Grading Research - How to Grade

To learn how to do proper grading, for a cinematic feel we watched a few videos on how to grade and did some research on the internet.

First you can use the Fast Colour Corrector and drag and drop this effect onto the timeline. You can then adjust the tonality of the clip. If your image is too dark you can add some whites, and vice versa. Then to adjust the greys and midtones you can lighten or darken the midtone areas of the video.

Once the levels in the image have been adjusted and look good, you can move on to the 3-way colour corrector. This then has to be dragged onto the timeline. This will show up in the Effects Panel. With this we can adjust the colour of shadows in the image  and the midtones of the image to give the image a cinematic, film look. Adding blues to the shadows and orange to the midtones gives the footage a much more cinematic feel. There are 3 different colour wheels that appear; the let for shadow, the middle for midtones and the right for highlights. Play around with these settings until you are happy.

After this go to the Tonal Range Definiton option in the effects panel. Drop down this option and drag the triangles towards the centre because this will blend the blue and orange effects together and therefoer making it look moer natural.
The last effect to add is tint. Drag and drop this onto your clip. Then change Map Black to a very dark blue and Map White to a very light orange. Then tint 20% or 30%. This adds more blue and yellow to the imae, whilst desaturating other colours. You may need to readjust levels in Fast Colour Corrector.

 

 

This is some of the grading advice we are going to use to give our film a cinematic film and also to add blues and more colour to the opening party scene, to give it a better party feel.