Mastering Color Grading in Davinci Resolve

1. Welcome to Mastering Color Grading with DaVinci Resolve (links to the footage): Hello everyone. My course Mastering Color grading in Davinci resolve is finally out there. If you don't know me yet, my name is Kasha. I'm a certified Davinci resolve trainer and a professional colorist. And I have developed this course to teach you the art and science of color grading. This course is suitable for both beginners and more advanced video creators. And it teaches real professional and creative skills like how to use Davinci resolve color management, how to perform primary and secondary color corrections, and how to create multiple creative film looks. What is more? It includes all video lessons and downloadable footage, so you'll be able to practice using a high quality professional clips. And also it's not only nonline course, it's a community. You'll have an access to all discussions. And you'll be able to contact me directly. So I'll be able to answer all of your questions. This course is suitable for both studio and free version users, and I hope you have a lot of fun doing this. See you there. 2. Importing & Organising footage + the overview of the Color Page in DaVinci Resolve: In this very first lesson, I will introduce you to the color tap in Dava resolve. And I will also tell you how you can import the footage and how you can set up your project for the course. Now I have my color tap open. My color page is completely empty, my node graph over here is empty, and so on. But we'll move onto it in a second. And I'm using to resolve studio 18.6 but the course also applies when you are using the older version and it will apply to most of the future updates of resolve. First, let's move to our media tap over here. Here we have the media pool where we can import the footage and we can organize it into pins. It is also empty for now. Then over here when you click on the media storage, you'll have access to all the folders on your computer. You will have to navigate to the right folder with the footage. I hope I don't have to teach you this. And here I have the folder called Color grading course. This is the folder you can download from my Google Drive. This folder contains all the footage for this course and it's nicely organized into modules. And also you have the camera information for each clip. If you don't want to, you don't have to download the whole folder. You can also download the clips separately for every lesson. But if you want to have it all in your project, I have created it for you. But before we import our footage, let's go here to the project settings then the master settings. My timeline resolution is now set to 19 2010, 80 and my timeline frame rate is set to 25 frames per second. So please make sure that your project is set up like this as well. When you have some four K or six K clips, you can change the timeline resolution at any time, but you cannot change the frame rate. Okay, please keep it in mind. Now, let's close it. Now, when we track our folder with the footage into the project, you'll get this information saying that selected clips have different frame rates than the project frame rate. And therefore you can change it, but when it happens just don't change as this is because the majority of the footage for this course is shot 25 frames per second. There's only a few clips shot in 24 frames per second. That will play fine. There's some clips shot 60 frames per second. We can make them slow motion. Now all the clips from the folder are in the media pool. The only problem is that we have lost all of the folder structure I have created on the computer. We'll have to recreate it in this project. If you don't want to do it, it's up to you. But I always organize my clips into different folders to keep everything neat. I will remove all these clips from my media pool. Now when we have a look at the color grading course folder on the computer, we can see that we have here our clips nicely organized into modules. There's also a folder with some extra footage for you to practice. Then the clips are organized depending on how they were shot. What I want to do is to recreate the same folder structure in my media pull. To make it nice and tidy, I'll write, click on my media pool and I'll create a new bin, and I will label it as Module 1.2 Then I will create more folders and I'll label them the same way. Okay, Now let's open the Module 1.2 folder and let's import here our footage. I can just drag this whole folder over here, change the project frame rate. No, now I can also put all these clips into separate folders to know as a reminder how they were. So I'll basically create a separate bin for every clip and I'll label it correctly and then I will drop my clips. I'll speed up the video now as the process will take a while, as I said, you can copy what I'm doing, but you can also organize your footage your own way. Okay. So now in my master folder, I have all of my footage organized into different folders, all four modules. So I can close the media storage tab again, this is how my folders look. Now, if you haven't seen the color tap before, I want to quickly walk you through it. But to make it work, let's move to the edit tap first, as we have to drop some of our clips onto the timeline, I'll grab some clips from the Module 1.2 folder. Okay, now I'll also cut them a bit shorter, they don't have to be that long. Like this. Now, let's move to the color tab. I think it's worth to mention that the color tap may look a bit different depending on your screen resolution. I work on my laptop now. As I thought it would make all the tools more visible. But when you work on a higher resolution screen, your tools down here will be separated up and more, but it doesn't make a huge difference actually. Here in the viewer, we can see the frame that our cursor on, the timeline is placed on. We can also click on the clip tap here to be able to see the thumbnails of all of our clips on the timeline. Then we can swap between them. Then when we hit space, we can play our clip. And we can loop it by selecting this icon over here. When we play the clip with the Loop button on, the selected clip will play continuously. Then here on the right, we have our node graph, where I'll be showing you how to build the node structure and how to use different types of nodes in the following lesson. Here we have a quick export button that allows us to do some quick exports in different formats depending on what we need. Then when we click on the Timeline button, we can get a different view of our timeline over here. If you want to, we can move our cursor through it like this. Then we can also close our notes up if you want to get a full view of the clip. Then here when we click on the effect tap, we can get access to all diventories of effects. I'll be showing you some of them a bit later. Then we've got the light box that enables us to see all of our clips in a grid, and it's very helpful to spot any mistakes. If you watch my Youtube Plutorials, you are familiar with this feature. Then we can also enhance the size of our nodes here, like this. Then we can use this button over here to expand the viewer. Then we have a bypass color Grades and Fusion effects button that enables us to turn our grades on and off. Just to demonstrate you, let me perform some changes to this clip quickly. I'll just use my curve to make it darker. It doesn't matter for now. This button basically turns our grade on and off. Then here we can decide if you want to use the proxies for better playback or not. If you have proxies created, you can turn them on here. I've also explained it in one of my Youtube videos, how to improve the playback in resolve. Then here we have our highlight mode that will be using multiple times in this course. It basically enables to see our masks and other selections properly. Then we have a split screen mode here. We can basically choose which clips we want to see as a split screen. When I choose neighbor clips, it will basically show all of them in a grid like this. This feature is very helpful when we want to compare grades on the neighbor clips. Then we have the image wipe mode that is useful. Want to work with a reference clip. Then over here we can turn on and off our clips, thumbnails. Then here we can get access to our media pool. Here we can get access to all of our lots. We can also access them by right clicking on the node. And I will be showing you in this course how to use some of the resolve in built lots. Then here we have the gallery where we can place our stills. For example, I want to export some stills quickly for the clients. I can simply right click on the clip in the viewer. Then I can select Grab Still. And this still automatically will appear in the gallery over here. And then we can write, click on it and we can export it. Then over here we have all of our grading tools and we'll be focusing on them in this course. Here we have the scopes that are indicators, helping the colorists to make sure that the clips have the right luminous hue and saturation levels. And I will be also covering how they work. Now let's have a quick glimpse at the delivery tab from where we can export our clips or the whole edits. We can select which part of the timeline we want to export here depending on your deliverables. If you are familiar with other editing softwares, this is quite self explanatory. How to export videos. You can choose here the file name and then the exact export settings. You can also choose from some available custom export settings over here. 3. In-depth Color Management: In this very important lesson, I will cover color management. Although color management is a very broad topic and it's quite intimidating for some people, I will show you the settings that will work for most camera formats. But first, why color management is actually so important. It is important as different cameras film in different color standards. For example, consumer cameras or phones tend to film in Rex 79, which is a format ready for the viewing. But more professional cameras film in different log or row formats that basically capture more of a tonal range. That gives us more flexibility in color grading, but it also needs some remapping to be ready for the viewing and delivery, as the cameras often can capture a way broader tonal range that our displays can reproduce. Let's have a look at our eclipse here. And let me show you what I mean. We can clearly see that they look very low contrast and washed out. This is simply because they are in log or row formats and they need to be remapped to Rex seven oh nine, as this is a format used by most of the high definition displays, picked a lot of different camera standards that have been converted to different formats as well. Because I really wanted to show you a lot of different scenarios. Now I will show you two ways of transforming your clips to Rex 709. First we'll be using a color space transform node. And we'll be working in Davinci resolve non color managed environment. And then I will show you how to work in Davinci resolves color managed. But let's start from the color space transform workflow. Also, one more thing before we move on to