00:10- What's going on guys, this is Qazi.
00:12Welcome back to another epic video.
00:14Seven things I wish I knew
when I started color grading.
00:17And I'm telling you, this is genuinely
00:19a little over a decade worth of experience
00:21that I'm tripling into this one.
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01:27and let's roll the infor.
01:38- All right, let's get
the show on the road.
01:40First thing that I wish I
knew is getting your client
01:44involved early in the process.
01:46What do I mean by that?
01:47So let's create a hypothetical scenario.
01:49Here's our shot, this is a
program that we're working on.
01:53We wanna ask our client,
what are you looking for?
01:57What do you hope to
achieve from this grade?
01:59And the client goes something like this,
02:01they're like, we're
looking for more of a ESPN,
02:0530 for 30 series trailer
where it's just grungy,
02:09and overall it has this warm
tint to the entire image,
02:13tons of grain, 16 millimeter film vibe,
02:17once you gather that
information it's game over.
02:20There was something that I
wasn't doing in the beginning,
02:23I would just like create my own grade
02:25and then flip the coin,
thinking that either
02:27the client is gonna love it or hate it.
02:29And that is the dead giveaway
that you're an amateur.
02:32So get your client involved
early on in the process.
02:37Now, number two, which
is the power of primaries
02:40this right here, this section.
02:42I feel like anybody that's
starting out including myself,
02:46I would just like to
over-complicate things
02:48instead of like simplifying it.
02:50And the more you learn
about color grading,
02:51which you realize is that
this right here is gold,
02:55and you have to take
full advantage of this
02:57before you move on to other tools.
02:59So let's put it into an example.
03:02So here's my first node,
03:03I'm just gonna call it primaries
03:05and what we're gonna do
03:06before we even start
working in our primaries
03:09let's lay out the entire
node tree structure.
03:11And then I'm not gonna tell you
03:13what's all these nodes are for,
03:16I'm gonna take you
through them later okay?
03:17So don't freak out this grade
03:19is not gonna be that complex,
03:20but we're gonna be using 10 nodes here.
03:23So now let's go on our 10th node,
03:25drop in the color space transform,
03:27and then select proper settings,
03:30which is Alexa and Alexa log C,
03:33because it was shot on Arri Alexa.
03:35And as soon as we do that,
we have a proper conversion,
03:37it looks pretty good right off the grade.
03:39So now we're in our primaries
03:41and let me show you the
power of primaries okay?
03:44So say we wanna make the
image a bit more neutral
03:47right now it's like really, really warm.
03:49So we wanna just pull
back from it a little bit.
03:51All I have to do here is
just go on through my gamma
03:54and start subtracting some of that warmth.
03:57And just look at that,
like how easy it was for me
04:01to balance out the image.
04:03And you can even see it here,
04:04you see the blue channel
to the red channel,
04:07and now we're balancing this image out.
04:09Now it's not necessary since
say these lights are warm
04:13so we can keep it like that,
04:14but, it's always a good rule of thumb
04:17to balance out your image.
04:19And there is no better tool out there
04:22than your primaries to do that.
04:23And just look how quick that was,
04:25let's say we wanna kinda
bring up this image
04:28because it's just kinda
dark, so it's really moody.
04:30So we can just use my
gain and bring it up,
04:33we don't have to bring it up too much.
04:35And then we can use my lift,
to kinda bring that down
04:38to still keep some of that drama.
04:41So I'm using my gamma now to pull it down.
04:43And if I do before and after,
04:44look at the amount of difference
that we made in our image,
04:47literally just using these
tools right here okay?
04:49So the power of the primaries is unreal,
04:52make sure you're tapping into that
04:54before you're moving on to other tools.
04:56Now we're gonna move into our next tool
04:59and I'm actually gonna just call my nodes,
05:02do what I'm doing and all
the steps of this process.
05:06So now let's just focus,
I'm gonna do a one-up,
05:09I'm gonna select vector scope,
05:11use your vector scope to
balance out your image okay?
