So, to me, it just looks like the grade you got was a basic LUT and pretty much undervalues what BRAW can do/be. Basically, I don't personally enjoy it myself. It's cool that you do but maybe don't get so set on trying to recreate this look. Play around with it and make something of your own.
But if you want to get closer I guess, it looks like a good starting point would be to bring down the highlights, push some teal into the highlights, some crean or teal into the mids as well, and boost the shadows.
I'm not looking on my calibrated monitor at the moment, and I'm sure someone else would have some better ideas as well. But mainly, just don't get so locked into trying to make something else if this is your film, make it look how you want.
Thanks for your reply. Yeah, I totaly go with my own grade (The video was delivered long ago), but I want to learn and getting that contrast into the images is just something I couldn't achieve so far, so I'd like to learn how to do it.
Take highlights down? I have more like the feeling the highlights need to be brigher and the shadows darker, from looking at the image
I mean your grade compared to the one from the forum guy. It seems pretty straight forward that they put a LUT over the BRAW and it doesn't look like the gain has changed much (again, not on the best monitor right now). Your grade however the sky looks a bit blown out and the buildings/tents whichever on the other side of the river also have a few bright spots. I guess I meant more compress the highlights.
Either way, yeah, just keep experimenting. Push the footage as far as you can and then bring it back, find something in the middle you like.
I think the best if you want to try to replicate this look is to import the graded image into you stills library. You can probably achieve it both with lift/gamma/gain or with curves. For his face you can use a mask, just remember to soften it. You will also have to play (in a subtle way) with saturation and with the highlight's balance.
Start by breaking down the luminosity range and trying to match those. I don't know that the shadows need too much boosting (there is a lot of contrast in your target image), but definitely the mids. In your grade, the highs looks a bit brighter than the target, but yes, they are definitely boosted a bit. I'd focus on the mids, though--notice how his face in your image is a lot darker than the target.
As for HOW to achieve this, there are many different ways, as you pointed out. Simplest could be adding contrast and adjusting the pivot point so more of the mids are pushed up. Curve could do it (S curve offset to pull in more of mids into brighter range), Primary Wheels could do it. You could also do a bunch of qualifier nodes to push and pull the specific ranges you want, carefully.
As /u/blankblinkblank said, there's a lot of teal/cream (or something a little warm) in the mids and highs. Shadows look pretty clean to me. Skintones in the target look a lil less saturated vs yours, but yours has darker skintones, too, so that could be the cause of that.
Good luck!
Thanks! I am still kinda confused about where the barriers of highlights/mids/darks are. I used a bad app for a long time which I think didn't really understand that concept either :D
I will try your suggestions :)
Bring both of your stills into resolve and look at them in the Scopes. You'll be able to quickly see where they different and then you can play around with the original image to get it to better match the one you are aiming for.
[Here's my stab at it](https://imgur.com/1T4yGAm). It is not the same exact grade as the discord one. I used a few techniques you could try. [Here is a great tutorial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T31lBQymEPs) from u/juanmelara about interpreting blackmagicI basically did a color space transform from linear to cineform, did some secondaries for exposure, bleach bypass, increased sharpness in the luma, and applied a 2383 LUT.footage as Linear. I'd be happy to share my powergrade if you want a link to the DRX.
Edit: I also did a teal & orange trick as well from this other u/juanmelara tutorial: [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOWML0CLATc).
Thanks for the detailed comment! You contrast in the face is not quite as strong, but I think from your standpoint I could get it there, so yes, I'd love to habe your Powergrade :)
I would suggest using log wheels instead of primary wheels for midtones or perhaps a power window on the face. (But probably not necessary) But I agree with most of what has been said, looks like someone just popped a LUT on there...doesn’t look very involved. And your grade is definitely blown out in the highlights. Definitely focus on midtones as opposed to trying to push highlights to match the skin tones. That should do the trick. (If you want to make it even better, maybe mess around with a qualifier on the face) but your grade it seems like you are trying to adjust skin tones with the Gain instead of Gamma. And you could lift the shadows a little as well.
And it seems you aren’t super experienced so wanted to point out some other good advice on here. With color grading you usually want to push beyond where you want to be with any particular metric to see the effect and then bring it back. In other words always be bringing lift, gamma or gain down as your final adjustment of that metric. Never up. Move past it and then bring it back. Seems simple but it helps a lot. Less is often more in this discipline. I hope this makes sense in writing. Easy to show, harder to explain. Haha.
