This is How I Color Grade my Videos.

Summary

The video discusses how the creator achieves a vintage, film-like aesthetic in their videos using color grading tools in DaVinci Resolve Studio. They utilize plugins like Dehancer and pre-built power grades such as Cineprint16 and Film Vision 2 to emulate classic film stocks like Kodak Vision3. The process involves adjusting contrast, color density, and other visual effects to create cinematic looks. The creator also shares tips for balancing highlights, exposure, and warmth, noting the ease of use of each tool. The video is aimed at viewers interested in enhancing their video’s color grading to achieve a retro vibe.

Takeaways

• 🎞️ The video discusses film emulation, which is the process of copying film aesthetics to make digital footage resemble film camera output.
• 💡 The creator uses plugins and power grades in DaVinci Resolve Studio to achieve a film look or vintage vibes.
• 🛠️ The Hander tool is highlighted as a favorite for its ease of use and single control panel for adjustments.
• 🌐 It's suggested to feed the Hander with the ACEScg intermediate to get the best results.
• 📹 The video creator adds two nodes before and after the Hander to convert between different color spaces.
• 🎥 The Vision 3 250D film stock is used to emulate the Kodak 2383 print film, which is common in major movies.
• 🔍 The video creator adjusts print exposure and contrast to achieve the desired look.
• 🌈 Color density is applied to make the image more vibrant.
• 🌟 The 'Halation' effect is used to give the image a red glow, while 'Bloom' softens the overall feel.
• 🌡️ The Film Developer tab allows for further adjustments to contrast, gamma correction, and color boost.
• 📊 Cine Print 16 by Tom Boland is another power grade used for more vibrant colors and separation.
• 🌟 Film Vision 2 is the last tool mentioned, inspired by Kodak Vision 3 500c and 250d, resulting in muted colors and a cooler image.

Q & A

What is film emulation in color grading?

Film emulation is the process of replicating the aesthetics of traditional film to make modern digital footage resemble images shot on film.

Which editing and color grading software does the speaker use?

The speaker uses DaVinci Resolve Studio for editing and color grading.

What are the limitations of using the free version of DaVinci Resolve for this workflow?

Some effects used in the workflow, like certain film emulation features, are available only in the paid version of DaVinci Resolve Studio.

What is the speaker's favorite tool for color grading and why?

The speaker's favorite tool for color grading is Dehancer because it is easy to use and provides a single control panel for all adjustments.

What film stock and print emulation does the speaker use for color grading in Dehancer?

The speaker uses the Vision 3 250D film stock and emulates a Kodak 2383 print film for the color grading in Dehancer.

What adjustments does the speaker make after selecting the film stock in Dehancer?

The speaker adjusts the print exposure, tonal contrast, color density, and sometimes enables halation and bloom effects.

What is the difference between the Dehancer tool and power grades like Cine Print 16?

Dehancer has a simpler interface with a single control panel for all adjustments, whereas power grades like Cine Print 16 have multiple predefined nodes for different settings, providing more detailed control.

What are power grades in DaVinci Resolve, and how do they differ from regular color grading tools?

Power grades are predefined node structures in DaVinci Resolve, each with different settings already built in. They provide a more advanced workflow compared to regular color grading tools, requiring adjustments to multiple nodes for specific effects.

What are some common adjustments the speaker makes in the Cine Print 16 power grade?

The speaker adjusts the CST (color space transform), turns off blur and grain effects, modifies post contrast, adjusts pivot for brightness, and enables endpoints for added contrast.

How does the speaker use the Film Vision 2 power grade, and what are its characteristics?

The speaker uses the Film Vision 2 power grade for a more muted and cooler color palette, inspired by Kodak Vision 3 film stock. They adjust the LUT, contrast, and warm tones, and avoid unnecessary effects like dust and halation.

