Im a novest and all i been doing is researching and getting better. I found a simple way to just help me with some basic to get me past just using my regular footage. And mannn this was very detailed. Thank you.
Love to hear that! Node Trees can definitely seem confusing in the beginning, I think they are to most people but it is quite simple when you get the gist of it!
Thanks Alex! I'm really glad that I've found your channel. This was so helpful. I'm surprised you don't have 7,51 x 100 subscribers. Thank you so much for sharing...
Very helpful! Two questions: 1. Since you're starting with contrast, is there a reason you don't put it on the left... so the whole tree is a left to right progression? 2. Is there a way to set up your preferred node tree, with labels, as kind of default, or a way to access it easily... so you aren't having to build it for every new project? Thanks again. I'm just getting started and this was very helpful.
1. Yes. Adding the exposure and balance on the node before, essentially means that I'm changing it before the contrast kicks in and leaves me even more room to work with by changing the original footage rather than what's happened after the contrast has been applied. You can also work left to right in the color correction but often it leads to more back and forth between the nodes than going this way - in my experience. 2. You can save your node tree by grabbing a still when you're at the point you want to save. Put that still in your PowerGrade folder and you'll be able to use it across all the projects in that database. Simply right-click on the still in your Gallery and click "apply grade" and there you go :-)
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, I'm new at this and just by applying what I learned here helped me to make the videos that I hadn't edited in the past looks awesome.
That makes perfect sense thanks for the clarification! I cut the film in FCP so I need to learn how to open an FCP project in Davinci for final color grading. Do you use Davinci cloud feature? Thanks
My good friend I have a question. Wouldn't it be the same thing at 7:23 when you say we don't have to move backwards to just start with the contrast then exposure then WB ? could you explain a little bit why this order and not just start in the order your working in , what would be the difference and why not and or what would it do to the workflow that detours you from starting from left to right.
It's a common way to work backwards in the Color Correction. For me the primary reason is that if I adjust the Exposure first, then when I add Contrast I start pulling the exposure apart again as that's essentially what contrast is - pulling the darker and brighter areas closer together or further apart. So by adding the contrast first and then adjusting the exposure I find that I have to go back and forth less. If I had done the exposure first, then contrast, I would most likely have to go back to the exposure node and adjust that again - doing double work. For the Color Balance it doesn't matter as much but it does move around the exposure a bit, so keep it downstream makes sense for me, as I then move backwards till I'm happy and then I start with the Grading, where I want to add to what I've done rather than adjusting backwards. That's the main reason why I do it but you can of course play around with going from left to right and see if that workflow suits you better - in the end there's no right or wrong in these cases, it's all about preference and getting to the best possible result in the best/fastest possible way :-)
Great video! Quick question: if someone sends you a video to edit that wasn’t done in this program…Do you cut the video up by each scene to color grade each scene separately?? Thanks work flow tip
It's rare to Color Grade a final video after it's been exported in my experience, usually you'll get the proxy or original files with an XML from Premiere or another software and import both into DaVinci to get the timeline, then grade and export it. If it's the case that you have to grade a video that's been edited already and exported as one, then yes, your best option is probably to chop it up in DaVinci, grade it and then export it again. Just be aware that there might be a quality dip, since you're grading on something that's exported again, if it's compressed to a smaller size already :-)
I got a short film scene I would love to submit to you for color grading if you’re still doing those blindfolded submissions. It has 4k views on the RU-vid page Chee$etown Short Film
You're not the only one who does this, but why put the rec709 conversion at the end? Is it because the log footage retains the most information and the conversion discards some of it?
Because Rec.709 is a smaller color space, so if you convert it at the beginning and start grading after that you lose out of all the extra information you have available right at the start. Now, if you instead do it at the end, what you're essentially grading, is the LOG footage with a lot more information, meaning the adjustments you make are in more color, saturationa and luminance, which are then being converted into Rec.709. The simplest way I can put it is, grading before the conversion you have more nuance to your say blue colours. Let's say you have 1000 shades (this is not factual) whereas when it's been converted it has 250 shades. So grading in the 1000 shades and then converting it down gives you more flexibility than starting with the 250. I hope that makes sense. I tried to make it simple but I'm not sure if I succeeded! I do have a video talking about Rec.709 and color spaces here on my channel as well
Another excellent tutorial for us noobs. Quick question, when shooting in log profile, do you recommend exposing it to the right? Most RU-vidrs recommend +1.7. What do you recommend?