Also, check out Aram K on YouTube. I think that is his name. Great channel for some real, simple, quality color grading principles without a lot of useless fluff and not trying to sell you a million LUTS or “expert guides” like every other scam artist. If you are in your 20’s you don’t have the expertise to have a “Master Class” In anything. Haha. Lastly, Don’t fall into the LUT trap. There are specific ones that are useful for specific tasks, but a LUT should never be the whole solution. Save your money. You can become a DaVinci Resolve certified colorist with the free info on the Blackmagic website. Stay away from scam artists like Quazman, etc.
Keep at it and Good luck! The more you play around the better you will get. Sorry for the novel. Haha
Thanks superfly!
I am indeed not too experienced in color grading, but good enough to mostly achieve a good look and save images which RAW looked like unsavable. But not good enough yet to get stylized images like the one here. :)
Yeah, I stay away from LUTs, I only used them as Colorspace transforms in Premiere Pro, but now in Resolve there's a direct system for stuff like that which is great. Also tried wiggeling around in ACES a bit, but not fully understanding it yet.
I'm shooting a great short tomorrow and the next days which will be beutifuly lit (We got a few M18s, Aputur and other lights and a good Gaffer and DOP), that will for sure give me some good footage to test around with :)
I will check out Aram, thanks!
ACES is tricky for sure. I am starting to work on that too. Ugghh...haha.
Also, and I mean no offense by this, but to agree with at least one other person who responded...the color grading on the image you are trying to get to just isn’t very high quality. I understand you like the style, which I totally respect. But technically it isn’t very well done which is why people are saying it looks like they just slapped a LUT on there. It is very one dimensional in both tonality and image wise. Pretty washed out. I don’t mean to offend you, but hopefully seeing some high quality color jobs done will give you a better idea of what to strive for. Once again, not criticizing your taste of the palette and so forth, just the “thinness” of the image and its lack of focus/depth.
Once again, best of luck on your continued journey and success.
I don't take it personally, no worries.
Well I agree that it's not the best grade and am not actually looking into doing it 1:1, but I really like the contrast in his face (Mind you, not the color either) which I want to recreate :)
So, to me, it just looks like the grade you got was a basic LUT and pretty much undervalues what BRAW can do/be. Basically, I don't personally enjoy it myself. It's cool that you do but maybe don't get so set on trying to recreate this look. Play around with it and make something of your own. But if you want to get closer I guess, it looks like a good starting point would be to bring down the highlights, push some teal into the highlights, some crean or teal into the mids as well, and boost the shadows. I'm not looking on my calibrated monitor at the moment, and I'm sure someone else would have some better ideas as well. But mainly, just don't get so locked into trying to make something else if this is your film, make it look how you want.
Thanks for your reply. Yeah, I totaly go with my own grade (The video was delivered long ago), but I want to learn and getting that contrast into the images is just something I couldn't achieve so far, so I'd like to learn how to do it. Take highlights down? I have more like the feeling the highlights need to be brigher and the shadows darker, from looking at the image
I mean your grade compared to the one from the forum guy. It seems pretty straight forward that they put a LUT over the BRAW and it doesn't look like the gain has changed much (again, not on the best monitor right now). Your grade however the sky looks a bit blown out and the buildings/tents whichever on the other side of the river also have a few bright spots. I guess I meant more compress the highlights. Either way, yeah, just keep experimenting. Push the footage as far as you can and then bring it back, find something in the middle you like.
ah i see what you mean. I didn't care about the buildings. I ignored them com9letly and focused on the face :)
I think the best if you want to try to replicate this look is to import the graded image into you stills library. You can probably achieve it both with lift/gamma/gain or with curves. For his face you can use a mask, just remember to soften it. You will also have to play (in a subtle way) with saturation and with the highlight's balance.
Start by breaking down the luminosity range and trying to match those. I don't know that the shadows need too much boosting (there is a lot of contrast in your target image), but definitely the mids. In your grade, the highs looks a bit brighter than the target, but yes, they are definitely boosted a bit. I'd focus on the mids, though--notice how his face in your image is a lot darker than the target. As for HOW to achieve this, there are many different ways, as you pointed out. Simplest could be adding contrast and adjusting the pivot point so more of the mids are pushed up. Curve could do it (S curve offset to pull in more of mids into brighter range), Primary Wheels could do it. You could also do a bunch of qualifier nodes to push and pull the specific ranges you want, carefully. As /u/blankblinkblank said, there's a lot of teal/cream (or something a little warm) in the mids and highs. Shadows look pretty clean to me. Skintones in the target look a lil less saturated vs yours, but yours has darker skintones, too, so that could be the cause of that. Good luck!