Outlines

00:00

🎥 Introduction to Film Emulation for Color Grading

The creator introduces the topic of film emulation for color grading, explaining how it mimics the aesthetic of film cameras. They emphasize that they use plugins and power grades for this process and are not a professional colorist. They utilize DaVinci Resolve Studio, which includes certain paid features not available in the free version. The video will cover tools and methods they use to achieve a film look.

05:01

🎛️ Using the Dehancer Tool for Color Grading

The first tool discussed is 'Dehancer,' a favorite due to its simplicity. The creator explains the process of setting up nodes and color space transformations (CST) in DaVinci Resolve for proper color grading. They demonstrate how to use Dehancer to select from over 60 film stocks, particularly Kodak Vision 3 250D for this example. The tool also emulates print films like Kodak 2383. Adjustments are made to reduce contrast, tweak exposure, and apply effects like halation and bloom for a vintage look. The color developer tab is used to boost color vibrancy and manage highlights.

10:02

🌡️ Fine-tuning White Balance and Exposure

The creator makes further adjustments by adding yellow tones to the white balance. They prefer minimal grain in their images, lowering the grain effect to achieve the desired look. The settings are then copied and applied to other clips, where additional exposure and contrast adjustments are made based on the lighting conditions in each clip. Dehancer is praised for its efficiency, allowing for easy tweaks in a single control panel.

15:04

🎨 Exploring the CinePrint16 Power Grade

The second color grading tool mentioned is CinePrint16 by Tom Bolz, a power grade that provides predefined node structures for enhanced color separation. The creator adjusts the color space transformation for S-Log3 footage and makes further tweaks, such as removing the blur effect and reducing grain. CinePrint16 delivers vibrant colors, especially after adjustments to contrast and exposure. The creator highlights that power grades offer deeper customization, but require more effort compared to simpler tools like Dehancer.

⚙️ Managing Advanced Power Grade Settings

This section dives into the complexity of working with power grades, where the creator adjusts settings for effects like blur and halation. These adjustments require digging into compound nodes, which can be more difficult to manage. The creator demonstrates copying the power grade to multiple clips, making necessary exposure and contrast changes to match the scene's lighting, and discusses the challenges of using more advanced nodes compared to simpler workflows.

🎞️ Using Film Vision 2 Power Grade for a Cooler Look

The final tool discussed is the Film Vision 2 power grade, which mimics Kodak Vision 3 film stocks. This grade provides a cooler and more muted color palette, which the creator applies to footage shot in daylight. Adjustments are made to contrast and exposure, with less emphasis on grain and halation effects. The creator highlights how the power grade produces a distinctive blue cast, giving the footage a vintage vibe that suits certain moods.

📽️ Conclusion: Achieving Film Looks with Three Tools

In the conclusion, the creator reflects on how the combination of Dehancer, CinePrint16, and Film Vision 2 allows them to replicate film and vintage aesthetics in their videos. Each tool has its own strengths, from the simplicity of Dehancer to the flexibility of power grades like CinePrint16 and Film Vision 2. They encourage viewers to experiment with these tools to find their own style and thank the audience for their interest in color grading techniques.

Keywords

💡Film Simulation

Film simulation refers to a process of replicating the aesthetic qualities of traditional film using modern digital tools and software. The video highlights how this technique is used to make digital footage appear as though it was shot on a film camera, capturing vintage vibes and a classic look. For example, the speaker uses plugins like dehancer to apply film stocks such as Vision 3 250D to create a film-like aesthetic.

💡Color Grading

Color grading is the process of adjusting the colors, contrast, brightness, and overall tone of a video or film. This technique is essential for achieving a specific visual style or mood. In the video, the speaker demonstrates how to use tools like dehancer and power grades to apply film emulations and vintage looks to their footage, making the colors pop and the image more visually appealing.

💡DaVinci Resolve Studio

DaVinci Resolve Studio is a professional video editing and color grading software used for editing, color correction, visual effects, and audio post-production. The video mentions that the speaker uses this software, specifically its advanced features available in the paid Studio version, to color grade and create film-like effects in their videos. Some features mentioned, like the hander and power grades, are only available in the Studio version.