05:14And I'm gonna undo this
05:16since I didn't make any changes here yet.
05:19Basically the rule of thumb is this,
05:22this intersection right
here in the middle,
05:25the closer you are to this,
05:27the more balanced your image is okay?
05:29And I'm gonna use my printer lights,
05:31this offset settings right here
05:34to dial my image more in the center.
05:36Right now it's still
leaning in this quadrant,
05:39so we let's just balance
it out a little bit more.
05:41So I'm gonna go under my printer lights,
05:43I'm gonna add a bit more blue
05:45and then subtract a little bit of yellow.
05:49Maybe just add just a tiny
bit cyan to bring it down
05:52and then let's just go half
printer light and let's see.
05:57If I take out the blue a little bit more
05:59and then let's see, do we
wanna add a bit more red?
06:02So that is up to us.
06:04We can leave it like this
06:05and look at how much more balanced it is.
06:07So like, look at how before we thought
06:09this was really good, right?
06:11Like, 'cause if I go here
and turn it on and off,
06:13we had already made such a big difference,
06:16but by using our vector scopes,
06:18it made it so easy to just make
our image actually balanced
06:22by looking at the scopes, okay?
06:24That's why it's really, really important
06:27and something that I didn't
use to do in the beginning,
06:29I wish I knew this technique
06:32that would have saved me so much hustle
06:34because when you're first
starting out as a colorist,
06:36majority of your jobs
are not gonna be like,
06:38hey, let's create, let's
try to tell a story
06:41through the art of color.
06:42It's gonna be more like
let's cover up these mistakes
06:45and just make everything look balanced.
06:47So, this would have been really valuable
06:50when I was starting out.
06:52Now let's move on to another
one of my favorite tools,
06:55which is this right here,
our log parameters okay?
07:00It's very different than
our lift gamma gain.
07:04So here, what I'm gonna do
07:05is I'm gonna switch back to parade now.
07:07And what we're seeing at the
bottom here in the scopes
07:11is that my blues are really lifted
07:13and then my green and then my red.
07:15So, this tool right here helps
us balance everything out.
07:20So, just watch what's gonna happen,
07:22I'm gonna be messing around
with my shadows here.
07:25So all I'm doing is I'm
genuinely looking at my scopes
07:28and I'm trying to balance it out, okay?
07:30So I'm just like, all right,
07:31let's just get the blues, and the greens,
07:33and the reds on the same spectrum.
07:35And now what's gonna happen is if I go
07:41and do before and after
you can see it clearly
07:44I can punch in here.
07:45And if I do before, like look at the blue
07:48in his pants here to like after,
07:50and now it's way more neutral
and you can see it here.
07:54So like all that blue cast
07:56that we were getting in our
shadows is completely gone,
07:59the image is way more neutral.
08:01And it really affects the entire image
08:03not just that, like, even like his skin
08:05is looking better than before.
08:07See, like in this area,
08:08like this is before there's so much blue
08:11and we can see it here.
08:12Actually let's do this
so we can hover over
08:17and you can see it on the
scope, what I'm looking at.
08:21And then if I do this,
08:22like see how much more
neutral it is now, okay?
08:26So that's the power of your lock controls,
08:29and once again, I wish I knew to use it
08:31how I'm using it today.
08:33Back in the day I wasn't
using it to properly
08:36adjust my black and white points.
08:38That's not the only use
for the lock controls,
08:41but it is one of the most powerful tools
08:43to quickly balance out your shot,
08:46especially your anchors,
blacks and whites, okay?
08:49So the whites are looking
good, I'm not too mad about it,
08:53although I feel like this, right here,
08:55if I go to the whites right here,
08:56we do see that there's just a little bit
08:59more red than the blue.
09:01So what we can do is I
can go under my mid-tone
09:04and just pull up the
blue just a little bit.
09:08So something like that, right?