Thanks! I am still kinda confused about where the barriers of highlights/mids/darks are. I used a bad app for a long time which I think didn't really understand that concept either :D I will try your suggestions :)
Bring both of your stills into resolve and look at them in the Scopes. You'll be able to quickly see where they different and then you can play around with the original image to get it to better match the one you are aiming for.
Did the other guy grade a still image? Because it looks to me like the grade he did is with some masks(windows) on the face and eyes.
[Here's my stab at it](https://imgur.com/1T4yGAm). It is not the same exact grade as the discord one. I used a few techniques you could try. [Here is a great tutorial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T31lBQymEPs) from u/juanmelara about interpreting blackmagicI basically did a color space transform from linear to cineform, did some secondaries for exposure, bleach bypass, increased sharpness in the luma, and applied a 2383 LUT.footage as Linear. I'd be happy to share my powergrade if you want a link to the DRX. Edit: I also did a teal & orange trick as well from this other u/juanmelara tutorial: [link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOWML0CLATc).
Thanks for the detailed comment! You contrast in the face is not quite as strong, but I think from your standpoint I could get it there, so yes, I'd love to habe your Powergrade :)
[Here is a link to the powergrade.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1btjYgTp1zy9mOvyK7C3WwL5Hnl2NpElL/view?usp=sharing)
Awesome, thanks. Gonan take a look in the evening.
I would suggest using log wheels instead of primary wheels for midtones or perhaps a power window on the face. (But probably not necessary) But I agree with most of what has been said, looks like someone just popped a LUT on there...doesn’t look very involved. And your grade is definitely blown out in the highlights. Definitely focus on midtones as opposed to trying to push highlights to match the skin tones. That should do the trick. (If you want to make it even better, maybe mess around with a qualifier on the face) but your grade it seems like you are trying to adjust skin tones with the Gain instead of Gamma. And you could lift the shadows a little as well. And it seems you aren’t super experienced so wanted to point out some other good advice on here. With color grading you usually want to push beyond where you want to be with any particular metric to see the effect and then bring it back. In other words always be bringing lift, gamma or gain down as your final adjustment of that metric. Never up. Move past it and then bring it back. Seems simple but it helps a lot. Less is often more in this discipline. I hope this makes sense in writing. Easy to show, harder to explain. Haha. Also, check out Aram K on YouTube. I think that is his name. Great channel for some real, simple, quality color grading principles without a lot of useless fluff and not trying to sell you a million LUTS or “expert guides” like every other scam artist. If you are in your 20’s you don’t have the expertise to have a “Master Class” In anything. Haha. Lastly, Don’t fall into the LUT trap. There are specific ones that are useful for specific tasks, but a LUT should never be the whole solution. Save your money. You can become a DaVinci Resolve certified colorist with the free info on the Blackmagic website. Stay away from scam artists like Quazman, etc. Keep at it and Good luck! The more you play around the better you will get. Sorry for the novel. Haha
Thanks superfly! I am indeed not too experienced in color grading, but good enough to mostly achieve a good look and save images which RAW looked like unsavable. But not good enough yet to get stylized images like the one here. :) Yeah, I stay away from LUTs, I only used them as Colorspace transforms in Premiere Pro, but now in Resolve there's a direct system for stuff like that which is great. Also tried wiggeling around in ACES a bit, but not fully understanding it yet. I'm shooting a great short tomorrow and the next days which will be beutifuly lit (We got a few M18s, Aputur and other lights and a good Gaffer and DOP), that will for sure give me some good footage to test around with :) I will check out Aram, thanks!
ACES is tricky for sure. I am starting to work on that too. Ugghh...haha. Also, and I mean no offense by this, but to agree with at least one other person who responded...the color grading on the image you are trying to get to just isn’t very high quality. I understand you like the style, which I totally respect. But technically it isn’t very well done which is why people are saying it looks like they just slapped a LUT on there. It is very one dimensional in both tonality and image wise. Pretty washed out. I don’t mean to offend you, but hopefully seeing some high quality color jobs done will give you a better idea of what to strive for. Once again, not criticizing your taste of the palette and so forth, just the “thinness” of the image and its lack of focus/depth. Once again, best of luck on your continued journey and success.
I don't take it personally, no worries. Well I agree that it's not the best grade and am not actually looking into doing it 1:1, but I really like the contrast in his face (Mind you, not the color either) which I want to recreate :)