💡V-Log3

V-Log3 is a flat color profile used in digital video cameras that captures a wide dynamic range, making it suitable for post-production color grading. The speaker mentions shooting in S-Log3 (a variant of V-Log3), which is a flat color profile designed to retain more details in the shadows and highlights, providing more flexibility for color grading. They then convert this flat footage into a more visually appealing result through tools like the color space transform (CST).

💡Hander

Hander is a plugin used in DaVinci Resolve for color grading and applying film emulation effects. It allows users to choose from over 60 film stocks and apply them to digital footage, giving it a film-like appearance. The speaker mentions that Hander is their favorite tool for color grading because of its simplicity and ability to emulate film stocks such as Vision 3 250D, making the image look like it was shot on traditional film.

💡Film Stock

Film stock refers to the physical film material used in traditional cameras to record images. Different film stocks have distinct characteristics that influence the colors, texture, and overall look of the film. In the video, the speaker chooses a specific film stock (e.g., Vision 3 250D) in Hander to emulate a particular aesthetic in the footage, adjusting settings to match the desired vintage look and feel.

💡Power Grade

A power grade is a predefined set of color grading adjustments or nodes that can be applied to a video clip in DaVinci Resolve. These nodes automate certain aspects of color correction and grading. The speaker uses power grades like Cine Print 16 to give their videos more vibrant colors and a cinematic appearance, mentioning that power grades are useful for achieving consistent results without manually adjusting each setting.

💡Cine Print 16

Cine Print 16 is a specific power grade used in DaVinci Resolve that emulates the look of a film print with vibrant and contrasted colors. The speaker uses this power grade in their video color grading process to enhance color separation, making each color pop more vividly. It’s applied to footage that needs more defined colors, as seen in the demonstration where the speaker adjusts contrast and tweaks the image for a more cinematic feel.

💡Halation

Halation refers to a glow or red halo that appears around bright areas of an image, especially in film photography. In the video, the speaker uses the halation effect in Hander to add a red glow to the image, enhancing the vintage look. They also mention adjusting the halation strength when it becomes too pronounced, showing how it can be controlled for artistic effect.

💡Contrast and Exposure

Contrast and exposure are key components in video color grading that affect the lightness and darkness of the image and the difference between the lightest and darkest areas. The speaker frequently adjusts contrast and exposure settings to refine the overall mood of the footage, whether by brightening or darkening it to suit the desired look. For instance, they reduce contrast to prevent overly harsh highlights or increase exposure to brighten a scene, ultimately fine-tuning each clip.

Highlights

Film emulation mimics the aesthetic of traditional film to give modern digital footage a vintage look.

DaVinci Resolve Studio is used for editing and color grading, though some features may not work in the free version.

The Dehancer plugin is the first tool for color grading, which simplifies adjustments with a single control panel.

The workflow involves using Color Space Transform (CST) nodes to convert footage from S-log3 to Rec.709 for proper color grading.

Dehancer offers over 60 photography and movie film stocks for film emulation, like Vision 3 250D.

After selecting a film stock, emulating Kodak 2383 print film is suggested for a cinematic look.

Using tonal contrast and color density adjustments helps balance highlights and contrast, making images more vibrant.

Halation and bloom effects add a vintage softness and glow to bright areas in the footage.

Saturation can be boosted using the 'color boost' setting to make colors pop, especially reds.

The CinePrint16 power grade offers a more vibrant color separation and includes several built-in nodes for detailed adjustments.

Power grades allow for finer control but require more effort to adjust specific effects, like reducing blur or halation.

Film Vision 2 is another power grade inspired by Kodak Vision 3, providing muted colors and a cooler image.

Different tools like Dehancer and CinePrint16 offer distinct styles, from soft vintage vibes to vibrant color separation.

The final adjustments often involve fine-tuning exposure, contrast, and warmth to achieve a balanced filmic aesthetic.

All three tools (Dehancer, CinePrint16, and Film Vision 2) offer different methods to achieve a film look, depending on mood and preference.