09:10Just a little bit like that.
09:11So now if I hover over,
we're very much even,
09:16and you can see it, see like all three.
09:20Like we're really, really
even okay, right there.
09:25So now I can just leave it like that,
09:27and if I do before and
after once again, guys,
09:29we're taking out the cast,
09:31we're just making the image
look really proper all right?
09:34And now this is what's
called your base grade.
09:38So this is what you wanna do.
09:39If you have 100 shots and you wanna start
09:42creating a really cool look
and grade it and all that.
09:45Before you get to grading one shot
09:48and then try to apply it
on all the other shots
09:50you wanna create a base
grade, which is this.
09:53So this looks neutral, this looks good.
09:55At this point, you can even
bring your client back in
09:57and show him this, he'll be like, hey,
09:58this is how it was shot in Rec 709.
10:01This is where we're sitting right now,
10:03and now I'm gonna go in and
start creating a look, okay?
10:07So up until this point,
10:08we made sure we get the most
colors out of our image,
10:12bring up the exposure, make
everything look proper.
10:15This is what you will need
to do to all 100 shots first,
10:19before you go in and
start grading it, okay?
10:21So, now let's move on,
10:23and this is where we
get into our fun stuff,
10:27which is the HSL curves.
10:28So here, what are we looking at?
10:30Remember our clients
said that they're looking
10:32for a little bit of a vintage look, right?
10:36So now what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna grab this right here,
10:40go in here and just open
it up just a tiny bit,
10:44and I'm in my hue versus hue.
10:49So what I'm gonna do is
let's try to make this
10:51a little bit smaller
10:52and let's go back to vector scope
10:55and let's keep it somewhere around here.
10:58So we can really see what I'm doing,
11:00maybe make it a little bit bigger,
11:02let's put it somewhere around here, good.
11:04All right, so now I'm in here okay?
11:06Look what I'm gonna do.
11:07I'm gonna go in the middle point
11:09and I'm gonna start moving it,
11:10and again, going for that vintage vibe.
11:14So this blue is not as vintagey
to me than this, right?
11:19So that just adds just a tiny bit more.
11:21And it's just the small details
11:23that are really gonna bring
this whole thing together.
11:26So that's what I'm gonna do here.
11:28Next thing that I wanna do
11:29is I wanna go under my hue vs saturation,
11:33and I wanna just literally grab my yellow
11:36and I wanna start pulling it down.
11:38And it's gonna give us like this steely,
11:42like a little bit of a bleach bypass look
11:44like, look how clean
everything is looking, right?
11:47So it's gonna put us right there.
11:49And I like what it's doing okay?
11:52I really like what it's doing,
11:53and then the last thing that I'm gonna do
11:54to really cash out that
bleach bypass effect
11:57is go under the sat versus Luma
12:00and then grab it from here and raise it up
12:03and like, look at what it does.
12:04It like adds that silver-ish
quality to the footage.
12:10And then this brings our
highlights down, okay?
12:13So it does a little bit of damage control.
12:15And now all we can do is
go back to our primaries
12:17and take our mid-tones or take our gamma
12:22and just kinda bring it down
a little bit, not too much
12:24something like that.
12:25So look at HSL curves, how
much it affected our image.
12:33And this is where we started
12:34to have a lot of fun with our image.
12:37Just look at that, what we're
doing with our image okay?
12:39So, after this point
is where the experiment
12:44Because that was another thing
12:46when I was first starting out,
I wasn't very experimental
12:50because I didn't even know what to do,
12:51my knowledge was very limited.
12:54So, now let me show you,
12:57once you start having fun
12:58is where the look comes from, okay?
13:02So we're gonna go into glow,
13:04I'm gonna type in glow.
13:05I'm gonna drop it in and just look,
13:09I'm gonna change that to soft light.
13:10I literally stumbled upon
soft light by experimenting.
13:14This is how I figured out
about what soft light did.