I do, depending on what LOG profile you shoot in. For S-LOG 3 I always expose around +1.7. However, shooting on my own Canon R6 in C-LOG 3 I expose using Zebras and expose for the skintones with Zebras 55 to get as accurate skintones as possible or Zebras 35 if it's for something else than skin. This brings me the best results. If I didn't have Zebras I would aim at +1.7 as well for my Canon.
Great tutorial, very helpful! Switching from Première to Davinci Resolve here, loving it already. One question: these nodes were applied to each individual clip. Do you need to redo this for every clip in the timeline? Seems so much work. How do you do this for a big project with tons of clips?
You can easily mark a clip you already graded using the "clips" menu in the color page and use Command + C (Ctrl + C on Windows) making sure you've highlighted the clip directly in the clips section and then higlight all or as many of the other clips as you want and use Command + V (Ctrl + V on Windows) to paste it to those clips. You can also save a grade by creating a still and apply the still to the other clips. The first method I explained is was I do. I'll do the grade on one clip and then apply it to the rest and adjust from there :)
The quality of the footage will always depend on the settings initially and how 'hard' you go on the grade. I've had amazing results grading the Mini 2 without losing any quality but you definitely have to go a bit easier on it than you would on drone footage shot in LOG. It's a great drone and you can definitely get some great grades without ruining the footage!
I don't, there's no way of seeing that if you don't know which camera it's coming from. The best approach is to try the most common ones first (Sony Log and Canon Log) and see what conversion you like better and then go from there. It doesn't have to be perfect it just needs to get you to a good starting point so you can grade from there if you don't know what camera it was from originally 🙌🏻
I recorded something on cLog3. I tried to edit the video it was not getting better. I don’t know what went wrong. The image is like orange if I try to color grade it, it gets worst.
Doesn't get much simpler than this when it comes to effective Node Trees :-) But it all takes practise and Nodes can be confusing in the beginning until you get a good hang of it
@@AlexBjorstorp oh yeah. It’s def def confusing. I’m like beginner beginner. Just starting out. Trying to teach myself how to edit vids so I’ll know how to edit my own videos I wish I could afford an editor cause this all seems so damn difficult. Gotta give it to editors.. y’all rock 🪨
I still don't understand why you have to make so many nodes. In premiere you ma make one or two layers at the most and you're done. It's so much quicker. Especially if you have to do this for every clip
You don’t have to do anything. If you prefer you can put all your adjustments in one node. The reason why it makes sense to split it, however, is that you can disable and enable every individual node to see exactly how your adjustments affected the clip and colours to tweak it individually. When you have graded one clip you can copy the grade to the others for a faster workflow and adjust the exposure individually as required. Where using multiple nodes becomes extra powerful is when you use parallel nodes. That’s when it kicks Premiere completely out of the park in my opinion but that was a but much for a beginner node tree, however you’ll see more of that in other tutorials of mine. If you prefer to put everything in one node you can, but if you have a node tree structure set up it doesn’t take longer to grade because of multiple nodes than it does scrolling up and down lumitri colour in Premiere - at least for me 😊
@@AlexBjorstorp thank you for clarifying. This makes much more sense. Generally I don't desire to make a bunch of layers or nodes. But I didn't know that you could copy and paste this over to the next clip as well. Then making it easier to make adjustments on each node
@@GetHardNGoFast yes, essentially the way you can see nodes is just as a visual representation of your grading. You can make your node trees as you want and even better you can save them in your power grade folder if you do the same things every time. That way you can just double click your saved grade and it'll be applied to your clips in one click whereafter you could adjust the exposure if needed :-)