Transcripts

[Music]

so a lot of you were asking me about how

I color grade my videos right now I've

been really enjoying the look of film

emulations so for those who don't know

what is film simulation is it's like

copying the film Aesthetics to make the

image from Modern sensors feel like it

is shot from a film

camera I just want to say that I'm not a

pro colorist and I use plugins and power

grades to get that film look or vintage

Vibes that I like I'm also using the

Vint resolve Studio as my editing and

color grading software and this methods

might not work in the free version of

The Venture resolve because some of the

effects are within the paid version of

the VCI resolve Studio

okay so the first tool that we'll use

for this color grading is the hander

this is probably my favorite because

it's easy to use and you only have to

deal with one um control panel right

here to adjust everything in order to

get the best results in my observation

it is better if we feed the hander with

theci white gamut intermediate

so we need to add two nodes before and

after the hand so let's label this one

CST thein white gamut and then this one

will be CST or 709 so let's put color

space transform here and then I shot

this with s slog

3 so let's input SL log 3 here and then

for the timeline I will use the V white

gamut so we will feed that to the answer

and then the answer is already in the v

white gamet the last node I

will convert the the V white gamut back

to rec 709 which is my timeline so we

can start grading using the hand what I

like about the hander is that they have

60 plus photography and movie film

stocks that you can choose depending on

the image and color you want to recreate

for today we're going to use the Vision

3 250d for this clip and then once you

entered the film stock that you want you

need to go down to the print which you

want to emulate a Kodak 2383 print film

which is the most common print film I

think that big movies use as you can see

the image is to contrast trusty so we

need to check this

box it lifts a little bit of the

contrast but not too much so we need to

adjust the print

exposure right there now the image is

like too washed out but the Highlight is

okay so um we just need to um apply some

tonal contrast to it to bring back that

contrast and then apply some color

density to make the image more vibrant

probably right there and then the next

thing that I will do is oh I think I

need to enable this to effects theh

halation which is like giving off that

red glow in there it'sh halation and

then Bloom is like if there's white

parts or bright parts of the image it's

like um adding a black mist filter to

the image which kind of soften the

overall feel of the image going back to

our settings here so after adjusting the

print we'll go back to the film

developer tab so here you can adjust

contrast again but I think the contrast

is already okay um change the gamma

correction or the offset but I think

this is already okay for me what I

always change with film developer is the

color boost which which makes the image

more um saturated or color is more

vibrant right there I think it's okay as

you can see the red pops out really good

from the image sometimes I will use this

film compression as well what it does is

it compresses the highlights if the

highlights are blown out but I guess on

this image is not but we can use a

little bit of it just a little bit right

there all right so let's

see M I think I want to add the white

balance towards yellow right about

there yeah I think I'm happy with this

results

already or

maybe sometimes I don't like too much

grain on my um image so usually um bring

it down to like

eight right there I think this is

perfect already now let's try to apply

it to other Clips so this

one and also this

one and we'll just

copy uh

settings the

nodes and

then right up the bat it's too bright so

I need to adjust only the exposure

value and probably bring down the

contrast as

well and I think I like this already M

yeah and then for this

one let's

see it's a bit bright as well so we can

bring down

that and then

here contrast as

well so yeah I think I like this already

so that's why I like the hander it's

easy to use you don't have to create

multiple nodes and you just have to um

make adjustment to a single panel you'll

have a great result Sal for a film

emulation I also use cine print 16 by

Tom bols which is a power grade for

those who are not familiar with power

grides they are predefined node

structure like this which every node has

a different settings already built to it

you just have to adjust it depending on

on the image you want to achieve C print

16 in my observation gives more vibrant

colors which helps separate each colors

from one another so like this one so

let's use this clip from my previous

videos the first thing we need to adjust

is the CST because we need to fit this

with the footage that we shot which is

SL log

3 that is the image that we're getting

it's already looking better than the

flat profile that we had before but we

can improve it even further personally I

don't like the blur effect so I always