that, we could obviously try to use the display referred technique instead of color managing clips. For example, let me use this Alexa clip to show you. We could just increase the gain, which is the highlights first. Then we could decrease the shadows, our lift. Then we also could decrease the midtones, which is our gamma. Then we could add more contrast. Then we could balance through the pivot control. We could basically rely on the visual judgment to bring our clips to the right point. But this technique isn't very accurate and I would recommend you to avoid it. Okay, let's reset it First, let's open our project settings over here. Let's go to the color management tab for the CST workflow. We will leave the color science set to Da Vinci Y RGB. That is a Da Vinci non color managed. Then we have a time line color space and the timeline color space is a color space that you are grading in. It can be different than the camera color space and the output color space. Ideally, it should be set to whatever your footage color space was. For example, if we had on the timeline on Panasonic velo clips like this one, we would set it to Panasonic vi gamut vilog. If we had only red footage we would set it to dragon color, red lock film, and so on. But in the case where we have a mix of different clips on the timeline, I would recommend you to set your time line color space to Da Vinci. White gamut intermediate. Simply because this color space is designed to capture the vast majority of colors that can be captured by the latest modern cameras, It's a very large color space. And to demonstrate it, let's have a look at this diagram where you can see the Rex 79 color space. That's a color space of most of the standard displays that we have. Also other color spaces like 2020 or a white gamut. And then we can see that Da Vinci white gamut is the largest color space. It will be suitable for all of the camera color spaces. I know it might seem to be complicated, but you will learn it very quickly. Then we have our output color space and this should be set to what we are projecting to. I work using a calibrated grading monitor that's set to Rex 79 gamma 2.4 But if you're working on your computer and you don't have a calibrated monitor, just set it to Rex 79 Gama 2.2 because gamma 2.2 is the standard gamma setting for Windows and has been the standard gamma setting on Apple computers as well. And let's say it's safe. Now let's move to our Panasonic clip here. I'll create a few serial nodes by hitting option S as it's also important to remember that if you choose the CST workflow, place your CST node at the very end. As, this way you'll be grading underneath it in the wider color space, okay? Now let's just label that last note as CST. And let's grab the color space transform from the effects. Let's drop it onto our note. In order to remap your clips correctly, you have to know exactly how your clips were shot in case you haven't shot your Eclipse. Get this information from the camera operator. Today, I will tell you exactly how our clips were shot, so you don't have to be worried about anything for this clip. The input color space is panasonic gamut. Then input gamma is Panasonic lo. Then my output color space will be rex 79. My output gamma will be gamma 2.4 la. The first clip has been correctly converted. This is before and after. Now we can see that it's quite bright, so we can quickly adjust it underneath our CSD. I'll just push my lift down and then my gamma up a bit. Now our clip looks well prepared for the further grading work. Now let's move to the second clip, and this is our Alexa clip. Let's drop onto it our CST here the input color space is white gamut free. Then input gamma is lock free, Then the output color space, and the gamma will be again rex 79 gamma 2.4 In my case, this is before and after we are not grading yet, but we can also adjust it quickly. Let's write, click on the CST note, and let's add another serial note before it, like this. And this clip is quite dark here, we can quickly raise the gain. Then let's raise the lift a bit. Let's decrease the gamma to get a nice starting point for grading. Now let's move on to the third clip. This is our Sony lock free sina clip here. The input color space will be Sony as gamut three. Then input gamma will be Sony as lock free the output color space. And gamma will be Rex 79 gamma 2.4 Here we'll have to fix the color temperature to balance it, but I will show you how to do it in another lesson. Now let's move to our black magic rock clip here. The input color space will be black magic design we Gen 45. Then the input gamma will be black magic design pocket six K film en four, my output space and gamma will be 79 gamma 2.4 Now let's move to this Canon clip and let's apply the color space transform as well. Here my input color space will be Canon Cinema Gamut. Then my input gamma will be Canon Look two. The output color space and gamma will be Re seven oh nine Gamma 2.4 this is before and after. Then we've got this lovely nkonrow clip for non the input color space is actually rec 2020. Then the input gamma is non log the output color space and gamma is again Xeon nine gamma 2.4 this is before and after. Then we've got the black magic clip that's converted to rex nine already here. We obviously don't have to apply any color space transform. So we can move straight to the last Sony clip here. The input color space is Sony S gamut free. Then the input gamma is Sony S log three, the output color space and gamma will be rec 79, gamma 2.4 This is before and after. Now we have converted all of our eclipse, but I want to show you how to do it quicker with Davinsolve color management. In this course, we'll be working in the color managed environment as I think it's more suitable for beginners. But not only is just very helpful as Davinsolve is able to recognize some of the log or rock clips, we don't have to set up anything manually. It just makes things easier for everyone. Let's just move straight to it. You know what I'm talking about? Here we have the same sequence on the Timon as I have removed all ST's from my Eclipse in order to be able to work in the color managed environment. Let's go here to the Project settings again, and then in the color management tab. First, let's change the Da Vinci Y RGB to Da Vinci Y RGB Color managed. We also have here two aces, color sciences to choose from. But I will not be covering it in this course. It's just another color science to work in. Then we could use automatic color management over here. This would be the option for very beginners here. I would only change the color processing mode from SDR to HDR, as we have the HDR clips on the time line. Here we can read that the HDR grading environment is best used when the majority of source material is HDR, and it's suitable for white gamut, SDR and HDR deliverables. Then we'll leave the output color space as SDR Rex 79, as this is a standard output color space for deliverables, let's say it's safe. And here we are able to see that most of our eclips have been automatically converted here. When we write click on the clips thumbnails, when we work in the color managed environment, we have this option input color space, where we can check the input color space of the clip manually. This one has been correctly recognized as Panasonic Vigabot. This one has been also correctly recognized as y lo free. Then this one as Sony Sinas log free. Then this black magic clip is also correctly recognized and remapped when we write click on it. We don't even have the input color space option here. As this is because Venture Resolve doesn't give you that option. With raw clips, then for example, this cannon clip hasn't been correctly recognized. This is what happens when our clips have been converted to different formats. Sometimes in this case we need to adjust it manually. Let's just pick here Cannon and then Canon Look two. Then our Nikon clip has been recognized as its raw as there's no need to change anything here. Then we have our Re seven oh nine clip that has been correctly recognized. Then we have our Sony clip that we have to adjust manually. It will be Sony and then Sony lock free. Okay. As you can see, this process is way quicker. But now I also want to teach you how to customize your color management settings more. I want you to learn more and I want to show you the best settings. Let's go back to our color management tap. Let's select automatic color management. Then let's change the color processing mode to custom. Then our timeline color space will be Da Vinci, white gamut intermediate. As, as you remember this work for all of our clips. If you had only one type of the footage on your timeline, you could set it to whatever it was. So you could set it as Sony Lo, free lo, et cetera, et cetera. Then we have the input color space, how to set it up. When we have mixed clips on the timeline. I would basically set it to the input color space that applies to the majority of our clips on the timeline. Because as you remember I've just shown you, we can change the input color space manually by right clicking on the clips thumbnail. Okay? All of my clips were shot differently, so I'll just pick Sony as lock free. Then we have the output color space that should be set to whatever we are projecting on. In my case I will set it to Re 79 gamma 2.4 When you work on your computer screen, set it to Rex 79 gamma 2.2 These are the settings I'll be using for all lessons in this course. Let's click safe then let's go through all of our Eclipse to see if they were correctly converted. Perfect, I hope you've learned a lot today. 