13:16And now I'm just gonna grab the threshold
13:20And once again, remember the client
13:22is looking for a very
dramatic, like a UFC trailer
13:27or a 3430 trailer look, okay?
13:29They made it very clear
13:30so we can be pretty bold with our moves.
13:33I'm gonna go under my blend
13:34and I'm gonna kinda split the difference
13:36and keep it somewhere around here.
13:37So look at, we don't even need
13:39to create power windows or anything.
13:41We're creating such a
cool vibe and mood here,
13:46Click on colorize and this is where
13:48we're gonna start bringing in.
13:49Remember they said they want
like a really warm feel.
13:53Just look at that, like this vintage feel,
13:55we were able to create boom, boom,
13:57just like through our glow effect.
14:00And what do we wanna do?
14:01Do we wanna like really push it a bit more
14:03like maybe we keep it
somewhere around here.
14:05I mean, just look at
the difference we made
14:07just with this node.
14:08None of this information is lost okay?
14:10I'm gonna go back in my four up
14:12and show you what I'm talking about.
14:13So let's make this a little bit bigger
14:15so we can actually go into our four up.
14:17And let's try to make it smaller,
14:19this is as small as it's gonna be.
14:22So let's put that there,
let's put parades here.
14:26Let's put wave forum here, this is great.
14:29So look at how we were
able to create that vibe
14:33yet everything is protected
nothing is blown out okay
14:37Now what I can do is I can come in here
14:40and this is gonna be a
pretty cool effect okay?
14:43So I'm gonna go in my
mid-tone detail okay?
14:47And I'm gonna start cranking that up
14:49and look what's happening
around his shoulder area.
14:54Like how much detail we're
about to pop in this area.
14:59Now, I don't like what it
does to the rest of the image,
15:01so what we're gonna do,
we're gonna get very creative
15:04and we're actually gonna
create a shape around him,
15:06and then we're gonna
feather that out, okay?
15:09That is totally normal,
like adding texture
15:11is a whole another dimension
when it comes to color grading.
15:14Like colors are not the only thing
15:16that you need to put your focus on.
15:17You also need to think
about how to create texture
15:21in your footage, like
really make it stand out.
15:24Next thing that I'm gonna do,
15:25I'm actually gonna delete this node.
15:27I'm gonna go here and I'm
gonna create an outside node.
15:30So outside node is
basically, hey, leave this,
15:34but select everything outside of it.
15:35And now I'm gonna do something opposite
15:37to what we did there.
15:38I'm actually gonna add
blur, under my blur radius,
15:42and I'm gonna crank it up
to like around 55 ish okay?
15:46So you might think like, nothing
is really happening dude,
15:48but let me show you.
15:49Once we punch in here and
now if I do before and after,
15:53look at that, not only
is cleaning up the noise,
15:57but it's creating this
again really cool effect.
16:00So like if I take this
and turn it on and off,
16:02like, look at how much texture we added.
16:04Like his body, like this,
like the back muscles
16:08are popping out of the screen.
16:10We almost created that three dimension.
16:12And then look at like how we're
just taking the focus away
16:15from this right there okay?
16:17So that is a very, very cool effect
16:20and something that I use quite often.
16:23Now, what do we wanna do?
16:24I'm gonna go into this node
16:25so let's start naming these two.
16:27So this is mid-tone detail.
16:30And then this one was our
just blurring the background.
16:35And this one is going to be my grain.
16:40And once again, the set 16 millimeter
16:44like really grungy feel.
16:46So I'm gonna go select the archival
16:48or actually, you know what?
16:50Actually let's select the archival print.
16:52And now if I punch in and
show you what's happening.
16:55And then one thing that we
can do is we can go in here
16:57and just add a little bit
of saturation, not too much.
17:00And now if I do before and after
look how realistic it looks
17:04like it was shot that way.
17:05And the character that we
are adding to our footage
17:09is just absolutely unreal okay?
17:12And this is our CSD.
