just filmic look and like kills like the highlights off a little bit. That's it. Nothing very uh fancy. And then the greens too, which we'll go into a green color after this clip to show you what this would do. And um, the grain. So, here we go. This is the film look creator. You can go ahead and take the color blend off or you can leave the color blend on. It's up to you. And then you can kind of just mess with these. Basically, all what we're doing right here is in here just kind of times two. And it's not a bad look. But this is just the grain. And you can just really customize it. It gives it a little bit of sauce to it. Um, I sometimes just don't use grain anymore. I, I don't know why, but sometimes you just want to put some grain. So, that's there for you to put.
So, the CST out: Obviously, we're going into Da Vinci wide gamut, Da Vinci intermediate to a Rex 709. Now, here's the cool part. Basically, this whole look is kind of made out of the 2383 look. These LUTs right here are built into Da Vinci. So, I mean, if you go into reveal selected L, like this is all built into Da Vinci. Okay, and basically, we're going to convert this Rec 709 to a Synon log profile. We're going to make a compound node. And there's three things that you want to just check off. Okay. I usually keep it at 2383 D55; that's a warmer white point. Or if you want to go cooler, you know, D60 or D65, which will go a lot cooler, you could go. I mean, all of these look really good. And basically what the 2383 LUT is and what it's emulating, basically all of the movies that you've seen in the '90s, um, a lot of cinema movies have used this film stock for their movies. It's cool that Da Vinci has that L in there, and you can use it for free. I think it just has that very cinematic filmic look if you can make the richness look really good on on the colors.
So, one of these you can just kind of, you know, pop on. And then here is another thing. I know I said this is all for free, but this is something that I actually do on my own. My buddy Sam Newton just dropped some LUTs, and I use this finishing, I use a finishing L after a L. Um, I know it's very non-traditional way to do it, but that's just the way I, I do it. And you don't have to do this um by any means. I use this very subtly. And then I'll go right here, and I'll throw the gain down to like 300. And it's a very subtle look. Look at that. Very subtle, but like, you don't, I mean, it looks fine without it. Boom. Boom. Boom. I mean, it looks fine without it. That's pretty much how I do this. Uh, it's a very simple way. I know other people have showed color grading tutorials on stuff like this, but the one thing that kind of bugs me is that they, they'll show a hero clip, but they won't show different scenarios. So, let's go and grade some really harder clips like a drone shot and some other scenarios.
So, this one is actually a perfect one to demonstrate the greens. This is shot on the coast of Oregon with an Air 2S. And let's drop this grade up in here. Okay, so if you guys do know, drones are probably the hardest things to freaking edit. For some reason, I always have trouble editing them, and they're just so annoying. So, let's go into here. The luminance mapping and the saturation compression in and out um always helps with drone footage. I asked chat, I've asked other colorists, and they've confirmed this. So, make sure that these guys are checked on because what drones do is they end up having like this unwanted look of like really punchy colors, and it's kind of annoying.
We have this really green image and a very misty image. It's obviously a high dynamic range image. So, what we'll do is we'll go in here, and we'll bring the exposure down a little bit like right here. Okay. From the gain wheel, remember from the gain wheel because this guy is in a linear color profile. And we're just going to simply just color balance it any way we go, you know. Um, and I kind of just move it around. And then if moving it around is not working, then I'll go in to each channel, and then I'll just kind of like configure it right, you know, when wherever I want it. So, um, kind of, we could even go like right there. You could even bring up the exposure right now. And then um, now let's go into the exposure. Go through the HDR. And then let's go DJI DLOG. And then let's bring up the shadows a little bit. And let's bring down the lights. See how that works? Works so good. Right there. We're not even clipping. Okay, cool.
Now, my favorite tool, density: Pop this guy in there. You see that? Just in the green channel. Bam. And then the greens, too. We'll turn that guy on. And what basically this green does is it really just works with greens and just brings them more on the cooler side. Brings the saturation down and the luminance to give you more of like that filmic look. Honestly, green is the hardest color for me to edit. Over the years, I've just learned how to work with them a little bit. This is what I do. And if you guys really want to know, it's just really just kind of pulling these guys down and then just kind of manipulating the greens on the more cooler side and then the luminance and the saturation down. That's it. So, you turn on and off that whenever you want.
And so basically, I mean, like you could even go as far as doing something like this in the radial, most cases, you know, like if you really want to get down with a clip, then you could do it, you know. So, um, you just come in right here. But I kind of like that like that look of just, I don't know, it's just really bright right here. So, like it kind of gives it like that nice contrast of like that light and glow coming in. And I think the greens look really nice. Obviously, I'm going really fast right now, so like I would probably do a little bit more.
Here you go with the grain, too. Like I said, you could turn on the color, the color blend, but look at the color blend looks actually really good. You could even just throw like the subtractive saturation. Um, and just really just do whatever you want with it. And then you could go into the 2383 and check this on and off and then see which one works best for you. I mean, these are all built into Da Vinci. Uh oh, that was double L. And I think the warmer is going to always just do it for me. Yeah, I don't know. I think the middle ground's going to do really well for me. Yeah, let's do that.
Okay, let me show you what I do sometimes on the Arctic Sun. I will bring the opacity down. Bam. And then now I see like it's a little too blue right now. So then what I'll do is I'll just kind of like warm it up. Yeah. And then now it gives you that little punch of contrast, but you don't really need to put this on. You could do this with or without it.
Okay. So, this is shot on the FX3 Insta Cultra. And this is going to be a great representation of the white balance node. Let's go ahead and tell Da Vinci what we shot this in. Sony Sgamut 3 Cine and then S Log 3. And right off the bat, I mean, look at the white balance. Like this was probably shot um at like 6,000 Kelvin. This white balance node, gamma linear: All you're going to do, bring it down right here. Bam. Like if you were going to use the white balance node or the white balance slider, then look at that. I mean, it kind of looks decent, but there's still a little bit of washed out colors in there. And that looks just very nice. No unwanted looks right here.
So, bam. You guys know what these things do already. And I'm just going to show you how fast I would grade something like this. So, I'll go right here. Kind of mess with the white balance a little bit. Bring it a little bit warmer. Um, right there. Probably bring the density down a little bit and mess with the glow. Bam. Probably look at one of these. See what the cool looks like. Warm. I kind of love the warm. Bam. And bring this down. Add some grain. Greens probably don't do anything. Mess with the yellows a little bit. And honestly, I mean, if you want to, this would be the time to do a radial filter. Shift H to see where you're selecting. Bring this guy lower. And uh, and we'll just invert it real quick. You could or you could not. You could even lift it up to kind of even things out. It's all up to you. I would be done right there. And in the Sultra video that I just posted, I used everything like this. This is kind of how the whole node tree was looking like. Um, and I used Arctic Sunrise, and I brought it down to like right here. And that looks decent. Bam. So, that's that.
I think a lot of people make color grading a super complicated process, and it really shouldn't be. It's very simple as long as you have a work base and a workflow that you're comfortable and familiar with. You just got to know how some of these programs work. And sometimes they're a little bit confusing, but that's why I'm making this tutorial because I just really want to show what I've learned in the past, and it took me a couple years to learn so that you don't have to put in that time and effort. This is all free, but if you want to buy those other power grades, they're actually really good. And I'm not on them. I'm not talking about them. They're actually worth their money. And when you plug in those power grades, you obviously see the difference. If you don't want to spend money, here it is. Take it. And uh, I hope you guys like this video. Let me know what you guys think. Comment, subscribe. Thank you.