4. Basic Color Correction (exposure, contrast & balance techniques + reading scopes): This lesson we'll focus on the primary color correction. I will show you how you can adjust the exposure and the balance. And also customize your scopes here on the timeline. I've got three clips from the previous lesson. The Velo clip, the R clip, and the Sony lo free clip. My color management settings are exactly the same as in the previous lesson as well. Let's start from adjusting the exposure of the first clip in order to help ourselves, we'll use the waveform as the waveform scope depicts the brightness of your image as well as specific colors using ten bit video scale, 0-1023 it basically depicts our image from left to right. Also, when we click here on the settings, we can customize our way firm if we want to. We can for example, disselect color rise to turn off red, green, and blue channels. Now we can only see the luminosity. Then we can turn on the extents that show the lightest and the darkest parts of the image. Then we can change the intensity of the waveform and the graticule. You can just adjust it to your liking. We can also show the reference levels, our 0.1023 levels. Then if we want to, we can change the position manually. But let's reset the view, and let's move on to adjusting the exposure. As I have mentioned, when we use the waveform, we should make sure that we keep our luminance levels within the right range. Which means that we shouldn't really push it lower than zero and higher than 1023. This is a general rule, but the exact spread of the waveform also depends on the image and the look we want to achieve. In this case, I can see that my clip is definitely the brighter side. I can push my midtones and shadows down to make it look more balanced. Let's label the node as exposure. And I will start with my lift in the primary wheels. And lift represents the shadows. Using the master wheel below, I will push it to the left and look what happens with the waveform. Look how it is moving down. And also look at the rising contrast in our clip. Now I will move to my gain, which is responsible for the highlights. And I will push it down just a touch as well, like this, and this is before and after a huge difference then I always like to use the contrast and the pivot controls to add even more depth to my clips. The contrast control adds or takes out the contrast, and the pivot control adjusts the contrast tonal range. Once contrast is set, we can use the pivot control to refine the tonal center of the tonality. Brightening or darkening the clip while retaining contrast. Maybe it sounds complicated, but basically what I always do is I just play around with my contrast and pivot controls until I'm satisfied with the result. Let's increase the contrast first, then let's adjust the pivot like this. This is how my clip looks. It could also be a bit brighter as when we look at the way firm we can see that we could push the highlights a bit up and it still would be within the right range. But let's not forget that color grading is very subjective and I like to keep everything a bit darker. Also, I can tweak it further down the line. Remember that now we are only covering the basics. Now let's move to the R clip here. The color balance is also a bit off, but let's start from adjusting the exposure. I'll label my first note now let's just change the wave form to parade. The parade splits your image into RGB values red, green, and blue. And what it does, it measures the saturation of each of these colors in your image. In this case, we can clearly see that the blue is dominant here. And we'll be fixing it later when we move to the balance. But we can also use the parade to adjust the exposure as it also shows us the same ten bit zero to 1023 range as the waveform. My preferred way to adjust the exposure is by using primary wheels, but we can also do it by using the curves. Here we have our white curve. We can use it to adjust the contrast and the exposure By clicking on this gang button, we're able to separate all of our color channels and work on them separately. But for the exposure, we'll use only the white curve. Let's not change anything here. The upper point of the curve is responsible for the brightest parts of the clip. And we can use it like this to lighten or darken the clip in the lightest parts. The bottom point of the curve is responsible for the darkest parts of the clip, but usually. What we do with the white curve is that we create a characteristic shape. Let's grab the curve in the upper part like this. Let's push it up quite a lot, as this clip is quite dark. Then let's grab it in the bottom part. Let's push the shadows down. Just a touch like this. Then what we can do, we can enable over here editable splines. And this will give us a possibility to smoothen out our curves. As you can see, now we have two handles coming out of our point. I'll just use them to brighten my clip. Now we have created maybe not a perfect S shape but something close to it. It really depends on the clip we are working on. And then I would also still go to my Primaries and I would play around with the contrast and the pivot to shape the clip a bit more like this. Okay, Now I'll leave it to you so you can play around with adjusting the exposure on your own. Now let's move to balance. We'll start from the same clip as it looks very blue and we can also read it very clearly from the parade as the blue trace is way more prominent than the red or green. Let's hit Option to create a new node. Let's call it balance. One of the ways of balancing the shot would be to use the auto balance tool from here. In order to make this tool work, we have to find in the shot something that's supposed to be white. In case of this clip, this will be very easy as we have a lot of snow here. Then let me grab the tool and let's just select the snow. Well, the shot is technically balanced as when we look at the parade. The color channels are exactly on the same level. This is before and after, but I can also see that the shot is way too warm. Now, this is an auto tool. It obviously doesn't work perfectly. It cannot see the nuances. It's automatic. Here we have a lot of snow in the shot. Obviously, there should be more cooler than warmer tones in this shot. But it's not a problem as we can always tweak this result using the temperature and thin sliders over here. Just push my temp towards blue first and then my tint towards magenta, relying on my visual judgment. And this is before and after. Now let's reset our balance note by right clicking on it and selecting reset note grade. We could also adjust the balance manually using the temp and tint sliders, looking at the clip and monitoring the parade like this. As now when we look at the parade, it's even. But now let's move on to another quite difficult clip to balance as this time this Sony clip is extremely warm. And we can also see it looking at our parade as this red channel is very prominent. But this time I want to show you how to balance the shot using another scope. In resolve the vector scope, the vectorscope is incredibly handy for measuring the degree of and saturation in the image. The further the markings are from the center, the more saturated your image and colors are. Also, we have here the skin indicator that I'll be covering in another lesson of the scores. Also, you've probably noticed that the Vectorscope represents the color wheel. Here we have magenta, then blue, then can then green, then yellow, and then red. By looking at the trace, we can judge where the clips hue and the saturation lays. In this case, we have the trace move towards red and yellow. It's a sign for us that we have to move it towards the middle in order to balance the shot. I'll label my first serial node, and I will call it balance. I will use my offset wheel to balance the shot, as the offset affects the whole clip uniformly. It affects the shadows, tones, and the highlights uniformly. Let's grab the centerpoint here in the color wheel. And let's start moving it towards blue and ion, which is the opposite to red and yellow. As you can see, our trace is also moving. I will be looking at the talent stop as it should be white. I'll be moving my offset accordingly, something like this. Now look at our trace. It's perfectly in the middle. That indicates that the clip has been balanced. And this is before and after. I really hope you'll have fun with practicing it on your own. 5. Denoising the footage the right way: In this lesson, I will show you how to use noise reduction in Davinci resolve. You can use the noise reduction if you have an access to the studio version of Davinci resolve. I will show you how it works on the Sony as look free clip. As it happens sometimes that what we've shot is actually very noisy with Davinci resolve, this problem is actually very easy to fix. My color management settings are the same as usual and here I have only performed a basic primary correction. This is before and after. Now what's important to remember is that when we decide to perform the noise reduction, it should always be on the first node before any other adjustments, as this is how the tool works best. Let me zoom in so you can actually see how much noise this clip has. I hope you can see the amount of the dancing noise over here. Let's out, and let's right click on our node. Then let's select a node, let's add serial before. As this way we'll be able to add a new node before current. Now, I will label it as noise reduction. I will zoom in again to be able to see how my noise reduction tool works. Now I will go to my effects. I will search for the noise reduction, then I will simply drop it onto my node. Then here we get an access to our temporal noise reduction. To be honest with you, I never mess around too much with these settings. I only change the type here from faster to better. Then we have here our chroma and luma threshold. What I do is I just drag these two sliders to the right as much as I need to. Normally, I only go up to 20 here. It's usually enough, but this clip is quite noisy. Let's try around 67. This is before and after a huge difference. Also remember that the noise reduction may slow down your computer quite a lot. What you could do is you could perform it at the very end right before exporting your footage. Is just a little tip from me. 6. NODES explained - creating looks with different types of nodes in DaVinci Resolve: This lesson I will teach you about different types of nodes in Davinci resolve. We will be using these black magic raw clips. This is the first clip. This is the second clip. These are my project management settings. You can copy them here. The input color space doesn't matter as these clips are raw. Davinci resolve is able to recognize them automatically. I'm working in Da Vinci White Gamut intermediate. Let's move to the first clip. The first type of node in resolve is a serial node. And serial note is the most basic form of node. The shortcut for it is old or option. Serial notes work as your basic building blocks for correcting footage and creating looks. If you are a very beginner, you can actually work using only serial nodes. I always use serial notes for my primary color correction. This is where I am adjusting the balance and the exposure. I have created three serial nodes here. My first one will be my exposure, the second one will be my balance, The third one will be my contrast. I can also adjust my contrasts separately. Let's start from the exposure. I will also adjust my wave form here. I will make it more visible. If you prefer using the white curve, feel free to do it. But I will move to my primary wheels, and here I will increase my gain first. Then I can see that my shadows are pushed down quite a lot. I will maybe raise them a tiny bit, then I will decrease my tons attach. This is before and after just a tiny adjustment, then let's move to balance. I will also change my way to deparate. I can see all of my RGB channels separately. I can tell that the clip is quite warm as the red channel dominates here. I'll use my offset wheel and I will push it up towards blue to neutralize my clip like this. Just a touch, it doesn't need much, and this is before and after. Now the clip looks more neutral. We can move to the contrast node. Here, I will play around with my contrast and my pivot sliders to add more depth to the clip. This is before and after. Now, another thing is that we can apply notes on the clip, but also on the time line level. Here I have my clip selected, which means that when I create a note in this node graph over here, the corrections I make on this node will apply only to the clip I'm currently working on. But sometimes we want to apply the same corrections to all clips on our timeline. In this case, we can apply the node to the whole timeline. Let's