17:14So this is the, like
literally this right there
17:18that was supposed to
be our these four nodes
17:21that were supposed to be
our experimental node.
17:23This is where the grade comes
from guys, look at this.
17:26Like, I wouldn't have
found out about these
17:30until I started mess
around with these tools.
17:34And that's why experimentation,
17:35when it comes to color
grading is essential okay?
17:39For your growth and getting to a point
17:41where you become somebody's
go to guy or girl all right?
17:45So, just look at how much
of a difference we made.
17:47I had this node here for something,
17:50but I don't think I'm gonna be using that.
17:51I was gonna show you guys
that how color boost,
17:54you can add some color
instead of using saturation,
17:57you can use color boost
because the difference is that
17:59color boost pumps up a lot
of juice in your mid-tones
18:04instead of like your
highlights and shadows.
18:06Whereas the saturation is
just like a linear thing
18:09that adds overall saturation
18:11in your shadows, highlights, mid-tones.
18:13Whereas color boost is only
focusing on the mid-tones
18:16and you can see like all the detail
18:18that we're getting in this area,
18:19but honestly, with what we created,
18:22I don't think we need it.
18:24So I'm actually gonna kill this.
18:25So what we're gonna do
18:26is we're gonna put this on this level
18:28so we can like really
see the entire process.
18:32So I'm gonna take all of
these, let's kill them.
18:34And we started with the CSD,
18:36why is the CSD at the end?
18:38You can jump into my course
18:40or you can watch my free webinar
18:43to understand why I put it downstream
18:45instead of upstream, okay?
18:47So I go pretty deep and
explaining you the entire process
18:52and why it's at the end.
18:53So this is our Rec 709 phase,
18:56and the first step was we
got a good understanding
18:59of what the client wanted.
19:01Then we went in and we used our primaries
19:04to start creating color separation.
19:06And that's the best way to do it
19:08because you're not really
doing push and pull
19:10and degrading your footage.
19:12Then we went in to our vector scope
19:15and by using vector scope,
19:16we were further able to balance our image
19:19and create this color
separation, I mean, look at that,
19:21like up until this point is
sort of like a still a tent.
19:26And then after that, everything
is looking so much better.
19:28We used our log wheels to get
proper black and white points
19:33and that made a huge difference okay?
19:35So there is a blue cast in the shadows
19:37and we can see it in our
scopes too right here,
19:40and then we were able to balance that out.
19:43And then HSL curves really
helped, like curve this look
19:47like, where we started
driving this entire image
19:51into this vibe that we wanted to create.
19:53And then this is where the
experimentation started.
19:56We started with a glow and
just look at what it did,
19:58like one quick swing, boom,
20:01put us in the ballpark of
like what the client wanted
20:04and showed you a really cool technique
20:06to add texture to your
image by using mid-tone
20:10to like really pop out, because
that's the story, right?
20:12Like this is our dude.
20:13Like we need to focus on him
20:15and then took everything outside of that
20:18and just blurred it out to
like give this surreal look.
20:22And then added the grain
that the client requested
20:2516 millimeter grain, pretty heavy,
20:27and just gives it that gritty feel.
20:30And now let's check out the
final look in full screen.
20:43Hopefully you guys found
this video helpful.
20:44And honestly, these are probably
20:47the most practical tips
that I can give you
20:49and genuinely things that I wish I knew
20:52before I started color grading.
20:54So guys do not forget to
check out the special offer
20:57on the masterclass link is down below.
20:58And as I already mentioned,
20:59this masterclass is for people
that wanna be profitable
21:02as a filmmaker and
especially as a freelancer.
21:04So it's not just color grading
that we're talking about.
21:07We are talking about taking those skills
21:10and actually making money off of it
21:13and taking your career to the next level.
21:15So check out that link,
21:16make sure you smash that like
button subscribe to my channel
21:19for more awesomeness.
21:20And I will see you in the next video.
