Pro Tips for Stunning Color Grading
Are you ready to take your color grading in Premiere Pro to the next level? Lets dive into some effective techniques and tools that will elevate your talking head videos from dull to dynamic. Color grading in Premiere Pro can seem daunting, but with the right Premiere Pro plugins and strategies, you’ll be able to really make your videos look and feel the way you want them to.
Step 1: Creating Your Corrected Base
First things first, we need to set up our project. Open Premiere Pro and switch to the Color Workspace by clicking the color icon. Make sure the Lumetri Color panel and Lumetri Scopes are open. This setup is crucial for effective color grading in Premiere Pro. To start, we create an adjustment layer. Right-click in the project panel, select ‘New Item,’ and then ‘Adjustment Layer.’ Drag this layer above your footage. This layer will host all our primary color corrections.
Using Lumetri Color, you can make some initial corrections. While the auto-correct feature can be helpful, I prefer a more hands-on approach. For example you can try adjusting the white balance by selecting a neutral gray area on the footage. This ensures your footage has a natural look. However, don’t stop there; fine-tune the tint and temperature manually to get a better balance. But I find that correcting with the Basic Corrections panel in Lumetri doesn’t show you exactly what needs to be fixed, it can often feel like guess-work, this is why I turn to some useful plugins to help with the correction.
For more advanced corrections, we use Premiere Pro plugins like Colorista V from Red Giant’s Magic Bullet Suite. This plugin provides a guided correction process, making it easier to achieve a polished look. Apply the Colorista effect to your adjustment layer and select ‘Guided Color Correction.’ This tool simplifies the correction process by focusing on light levels without the distraction of color. It will guide you on how to adjust the black, white, and midtone levels according to the guided suggestions, then move on to tweaking contrast and saturation. It’s really time-saving!
Step 2: Optional Skin Smoothing with Cosmo II
Once the base correction is set, it’s time to refine your look using additional color grading tools in Premiere Pro. Cosmo II, another effect from Red Giant, is excellent for skin smoothing and making sure your skin isn’t blotchy with different colors. Apply it to the adjustment layer and select a skin sample. Adjust the mask to ensure it targets only the skin, avoiding hair or background. Fine-tune the smoothing and color balance to maintain a natural appearance. You can also use Cosmo to make sure the skin isn’t too yellow or pink, and I recommend using the Vectorscope to measure a patch of skin against the skin-tone line, we cover this in the video in more depth.
Step 3: Painting with Color to Create Selective Adjustments
Enhancing the eyes can make your subject pop. First, go to the Lumetri Color Panel and add a new Lumetri Effect, then you can rename it to “Eyes” to keep organized. Use the HSL Secondary in Lumetri Color to select the eye color and create a mask. Zoom in and use the set color tool to capture the eye hue accurately. Adjust the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness to brighten and sharpen the eyes, making them stand out. Selective color adjustments can add a cinematic quality to your videos.
Next, you can add a new Lumetri Effect for each area of the image you want to change (it’s like make a stack of FX). For example, to brighten a background lamp, create a new Lumetri Color effect and rename it just to stay organized. Draw a mask around the lamp and use the Hue Saturation Curves to increase the saturation of the purple hue. This subtle adjustment makes specific elements in your frame pop without overwhelming the overall look.
Using a combination of Lumetri FX you can make adjustments to the skin, hair, eyes, background and more.
Step 4: Mastering and Hollywood Curve
Finally, let’s add that professional Hollywood cinematic touch using first an s-curve using the white luma curve from Lumetri Curves. Creating this s-curve, pops the shadows and whites to create more contrast in your image. Then, we can add another Lumetri Effect and rename it to “Orange and Teal.” From RGB curves, select the red line this time, and click to adjust the red line in a subtle s-curve shape to introduce blue into the shadows and orange into the highlights. Blue is the complimentary color to orange and this is why it can make people’s skin pop on screen. This creates a striking contrast that’s popular in Hollywood films.
Step 5: Gamma Compensation
Have you ever noticed that your export’s colors look different from how they look in Premiere Pro? Well, we have a fix for you! Before exporting, apply a gamma compensation adjustment layer to ensure your final video looks as intended. This corrects any shifts in brightness or contrast that might occur during export. We have a free Gamma Compensation LUT that you can download and apply at the LUT dropdown from Lumetri Color.
Color grading in Premiere Pro can transform your videos. By using the right Premiere Pro plugins and mastering color grading tools, you can achieve professional-grade results. Don’t forget, you can access my color grade template project file by becoming a Patron. This way, you can easily apply these techniques to your projects.
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