switch the clip here to the timeline. Also do it by switching between these two dots over here. And my node graph is empty, so I'll hit Option to create a new serial node. I will quickly make some adjustments here. Just to show you how it works, I will shift the offset, adding a lot of pink Q to it. Now, when I move to my other clip, I can see that the same change has been applied here as well. But let's get rid of this node. I will not be using timeline nodes today. I just wanted to show you that this is possible this way. You can, for example, add a vignette to the whole timeline. But now let's move to our first clip. And also let's move to another type of note which is a parallel node. We create parallel nodes by hitting option. Our hit option as first to create a serial node and then option to create a parallel mixer. Parallel nodes are designed for secondary color grading. We can create as many parallel nodes as we need. In simple terms, parallel nodes are connected with a parallel mixer. And they branch out from the same source, creating identical substreams where you can perform independent adjustments. What's important, they're all equal so the order of the adjustment doesn't matter. Now let's move to some practice. I'll use my parle nodes to adjust some parts of the clips separately. I don't need that many parallel nodes. I will just remove most of them, leaving only two. Let's use these ones to create a look. I can see that the green hue is very dominant in my shot. I can manipulate it a bit, and then I will also manipulate the red hue as well. Let's label our parallel nodes as red and green. Let's click on the red node first here. In order to isolate red, we could use our qualifier over here by selecting the red hue. Then by using the sliders over here, we could refine the selection. But there's also another way of doing this. We can also use one of the resolves, automatic presets. We can go here to color, then presets. Then here we can choose from six vector green, yellow, red, magenta, blue, cyan, or chromalte, or dark, depending what we want to select. Let me grab six vector red. Now when we turn the high light mode on here, we can see our selection. This is an auto tool, It usually needs some additional adjustments. But it's a very good start. Maybe this is even a faster way of selecting a certain hue than the qualifier. Let me adjust it a bit better. I will only move my hue slider a bit to select more of the red hue. Then I will turn the highlight mode off. Now I'll, for example, go to my curves. Look what's happening when I move my curve up and down. Only the selected hue is affected. I will brighten it a tiny bit, then I'll go back to the Primaries and I will push my gamma towards yellow to introduce some warmth like this. This is before and after. Now let's move to the parallel node labeled as green here. I will also grab the preset. This time it will be six vector green. Let's turn the highlight mode on. This time our selection is not that accurate. Only that little bit has been selected. We have to improve it a bit more than previously. Again, I will stretch out my hue slider to grab more of that green hue. I can also play with the softness over here. Now the selection looks way better. Again, I'll go to my Primaries and here I can push my gamma wheel towards different directions to get different results. When I introduce here more yellow, my clips look a bit autumnal. When I push it towards blue, I'm getting this very cold look. This is before and after when I disable all of my apparel nodes. Before and after, I can see how much I was able to change the character of my clip only by using Parallels and two different presets. Now let's move to another type of node, which is a layer node. And we create layer nodes by hitting option L. I'll hit option S first to get a serial node, and then option L to get a layer mixer. This way here I have layer nodes. I will also move them down here. The difference between the layer mixer and the Perl mixer is that when we use the layer mixer, the node below always takes a priority over the node above. That's why we often use layer nodes to isolate skin tones when we want to create different looks. This is what I'm going to show you. I will label my nodes. My node below will be my skin tones. My node above will be my look. Just to show you how the layer nodes exactly work, let's click on the look node. And let's push the offset here towards blue. Quite a lot, we can't see any change here yet. This is because first we have to make a selection on the note below. When I disable my note below, I can see all the changes I've made. But let's reset it. And let's do a proper adjustment using our layer nodes. First, I'll click on my Skin Tones and I'll go to my qualifier this time. And then I will select the skin on the clip. Then I'll turn my highlight mode on. Now I can see that I have to improve this selection quite a lot. I will play around with my sliders, sometimes it takes a little while. Okay, now I will only blur my selection. I will denoise it. This will work. I have selected not only skin tones, but the wooden item and other elements as well, but they will also benefit from doing this. Let's turn the highlight mode off. Let's move to the look node here. I want to increase that cold look we have just started creating. I will introduce some of the blue into the shadows using my left. Maybe in the mid tones as well. This is before and after. Now, let's have a look at what would have happened if we haven't isolated the skin tones. I will disable this node. You see the skin tones and reds wouldn't look as nice and vibrant as the look would have affected them too much. Okay, now let's move on to our next clip. Here I want to show you one more type of node that's called an outside node. As you have probably noticed, every node has got not only the green output, but also the blue output, which is the alpha. We can pass the alpha information like this to show you how it works, let's grab a round power window. And let's stretch it. It covers almost the whole clip. I will leave only the corners. And I will soften my power window. Then I will turn my highlight mode on here. I'll make some adjustments inside the par window. Let's go to the white curve over here. Using my white curve, I'll just raise my highlights a bit. Then I'll decrease the shadows to get some nice contrast. This is before and after. Now let's write, click on our note and let's go to Add here. This way we can add another serial note. Then we can pick an option to add a Serial note before then. We can add parallel or layer nodes. But we can also add the outside note over here. Let's select it this way. We have passed the alpha information from one note to another. Also, this alpha information has been inverted. Just to show you, let's turn the highlight mode on over here. This is exactly the same mask we have created before. The only difference is that it's inverted on this outside mode. We can also make some changes to the outer part of the power window. I will turn the highlight mode of here. I will simply push my white curve down in the mid tones to create a vignette. I hope you have learned quite a lot in this lesson. 7. Isolating and Correcting Specific Colors - HSL Curves: In this lesson, we'll talk about HSL curves. As HSL curves allow for precise and creative color grading, we'll be working with this Canon clip. These are my project settings, exactly the same as for all other lessons. And my input color space is set to Canon Cinema Gamut, Canon look two. As this is how this clip was shot. Here on the first note, I've only adjusted the exposure a little bit. This is before and after. Then at the very end, I did a little bit of sharpening. Let me zoom in to show you, this is before and after I did it by going to blur, and by decreasing the blur radius, I went from 0.50 to 0.46 Then I have put all HSL curves names separately as parallel nodes. And I will be going through all of them in a second. Let's go to our curves here. First, we have our custom curves that you have familiarized yourself with before. Let's move on to versus, let's select our versus hue node. Basically, when I drag my curve up and down, I'm able to change the hue of any color of the clip like this. But we can also do it selectively here If I want to change the hue of the sky, and in order to select only the hue of the sky, I can simply click on it on the clip. And then a point will appear on my curve. I can modify it, I can move it up and down. I will move it up. Then this way I would change the color of the sky from blue to more of a teal blue like this. It's a little bit quirky and this is before and after. It already changes how our clip looks quite significantly. Then I can, for example, select the green color of the trees over here. I can do the same. I can change the hue of the trees. We can make them look more green or more yellow like this. Now let's move on to another note, that's our hue versus saturation here. We'll be adjusting the saturation of the selected hue here. Let's focus on this red sleeve as I think it's a bit overly saturated. So we can basically fix it with this curve. Let's select it now here, let's push this point down a bit. Look what happened. This is before and after a huge difference. Now let's move on to hue versus luminus. Here we can adjust the luminus of the selected hue. When we move the curve up, the whole clip gets brighter. When we move it down, it gets darker. Let's select the sky color again to create a point on the curve. Now when I move my point up, the sky gets very bright. When I move it down, it gets darker. I will maybe darken it a bit as I prefer it. Now let's move to the luma versus saturation Here. We can increase or decrease the saturation of the shadows, tones, or highlights separately. When I push this curve down on the very left, I will desaturate my clips in the shadows like this. Let's reset it. When I do it on the right, I will desaturate my clip. In the highlights here, what I will do, I will create an additional point in the mid tones and I will push it up just a touch. Then I'll decrease the saturation in the shadows and the highlights a bit. This is before and after a very tiny difference, but decreasing the saturation in the shadows and highlights make the image look more natural, in my opinion. Now let's move on to the saturation versus saturation. This curve allows us to decrease or increase the saturation depending on the saturation on the image, in the shadows, midtones and highlights. This is how it works here. Again, I will decrease the saturation of the most saturated parts of the clip in the shadows and highlights. And we can increase them in the midtones. Now let's move on to the last HSL curve called saturation versus luma. And here we can increase or decrease the luminance depending on the saturation of the clip. It works like this. I will maybe just decrease it a tiny bit. In the highlights, I will push it up in the mid tones. This is before and after again, just a slight difference. Sometimes it's all about very subtle changes. And this is our clip before using HSL curves and after. 