turn this off and then also the green I

think I need to dial down the green the

green settings is the built-in grain

effect from the vinture resolve so if

you're not using Studio Version I don't

know if you can use this power grade

probably it will put some water mark

here on your footage so so what I like

to do to get less grein is by adjusting

the green strength by that

much yeah and then I will modify the

post contrast by adding more contrast

and then sometimes I also change the

pivot to make the image brighter or

darker and then I also always turn off

this High soft which is I think the same

with film compression with the hander

you can see it changes a bit of the

highlights and then I also turn on this

end points which makes the image more

contrasty so I should have turned it on

first before messing up with the

contrast

so probably pull that up and also

sometimes I use this node to warm the

image further I like it warmer than the

original and then there's a lot of nodes

here that I seldom use because it Alters

the color further but it depends on your

style if you want to incorporate these

nodes and then sometimes I will adjust

camera exposure by just moving the

offset but on this one I think it's

already okay you can also adjust the

camera white balance with this node by

moving this scalin slider and also the

tint I think I'm happy with the colors

already the only thing that I don't like

is H right here it's too strong for me

so this is where the power grides I

think is hard to manage because you have

to dig deeper on the compound nodes to

adjust the strength of the effect like

for this one I think you need to adjust

the blur plus to make it um less strong

right there you see it's somehow gone

but it's still there also this I think I

need to pull this so it won't there's

less halation going on so yeah I think

I'm happy with this then now I will try

to copy this power grade to the other

two okay so this one we will paste it

here so it's too bright for this shot so

we need to turn down this and probably

add more contrast right about there I

like it already contrast and colors I'm

satisfied with this color grade already

so let's move on to the other one oh

this is too bright as well so let's try

copying this one rather than making the

adjustments okay let's see

it became too dark now so let's adjust

it back until we get the skin tone

better probably

there

sorry yeah I think I'm okay with this

grading already so yeah that's the big

difference with power grades like this

which has a lot of nodes compared to the

dehancer which only has one single panel

to adjust everything and here is the

result of the zprint 16 power

grade so the last tool that I use for

color grading to achieve film look is

film Vision 2 so this power grade is

inspired with the Kodak Vision 3 500c

and 250 d loop which is a classic film

stock in my observation with this power

grade the colors are more muted and also

the image is much cooler than um the

cine print so sometimes I use this

depending on the mood so let's apply the

power grid here so the first thing we

need to do is to change the lot um of

this power grid because we need to feed

it with slog 3 right there and and then

because this was shot during daylight I

want to turn on this 250d film stock and

then also texture color density the roll

off is like having the Highlight to

Shadow roll off so I already shot this

with black promise so I don't need to

turn this thing on I think I want to use

d55 for this this is like making the

image warmer the same with the c print

16's warmer node so okay grain dust I

don't like dust so let's exit this

compound

node and then the next thing we want to

do

is change the contrast because the

overall image is flat so let's recover

the contrast of the image by pulling the

contrast up there let's play the whole

thing if it's too

dark but

so I like the image already so let's try

to add more warm on the

image luckily we don't have to deal with

other effects with this image because

usually the halation this one sometimes

it's strong with this power Gade you

have to mess with the methods that is

included in the halation other than that

it's a pretty good power grade so this

one I already like the color it's giving

off like blue colored image so um let's

try to apply this to the other image so

for this one I think we need to adjust

the exposure because it's too dark right

about there I think it matches the

exposure of the other clip okay so let's

put the grade also here here it's dark

again so yeah it's dark so we need to

pull the offset more yeah I think I'm

happy with that one let's try to copy

this you see it's like giving a blue

cast uh on the colors but it looks good

I like it sometimes so I use this so

yeah I'm liking the overall Vibe of this

color for this kind of shots especially

with this like vintage color board I

think it suits the image and the color

grading that I

used so by using either of these three

color grading tools I'm able to

replicate films or vintage Vibes on my

videos I hope this answered all the

color grading requests from my previous

videos thank you and I'll see you again

next time

he