Davinci resolve 17 Color Grading Common Mistake Beginners

Davinci resolve 17 Color Grading Common Mistake Beginners 

Let's get this party started.

So first I'm gonna play as a beginner and then I'm gonna show you the pro way,

and for our beginner, I'm gonna give him a benefit of the doubt okay.

This right here is considered a hero frame, and our beginner usually wouldn't even be parked here

because that's not a thing that they would usually do.

So I'm gonna try to set everything up this same way as a pro would just so we have a level playing field, okay, and it will make more sense.

So let's go under the project settings and here we're gonna choose color managed and I'm gonna select DaVinci Wide Gamut.

If you guys have any questions as to why I'm selecting this  I've already done a video on that, so go check that out.

Let's go ahead and hit save.

And when we do that, nothing really happens, right?

Nothing really changes.

So we know that this footage is from red. So I'm gonna go ahead right-click here.

And I'm gonna go under input color space and I'm gonna go ahead and select a red gamut

a wide gamut, and then log three, G 10.

As soon as we do that

we have a proper rec 709conversion.

So like I said, a beginner wouldn't know all these things but I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt because I wanna keep my focus on the teal and orange execution more than anything else for this video. okay.

So it doesn't get confusing.

The biggest mistake that most beginners make is that they don't have a proper node tree structure.

And that's Why I did an entirely free training link is down below that you guys should absolutely check out.

It'll turn you into a freaking node tree Ninja.

Everybody should be watching that before watching my videos.

Okay. but the first thing a beginner would do is 

he's gonna start with exposure, right?

So let's go into our primaries and he will start with his lift and he'll bring it down.

I'll take his gain and he'll raise it up.

And you know, he'll open up the image because that's just what beginners do.

Like you just wanna max out your range here.

Right? So you'll do something like that.

And you'll be like, okay, this is looking pretty good.

So now a beginner will open a new node and he will jump right into creating the look.

So he'll take his lift and brighten it down toward that, teal kind of situation.

And then he'll take his gain and he'll raise it up to add that orange, right?

They'll do something like that.

And then he'll keep pushing his teal.

And then he'll keep pushing his orange to something like that.

Now, on YouTube, it might look cool especially on a small screen, but once I punch in and you look at what's really going on and all the degradation that's happening and how the hair is looking green instead of black and then all this noise that we have coming in, just because we're doing unnecessary push and pull on our image and then look at what's going on with the scope and ultimately look at what's happening to our vector scope.

The middle point represents balance.

Look how far off it is. And this is what gives our teal, an orange, a bad name.

Okay. So people don't know how to create it.

So they just go, Hey I'm sick and tired of seeing it. Then you watch a movie like Tenet and you're like, this looks great.

So if I punch in and look at this, see there are so many new colors that we introduced by how this image was pushed.

And that is the rookie way of creating a teal and orange look.

Okay, So if I do before and after somebody like I said, might say, well, it is a big change and a rookie came a long way.

That's pretty cool.

But you won't know until you see the pro version. 

So let's stop talking and jump right in. Obviously, there are different ways to do it.

This is just my process. okay.

So the first node is gonna be our highlights. I'm gonna start off by structuring my node tree and guys, again you got to check out that training, cause I'm telling you If you don't know what goes where,

it's gonna throw your entire grade off and going from shot to shot is gonna be a disaster.

Okay? So you really need to understand get proper node tree structure.

it's a free training link that is down below this one. I'm gonna call it printer lights.

And if you guys wanna see a video on printer lights

let me know I'm gonna put something together for you. This is gonna be my primaries.

And then right here we're gonna have our healing orange correction and you'll know what that means.

And then this is gonna be our teal and orange look.

And then we're gonna have a look adjustment. And our next node is gonna be tried and tested low and then we're gonna have grain. and then we're gonna have grain.

Okay? So this is our setup.

We're gonna start off with our primary. 

So the first thing that I'm gonna do is go under my offset.

Bring my image down a little but not too much, something like that.

Now I'm gonna go under my contrast and I'm gonna juice it up. okay.

And i,m gonna keep it somewhere around here. I'm gonna take my offset.

I'm gonna raise it up a little bit. I want the image to breathe a little bit when I'm creating this look, my focus right now is just on skin.

Where do I want his skin to be?

And now let's give it a little bit more contrast not too much, something like that is good.

And let's leave this here.

Now I'm gonna go back into my printer lights.

And like I said, if you wanna see a video, let me know.

Basically, I'm gonna be messing with these right now.

Okay. But I'm missing it on my panel.

So what do we see, in this image?

There's way too much magenta.

So let's subtract some magenta by adding green. And as soon as I go boom, boom, boom three, and our image are already looking pretty good.

Now red is down here. We can bring it up.

So I'm gonna hit red once, that's headed twice as too much. So I'm gonna bring it down.

I'm gonna keep it somewhere around here. So our image, just by a couple of strokes

We were able to balance our image and I mean look at this before and after.

Okay. Thates the beauty and that's the power of pointer lights and if you wanna see, as I said,

a full-fledged video let me know.

But this is where we are right now already off to a great start

A pro would balance their short first before they go in and created a look and then they will do this will be considered a base grade. 

And they would do that to their entire scene.

So everything is balanced.

Everything is good to go.

And then you will create a local, okay this will save you a lot of time in the long run.

So now we're gonna go under our lift and lift gamma gain, our primary is just like the amateur did it but we're gonna approach it differently. So I'm gonna start with my Lyft and I'm gonna start adding some of that teal.

Right. So just like really go there.

Right. It's okay.

And now I'm gonna subtract that. So the amateur used his gain to subtract and add orange.

I'm gonna use my gamma. Okay. And I'm gonna explain to you why that is but let's just do that first.