8. Isolating and Correcting Specific Colors - Color Warper: This lesson we will be focusing on the Color Warper tool in resolve, I'll be showing you how it works with this Sony sine lock free clip. Let's find the best frame to work on then. On my first note, I have already performed the basic color correction. I have just improved the exposure a bit. This is before and after. I am using the same color management settings as usual. Now let's move straight to our color warper. Basically, the difference between the color warper and the HSL curves is that the color warper allows to adjust the hue and the saturation of the clip at the same time. As you remember from the previous lesson, when using HSL curves, we have to do it all separately. Then we also have here a chroma, luma warper that allows us to change the chroma, that is a purity of the color and aluminus at the same time. But let's go back to the hue saturation color warper. Let's hit option S to create a new node, and let's just call it color warper. Then we can, for example, select a certain hue on the clip. I will select red over here. Then this hue will be highlighted on our color worper. We can see exactly where our color from the clip is positioned. We can also change the hue and the saturation by simply dragging the mouse over the clip. And also look how our color worper changes when we are doing this. But now let's reset it. We can also change the size and the position of our color worper. Clicking here, we can place it wherever we want to. Then over here, we can add more rows to our color warper if we want to be more precise. And we can also add more rings to it. I usually pick 12 rows and six rings. This is enough for my needs. Then this yellow line over here is a skin indicator. It tells us where usually skin tones should be placed. Then I'll move my mouse somewhere on the clip and it will show me the right point on the grid. Then I'll move it onto the white color. It will show me that the white is exactly in the middle of the grid and so on. Take some time to familiarize yourself with it. Then here on the right, we have a bunch of different tools we can use. This is a simple select and di select tool. We can select a certain point with it and we can move it around like this. Then we have a draw selection tool. Let's grab it and let's draw a line over the multiple points we want to select. Then also, we can move all of them around to change the saturation by moving it the opposite direction from the center. And to change the hue by moving it left or right, like this. Then we have a Pin the pin tool. We can use it to pin some points on our grid so they don't move. For example, I will select multiple points around this one. Then I can grab my select tool again and when I move my selected point around, the points that are pinned will not change the position at all. We can be more selective with our hue by doing this. Then we have a pull point tool. Let's select it. When I click multiple times on the center point, for example, all of the other points are moving towards the grid, the saturating the image. Then next to it, we have a push point tool. When I select it and I click multiple times on the middle point, all of other points on the grid will be pushed away from it, increasing the saturation. Now let's reset it then we have increase and decrease fall of points when you select some points on the grid. When you click the plus button, it will add additional points nearby. Or when you click the minus button, that will remove the additional points. Then we have the invert selection tool. In this case, when we don't have any points selected, when we hit it, it will select them all. Then we have selected to Pin tool. When we select a certain point on the grid and when selected to pin, it will convert our selected point to the pin, the select pin column. When we select a point and we pick this option, it will select the whole column this point belongs to. Then we have select Pin ring. When we select it, it will highlight and select the whole ring that belongs to our point. Then we'll be able to move it around like this. Then we also have select Pin All. And select the Pin All. I think this is self explanatory, And at the end, we have the reset button. Then we can also use the range slider to select the hue points on the color worper. But let's reset it now. We can also select a point on our worper. We can use the hue saturation and Luma slider to shift the chosen color. As you can see, there's multiple helpful tools to play around with. Now let's go to the chroma and Luma grids. And here we have two more grids to work with. Now we have selected the grid number two. When I click on the hue on my clip and I move my mouse left to right, it will change the hue adding red or green to it. Then when I change it to grid one, change my hue adding blue or yellow. When I move it up and down, I'm changing my luminance brightening or darkening a certain hue. But now let's reset it and let's go back to the hue saturation, color warper. Let's make some subtle changes to the clip. As normally we don't change too much here. For example, I want to change this red hue Abbott. And I want to take out a bit of the saturation from it. Just on the clip, I will click on the hue I want to modify, and I will move it towards green to make it look more orange like this. Then I'll also go to the chrom aalumaclor warper. Here I want to dim a little bit, these bright lights, I'll click on it and I will move my mouth down a bit to decrease the illuminance. Then with my hue saturation warper, I will add a little bit of blue to the white, as now it has got a bit too much of the worm tint. Okay, this is before and after. This is my final result. But you feel free to experiment with the color warper as much as you want to. 9. Using Masks for Precise Corrections - Power Windows: This lesson, we'll talk about power windows and I'll show you a few common ways of using them. Power windows enable precise and selective color correction and grading within specific areas of the video. This tool allows you to isolate regions in a shot and apply color corrections to those specific areas. It's particularly useful when you want to perform targeted adjustments, such as enhancing the exposure, changing the color, or adjusting the contrast of specific parts of the image. Here on the time line, I have three different clips. The first one was shot in lock three, then my two other clips were shot in Canon lock two. As I have some mixed clips on the timeline, I am using the same color management settings as I have shown you in the first module of this course. Let's move to the second clip here. I've just very slightly improved the contrast and the exposure on the primaries node. This is before and after. Let's go ahead and let's create a new node. Let's label it as power windows. Now, I will use my offset to change the overall tint of the shot. You can see exactly how the power windows work. This will too. Now let's go to the power windows over here. Here we have all these different shapes to choose from. This is a rectangular power window. We can soften the edges of it manually, but we can also use our controls over here to do so. We can increase the size of the power window, then we can change the aspect of it, then we can tilt it or pan it. Then we can rotate it also we can change the opacity like this. Then we've got our softness controls as well. Then we've got a round power window. Then we've got a polygon that we can modify like this. We can build any shape we want from it. Then we have a custom shape, we can create our own shape with it. Then we have a gradient that we can soften like this. Then over here we can also add multiple shapes. I'll add a few circles. I'll place them over my clip. When we click on this button over here, we can reverse it, which means that in this case, everything outside this power window will be affected, not everything inside it. Then we can also disable the power window over here like this. Then in case we have multiple power windows, we can, for example, reverse one of them and then we can disable the other. This way, we'll be able to manipulate everything outside our power windows. But now let's just move on to some real life examples. First, I'll show you how to isolate the sky with power windows and how to improve it. This is something I come across at work very often, that the sky is a bit over exposed and it looks dull. In this case, I will grab a custom power window and I will draw a mask around my sky. Now let's turn the high light mode on so we can see our selection properly. I'll also soften my mask over here. It's always better to soften the mask. This shot is not a moving shot, but we usually deal with moving shots. We usually have to track our masks. Let's go to the tracker and let's truck it forwards and backwards. Perfect. Now let's go back to the primary wheels and the first thing I can see is that the sky is quite bright and that's why it looks quite uninteresting. Let's go to gamma and let's push it down a bit. Okay, Maybe let's push gain down a bit as well. Okay, And my sky automatically looks better. This is before and after we have added a way more definition to it. Now another thing we can do is to go here to the color worper. We can use it to increase the saturation of the sky easily. I can just do it on the whole image with my mouse like this. This is before and after a huge difference. Now let's move to this clip here. I have also already adjusted the exposure and the balance. Here I want to show you a very, very simple technique I use very often to bring the attention to the main subject. Let's go ahead and let's create a new node, and let's label it as power windows as well. Here I will grab a rectangle power window, and I will place it at the bottom of my clip like this. Then I will soften it and I will turn the highlight mote on to be able to see exactly what I'm doing. This should work now. Let's just turn the highlight mote off. Then here I will decrease the gain a bit, not too much. Just to darken the bottom part of the shot. This is before and after. And look how much attention we have brought to the protagonists with this very simple trick. Now we can also take one step further, and we can create the outside node that will basically invert the alpha transparency of the node that precedes it. Therefore, adjustments in an outside node affect the opposite area of the previous node. Let's right click on the power Windows node. Let's go to a node then at outside. When we turn the highlight mode on, we can see that this is exactly the same mask as we have created before, but it's inverted. Now I'll go to my curves, then I'll create a point in the middle of the curve to be able to manipulate the mid tones. I will push it up just a tiny bit to add more brightness in the mid tones. This is before adding the power Windows and after again, a huge difference. Now let's move to this Sony clip here. I have also already performed some basic adjustments. This is before and after. Here we'll focus more precisely on the face of our model. Let's create a new node. I will grab a round power window and I will place it over the face. Then I will soften it. I will adjust the size. This shot is moving quite a lot. Let's strike it here. I want to precisely brighten the face of the model. And it's best to do it by combining the power windows with the qualifier, as this will give us more defined result. Let's go to the qualifier and let's draw over the skin. Now let's turn the highlight mode on to be able to see the selection. Now I'll use my sliders to refine the selection. So I'll start from the hue, shrink in it a bit, then let's soften it. Now let's adjust the Luminast's soften it now I'll also blur my selection and I'll denoise it. Okay, let's play. It looks good to me and here what we will do is that we'll go to the primary wheels and we'll push the Gamma up a bit like this and look at the difference. This is before and after. This way we've basically added more brightness to some selected parts of the skin, making it look more sculpted. We also very often use power windows to create vignettes. I'll create another node, and I'll call it vignette here. I will grab a rectangular power window. I'll make it bigger, then I'll turn my highlight mode on. Then I'll increase the softness. Then let's reverse our power window as we want to adjust the outside of the mask, not the inside. Let's turn the highlight mode off. Then let's go to curves again. Here I will push my white curve down a bit in the mid. Does, this is before and after. I hope you've learned a lot about power Windows. 10. Using Masks for Precise Corrections - Magic Mask: This lesson, I will show you how to use one of the coolest tools in the ventual resolve magic mask. Magic mask is unfortunately available only for the studio version users. But even if you haven't purchased it yet, I would still recommend you to watch this lesson to see its potential. This is the clip we'll be working on. This one has been shot with Sony camera and it's in Sony sin as lock free. Here, I have only performed a small primary adjustments on the first serial node. This is before and after. Let's go ahead and let's create a new node. Let's call it Magic mask. Now let's go straight to our magic mask tool over here. Here we have some options to choose from, depending on what we want to do. The default setting is set to an object in case we want it to track an object, but we can switch it to person. Let's do it also. We can choose what part of the body will be tracking. We can choose some features like arms, clothing, face, hair, shoes, and so on. But I want to track the whole person. I will go back to person. Then over here we have some refining tools that we'll be using a bit later. Then here what I always do, I switch the quality from faster to better to get better results. Here, when we have our qualifier selected, we can simply draw a stroke over the person. Then here, let's also turn the mask overlay. We can see our selection highlighted in red. As you can see, the magic mask did actually a very good job with it. Now we can simply hit the truck button over here. Let's wait. Perfect. Now, it depends what you want to do with your mask, but for colorgrating purposes, I usually only increase blur radius a bit. Then I denoise it like this. Now, I will also turn off the mask overlay. I don't need to see it. Now the first thing we will do is that we'll go here to curves. I will use my white curve and I will push it up in the mid tones to increase the brightness of the person. This is before and after lovely. We can also use the same mask to modify the background. Let's right click on our magic mask node and let's create the outside note after it. Now when we turn the highlight button on over here, we can see that our mask has been reversed. Let's turn the highlight mode off here, I will show you how to add some light rays to the background. This clip is very suitable for it as there's a lot of colorful lights in the background we can use. Now let's go to our effects over here, and let's search for the light rays. Let's drop this effect onto the node. This is how it looks as a default. Then here, for example, we can just increase the length and the brightness of the effect. But now we can see that the light rays cover the person with the magic mask. We can easily fix it by selecting alpha limits effect over here. Now our light rays are behind the talent. Let me maybe find a better frame to demonstrate it. Here is fine. Let's modify our light rays a bit more. I'll the brightness over here, then I will decrease the softness to the maximum. Actually, I will decrease the length to get more subtle effect. But you obviously feel free to play with it as much as you want. This is before and after. Let's see the final result. 11. Using LOG wheels: This lesson we'll focus on log wheels. We'll be working with this Nikon clip, these are my color management settings. You can copy them. If you don't have calibrated monitor, change your output color space to Rex 79, gamut 0.2 And log wheels, or logarithmic wheels, are designed for more advanced color grading than the primary wheels and offer more precise control over color and luminance. I always use log wheels in combination with the primary wheels. First, I adjust the contrast and the exposure with the primary wheels. Then if I want to, I use log wheels to achieve more defined look. This is what I will be showing you today. I'll click on my primaries node here. I will just perform a tiny adjustment as I can see that my clip already looks great and doesn't need much work here. I will just push my gamma down, then my left top. Then I will increase the contrast and I will balance it with the pivot control. This is before and after. Now, let's move to our log wheels. Here we've got our shadows, midtones, and highlights. Let's start from the highlights wheel and also look what's happening on the way from on the right. Okay, so when I move my highlights wheel, I am affecting only the very brightest parts of the clip. And I can also see it on the way from only that bit is moving up and down. Then the same happens with the shadows. When I move my master wheel, I am affecting only the darkest parts of the clip. And then let's see what happens when we use the midtones wheel. You see only that part of the way for moves. Basically, log wheels allow us to do more precise, more granular adjustments than the primary wheels. Let's reset it. As I don't want to change how my background looks at all. I will create a mask on the face of the model to be able to isolate it and to be able to use log wheels only on her. Let's grab the round power window, let's place it nicely over her face like this. Now let's go to the trucker and let's strike it. Now let's go back to our log wheels and let's increase the midtones first. Just a touch like this to brighten up the face. Then I will decrease the shadows just a little bit. Remember, usually is only about a tiny adjustments. We don't want to exaggerate anything. Then I will increase the midtones a bit more. This is before and after. Look what a huge difference we've made using log wheels. It's a very powerful tool and I hope you will also have fun with it. 12. Building B&W Film Looks: In this lesson, I'll teach you how to create different black and white film looks. Some people may think that creating a black and white look is as simple as turning the saturation down, but it's not true at all. I really want to show potential behind black and white film looks and how much we can do with them. This is the clip we'll be using for this lesson. This clip has been shot in S lock free and I have already converted it to Rex 79. Here are my color management settings. They're exactly the same as for every lesson in this course. I have only improved the contrast and the balance of it. This is before and after we have a good foundation for the black and white film looks, let's go ahead and let's create a new serial node, and let's label it as BNW. As the first thing to do is to turn the clip black and white. As I said before, we can do it by simply decreasing the saturation using the saturation slider over here. This is after. But I want to show you a more precise approach that can help us to manipulate the clip more and to create multiple black and white film looks. Let's undo it. Let's go here to our RGB mixer, where we can manipulate red, green, and blue channels separately. Then let's select monochrome. Now we are able to manipulate the red, green, and blue channels in the black and white mode to achieve totally different black and white film looks like this. I can simply move my sliders back and forward to achieve a satisfactory result. I want a nice contrast look with quite enhanced shadows like this, but you feel free to play around with it to your liking. This is how we learn as there's no right or wrong here. But we obviously haven't finished yet as there's so many ways we can manipulate the black and white look. Now let's go back to our primaries. I will increase the contrast first, then I will decrease pivot to refine the tonal center of tonality like this. Now let's carry on with the secondary adjustments. Let's create a parallel note below. Let's label it as Pia. And this is because I want to add a retropiel to my clip to make it look a bit more interesting. I'll go to my gamma controls and I'll take out a tiny bit of blue in the mid tones. And then I'll add a bit of red like this. This is before and after. The first look is a standard black and white, and the second one looks a bit like a vintage photograph. I want to show you how many things you can actually do with the black and white film look. Now I want to add a little bit more definition to my clip. I'll create a new parallel note, and I'll call it highlights. Then we could simply, for example, increase the highlights over here using the highlight slider like this. This is before and after, but let's undo it as I want you to know how we can take more control over the clip. First, let's grab a round power window and let's place it over the talents face, as I want to increase the highlights only on the face. Now let's soften it. Let's strike it. Now let's go to the qualifier. Let's turn on the highlight mode. Now let's grab the luminous slider. And let's move it up to select only the lightest parts of the face. Now we can increase the softness as well, and I will blur my selection. Okay, now I will go to my white curve and I will push it up in the mid tones just to touch like this. This is before and after. Now there's still other things we can do. Let's create a vignette. I'll create a new serial node after my parallel nodes, I will label it. Now let's grab a vignette from the effects. Let's drop it onto our node. Now we will customize our vignette. Let's change the mode to advanced, then I'll change the shape to rectangle. Then I'll increase the size of bit, and I'll change the rotation like this to target the corners of the frame. Now we can also adjust the anamorphismbit. Then we can decrease or increase the softness and transparency. I always go for a very subtle look. This is our before and after. Now let's, as I want to show you that the face is a little bit out of focus, we could add a tiny bit of sharpening to it. Let's also create another serial node at the end of the note tree. Now let's zoom out, and let's grab a round power window again, let's place it over the face. Now let's soften it. Let's turn on the highlight mode to be able to see the selection. Okay, let's zoom in again. Now let's go to the blur. Tap here. All we need to do is to decrease the blur radius a bit. Let's go down to 43. This is before and after a huge difference at the end. We obviously have to track it. This is our final result. Now I also want to show you another black and white look we can create based on the look we've just created. I want to show you some different options. Let's go back to our black and white node, then to our RGB mixer. Here I will play around with my bars. I'll increase my green channel first, then I'll increase the red channel. I will decrease the blue channel to lighten the clip. Now I also want to add some film density to the clip. We can do it by balancing gamma and gain. Let's push the gamma up first, then let's decrease gain, then let's push gamma up again. Let's decrease again like this. Now I'll maybe increase the contrast. Just a touch. Okay, I'll increase gamma once again and decrease gain. This way we've created a completely different black and white look that's more dense and less contrasty than the previous one. 13. Creating Teal & Orange Look Variations: In this lesson, I will show you how to create different till and orange look variations. First, why till and orange look is so widely used? The answer is very simple. Let's have a look at this color wheel where we have highlighted till and orange. From the position of these colors on the color wheel, we can tell that these are the complementary colors. Which means that they are opposite. And when combined together, they create a nice cinematic contrast that draws attention. We can create multiple teal and orange look variations. The amount of till and orange we can introduce to the clip depends on the footage we are working on. And to demonstrate it, I will use these three clips. The first one is a red clip that was converted to H 264. Then we have a bureau clip, and at the end we have a Canon look two clip. These are my color management settings. As I have mixed clips on my timeline, I'm working in Davinci white gamut. Now let's double check if my clips have been converted correctly. The last one is Cannon, look two, then the second one is Bureau. It was recognized automatically and my first clip should be marked as red white gamut G ten. Okay, let's start from the first clip here. Creating a till and orange look will be quite easy. We can push it quite a lot as we have a lot of green in the shot and a lot of exposed skin, we are able to push it towards till and orange quite a lot. Let's start from the primaries. I will label my first node as primaries. Then I will move to my favorite primary wheels over here. Looking at my way form, I can see that my shadows are pushed down enough, but I can still raise my highlights a bit. First, I'll push my game up. Then to add a bit of contrast, I'll push my gamma down. Then I'll also play a bit of the contrast and the pivot controls. This is before and after looks nice. Now let's start introducing some warmth to the clip. I'll create a new node and I will label it as saturation. Here I will start focusing on my skin tones. I will start bringing them closer to that teal and orange world. I'll use my gamma wheel, as midtones are responsible for the skin tones. I will push it towards orange, then I will push my left towards steel. Just a touch to balance it a bit. This is before and after. I just wanted to add a bit more saturation to the skin here. Now let's create a parallel note here. We will isolate the skin. Let's label it as skin. We could have used layer nodes here to do it, but there's a reason why I am using the parallel note. You'll find it out in a second. Let's grab a qualifier, and let's select the skin. Now I will turn my highlight mode on. Now let's improve the selection. I'll start from my Hue slider and then the Luminans. This clip is a bit compressed but it's not an issue. We'll make it work. Let's also move the saturation slider now. I'll also the Noise my selection, I will clean black to get rid of the trees from my selection as much as possible. Now let's turn the highlight mode off. What I will do is that I will create a serial mode after my parallel nodes and this is where I'll be creating my teal look. Now I will go to my primaries again and I will push my lift gamma and gain towards steel to shift the color of the whole greenery in the shot and to move it towards steel like this. This is before and after, but now we have also affected our skin tones. What we can do here, we can do a little trick. I will connect the alpha output from my skin note with the look node like this. Now when I have my look nodes selected, I will go to my key over here. And I will reverse it and look what we've got. This is before and after now. We can always go back to our skin note and we can tweak it. I'll just use my gamma Wheel and I will take out a little bit of that orange to make it look more natural. Okay, now we can also tweak our look. Let's go back to the look note here. I'll introduce quite a lot of deal. Let's just push it if we can. I'll move around my gain and lift wheels. I'll take my time with it. This is how my clip looks. And now we can adjust it a little bit more. I wasn't aiming for the natural look here, but we can make it look a little bit more natural. I'll create a new serial node at the end and I will call it Look Adjustments Here. I will go to my luma versus saturation first. I will take a bit of the saturation from the shadows by pushing this point down. Then I'll create a new point in the midtones, and I will push it up a little bit to a desaturation in the mid tones. Again, this is before and after, and you feel free to play around with it as much as you want to. But I will move to the second clip here. I will start from the Primaries again. Maybe go to the curves this time. And I'll push my curve up a bit in the highlights and then down in the shadows. Then I will also go to the primaries and I'll adjust the contrast and the pivot. This is before and after here, I will use my layer nodes this time. Let's hit option first and then option L to create a layer mixer. Let's label our nodes. Above will be my look. My note below will be the sky here. I will be isolating the sky. Let's start from isolating the sky. I will grab my qualifier, I will all of the blue color over here. Let's refine the selection using sliders. I just want to get rid of the reds here. Now let's clean white and black here. Now let's blur and the noisy selection like this. Let's see, this will work. We can always refine this selection later. Now let's select, look here Using my gamma, I will shift my red hue towards orange like this. This time I can't really push too much. This is before and after. Now, let's go to the sky. And here again, using my Gama wheel, I will push the blue towards steel. Maybe my gain a bit as well. This is and after this time we're able to create a teal and orange look very quickly. Now we can move to our last Canon clip. Here I will start from my primaries. Let's label the first note. Looking at my scopes, I will push my gain up, then my gamma down. Then I will tweak the contrast and the pivot. This is before and after. Let's again create two layer nodes. And the top one will be my look, and the bottom one will be my skin tones. Here again, I will isolate my skin tones using the qualifier. Let's select the skin tones, let's turn the highlight mode on. Now let's refine the selection with the sliders. This time there's a lot of red hue in the clip. It's quite difficult to select only the skin tones, but we can also include more of it this time. It will also benefit from it, you'll see. Then I will denoise my selection a bit and I will play with my sliders a bit more. Let's also blur it. Let's clean black to remove black from the selection. Then let's clean white to remove white from the selection. Okay, we can turn the highlight mode off now. Let's go to the primaries. And let's move the skin tones and the rest of the selected hue towards orange. Okay, I will zoom in so I can see my skin tones properly. I want to make sure that I'm adding the orange hue, but on the same time I want to make sure that my skin tones still look natural. Okay, this is before and after. Now, let's move to the look note here. I'll take the advantage of the color warper. I'll select the dark blue on the clip, and I will shift it towards teal, gradually like this, and look at the difference before and after. Here we have created more muted teal and orange look as this is what this clip is allowing us to do. Now let's add a few more adjustments. After my layer nodes, I will create a new serial note and I will call it vignette here. I'll go to my power Windows, I will grab the round power window and I will place it over the protagonists. And I will also soften it. Then let's reverse it. Let's go to the curves. Let's push the white curve down to darken the shot around the actors. Like this. This is, and after this way, we basically brought more attention to them. And now we need to go to the tracker and let's strike the shot. Okay, this is our full look. And after. 14. Creating famous Bleach Bypass Look: In this lesson, you will learn how to create a bleach bypass look. Bleach bypass is a cinematic color grading technique that was initially developed for film processing. It involves partially or completely skipping the bleaching step during film development. Which results in unique and distinctive look characterized by increased contrast, the saturated colors, and a greedy or high contrast appearance. This technique was popularized by films like Saving Private Ryan and Minority Report. We'll be working on this Sony lock free clip that we have balanced before. I have also added a bit of sharpening at the end. This is before and after. Let's go ahead and let's create a new node. And this will be my black and white look as blitch and bypass look is basically a combination of color and a black and white image. You will see how it works in a second. Now let's go to the RGB mixer over here. And let's turn on the monochrome. Now let's hit option L to create a layer node. Now we can write click on the layer mixer node over here that we can go to the composite mode. The best modes in Div into resolve to create a bleach Bipas look are overlay. And it looks like this. You can see already how much we have increased the contrast and how much we have lowered the saturation. Alternatively, we can use a mode called soft light that gives a more subtle look that I personally prefer. Now we'll be adjusting our clip. Let's create another serial node, and let's call it Look adjustments. But before we move on to it, let's also go back to our black and white note, and let's make some adjustment with the RGB mixer as we did with our black and white look in the previous lesson. Here I will play around with my green, blue, and red outputs. You feel free to adjust them to your liking as there's no right or wrong here. It all depends on what kind of result you want to get. I don't want you to exactly copy me. I want to give you a lot of flexibility here. Now let's move to the look adjustment node here. I'll go to my primaries first. When we look at the waveform, we can tell that the clip is a bit too dark. Let's push the shadows up first by increasing the lift. As my clip is in general on the dark side, I will also increase the gamma and then I will decrease my gain. Now, I will also increase the contrast a bit to keep my look well defined. This is before and after. Let's play it. Okay, another thing we could do here would be to use our HSL curves to manipulate the saturation. Let's go to luma versus saturation. Here we can saturate or desaturate the clip depending on its luminance. I'll create a point in the middle of the curve when we go here to the point on the left will be affecting the saturation in the shadows. When I push this point down to the maximum, it will desaturate the clip completely in the shadows. When I push the point on the very right to the max, it will desaturate my clip completely in the highlights. When I push my middle point down, I will get a black and white image. But let's push it up again as I want some color in the midtones, then I will also increase the saturation in the shadows. And this is the final result. Have fun with it. 15. Using Resolve Effects to create a Soft, Dreamy Look: In this lesson, you'll learn how to create a soft, dreamy look. And we'll be working on this Panasonic Villa clip. It's just a nice short clip of a model. These are my project settings and my input color space and the timeline color space set to Panasonic vi gamut viloc. As this is how the clip was shot here. Traditionally we'll start from the primary correction. I will label my first accordingly. You can obviously use your curves, but I will move to the primary wheels as this is my favorite tool in resolve. Looking at my way firm, I will start from decreasing the lift and gain, then I will also decrease the gamma. Then I will tweak my contrast and the pivot. This is before and after looks nice and contrasty and also well balanced. I don't have to perform any additional primary adjustments here. Now we can move to the secondary adjustments. I usually like to perform my secondary adjustments using the parallel nodes. I'll hit Option first to add another serial node, then option to create a parallel mixer node. On my first note, I will be adjusting that pink hue as this is a dominant color here, we can play around with it a bit more. Let's just label the node as pink first. Let's go to my curves. Let's use the hue versus hue curve. I will select the pink hue on my clip. Then I can move this point up and down. To shift the hue more towards p or towards red, I will make it a little bit more pink, just for fun. This is before and after. Then we can move to hue versus saturation curve. Here we can select the same hue again, and we can move the point up and down to make it more or less saturated. I will go for more saturated. Look, this is before and after. But here, obviously, there's no right or wrong. It's all about the personal taste. Now I think I want to adjust the luminance of the shirt. I don't like how bright it is. I don't want the white to stand out in this shot that much. Let's label our note as shirt. First, I'll go to my power windows. I will grab a round power window and I will place it over the shirt like this. And then let's strike it. Now, let's turn the highlight mode on to be able to see what we are doing. Okay, let's also go to the qualifier. And let's move our luminous slider up like this just to select the brightest parts. Now I will increase the blur radius, then I will denoise my selection. Then I will increase the softness over here, and I will tweak the selection more with the slider. Okay, and let's have a look. Nice selection is quite accurate and should work nicely. Now I will go to my primaries again. I will decrease the gamma. Just a touch, not too much like this. This is before and after I like it now, the shirt doesn't draw as much attention as before. Now we can move to creating our dreamy film look. I will use one of the favorite colorists tools that has got a lot of potential. I'm talking about the glow effect. I'll create a new serial node at the very end. I will just call it glow. Now let's just grab it from the effect step over here. Here we have quite a few controls to play around with. I'll leave my output as glowing image. Then the first important control over here is the shine threshold. When we move the slider to the left, we increase the shine threshold. When we move it to the right, we decrease it. I'll leave it somewhere here. For now. I never add too much of it. I like subtle changes. Then we have shape and spread here. We can decrease or increase the spread. I think quite self explanatory to get a dreamy look. We can decrease it quite a lot, actually. Like this. Then we can go back to shine threshold and we can also decrease it, moving this slidly to the right. Okay. Then you have the whole bunch of other controls I want you to play around with. Please do it in your own time to familiarize yourself with them. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I will only just decrease the opacity of my effect over here like this to make it even more subtle. And this is before adding the glow effect and after now. Because the glow effect comes from the brightest parts of the clip, my shirt again, way too bright. I'll go back to my note where I was adjusting the shirt and I will decrease the gamma more like this. Now the clip looks very nice. I also want to show you one more effect we can add to it to enhance our dreamlike look. This effect is called radial blur. Let's create a new serial node at the end, and let's label it. Then let's search for the radial blur in the effects, let's drop it onto our node. This is how the effect looks as a default. It basically creates that a radial blur here. But we can obviously modify it a bit here. We can change the position of the blur, but we can also do it manually. I can move my point to the left corner of the clip or to the right corner. I can decide from where I want my effect to start, but let's leave it in the middle. Then we can, for example, change the blur type from realistic to stylized. It will look more prominent, but let's go back to realistic. Then we can change the blur symmetry from symmetric to clockwise or anticlockwise. Then we can change the smooth strength over here. This way we can animate our effect. For example, let's go to the first frame, and let's create a key frame next to the smooth strength. Then let's move the cursor to the very last frame, and let's increase the smooth strength to the max. Let's play the clip. We got something like this, but again, I will leave it to you to play around with. Let's reset it. I'll just increase the smooth strength a little bit and I will change the blur symmetry to symmetric. And then I can, for example, go to my power windows and I can grab the round power window. Then I will reverse it over here. The blur effect affects only the outside part of the clip. And I will place it over the model. Then I will soften it. This is before and after. I hope you like this lesson. 16. The correct way of performing Skin Tone adjustments: In this lesson, we will talk about skin tones and we'll be working with this Alexa clip that was shot in Lo Free. These are my color management settings. As this is an clip, the input and the time and color space is set to Lox free. And my output color space is set to Rexonoine gamma 2.4 Here I've only improved the overall balance and the exposure. This is before and after. Let's go ahead and let's create another serial node. Let's call it skin tones. We will be analyzing and adjusting our skin tones today using the Vectorscope. This is the best tool for it, as we can work here with the skin indicator. Let's customize our Vectorscope by clicking on the settings pattern over here. First, let's show skin indicator. Then I will also select Show two times zoom. As this will enable me to see my trace better here. You can also increase or decrease the overall visibility of your Vectorscope. Feel free to adjust it to your liking as well. Now I want to show you a trick that can help you to adjust skin tones correctly very quickly. Let's go to the power windows, and let's grab the round power window from here. Then let's simply place it over the small part of the skin like this. Now when we turn the highlight mode on, we're able to see on the vectorscope only that part of the skin. And we can clearly determine where the skin tones are placed in the relation to the skin indicator. Now let's go back to the primary wheels as the vectorscope corresponds to the color wheel. As a general rule, the skin tones should lay on the skin line a little bit above it. When the skin tones are above the skin line, they are more red. And when they are on or a bit below the skin line, they have more yellow hue. The further the trace is from the center of the vectorscope, the more saturated the skin is, the closer the trace is to the center, the less saturated the skin is. Now, it also depends on the race. Darker skin tones will be more towards red, Asian skin tones will be more towards yellow. Right? Our model is very Caucasian. Maybe now her skin tones are a tiny bit to red. I will just move them with my Cama wheel, as this is where our skin tones, I will move them towards yellow Este. But now let's turn our highlight mode off here. Let's also remove the power window. This is the skin before and after. Now this was a general rule, but I also want to show you a few different factors that can affect the skin tones. First, have a look at this still, where we have a man who has a dark skin tone. When we check the sample of his skin, we can see that his skin tone lays above the skin line, as darker skin tones have more red hues. Then another still shows the Asian woman and her skin lays below the skin line as it does have more yellow hues. Then this still shows a case where everything you've learned in this lesson will not really apply, as here we are dealing with some colorful artificial lighting. When we check the skin tone here, it's totally out of place, but it's okay as it should match the creative intent. I want to show you another example where all these rules will not apply, as I have created a very cold look for this clip. Before it's my gallery, I'll go to my gallery. I will write, click on this still and I will select Apply Grade. This is also one cool thing about venture resolve. That every time you grab a still from your viewer, you can save it in the gallery, and it always contains a grade. Then you can simply steal this grade from the still. But anyway, now my grid is pretty much on the blue and can side as this is the look I was aiming for. Right? Let's check the skin tones again. Here I'll grab the power window and let's create another serial mode. I will turn the highlight mode on. Okay, you see now my skin tones are placed towards blue and magenta. And it's fine as this is my creative look and the skin tones should travel with it. This is something to remember and to summarize, I would highly recommend you to practice adjusting skin tones with the vector scope. But also, let's not forget that color grading depends on many different factors, and the rules are made to be broken.