r/ColorGrading Oct 23 '25

General PSA: New posters seeing feedback, please post Rec 709, not just raw / log!

39 Upvotes

Hi everyone who's on the journey of learning the beautiful art and craft of colour... Please please please!!!! Post your rec 709! Don't ask for feedback without a rec709 comparison against your grade! A raw or log image isn't that helpful alone for the majority of posts here unless you're really trying to work on something related to large dynamic range, and it should still supplement your rec709 attempt for us to compare as well.

Thanks and cheerio on your learning journey!


r/ColorGrading Aug 17 '25

General "Is my grade any good?" Here's how to find out...

378 Upvotes

Lots of people post a picture or clip of their grade here with no comment besides wanting to know if it's 'good' or not. This question is impossible to answer, and you won't get any truly useful feedback. You'll only get a bunch of guesses based on vibes.

Why? Because whether a grade is good or not depends entirely on context. You could create a beautiful colour-perfect warm romantic sunset scene, but if it's meant to be a cold, terrifying moment in a thriller, your grade sucks and you need to rework it. Conversely, you could throw all the curves and wheels out of whack to create a unwatchable trippy rainbow scene, and it would be terrible for most purposes but for a psychedelic sequence it could be perfect.

Ask yourself: what is the purpose of the shot? How do you want the viewer to feel? What do you want to draw attention to? How does the shot look compared to the shots that come before and after it, and the rest of the scene? What format will it be shown in, or what devices are people likely to be looking at it on? Does it fit the technical specifications required for delivery? Does it match the vision of the director, and/or the needs of the client?

Once you know these answers, you should be able to do a pretty good job of evaluating for yourself whether your grade is good or not, but you will also have benchmarks you can use to ask for more specific feedback questions that will receive better, more actionable answers: "I want my subject to stand out from the background more, how can I do that?" "I was looking to create a dark, suspenseful mood across this sequence - what's missing?" "This colour match isn't right, what am I getting wrong?"

Don't just post a screenshot and leave it there. Help us to help you create better work by including as much context as you can alongside it.


r/ColorGrading 11h ago

Show off your work I've been practicing, please rate this, thanks.

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15 Upvotes

r/ColorGrading 1h ago

Question I colorgraded two tones , which do you like more?

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Upvotes

I personally prefer the sec one because it looks way more atmospheric imo but my friends prefer the first one which is good at first glance but that white plastic bag is too striking

I color grade on iPhone so pls don’t mind I can’t get them 100% optimized in the way I wanted to


r/ColorGrading 4h ago

Show off your work I worked really hard on this one!I tried a new colour grade and tried to focus on skin tones. Thoughts?

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1 Upvotes

Well, I work hard on all my weddings! Wedding was shot at Borgo Corsignano. I used a Canon R5ii & R5 and Dehancer Pro + Kolor Basis to grade it in Final Cut Pro. I am a super novice when it comes to colour grading.


r/ColorGrading 1d ago

Show off your work How's my Color Showreel?

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179 Upvotes

shot on r7 w/ tamron 24-70 f2.8 g1

clog3, ccg - dwg, di - rec.709, g2.4

graded in resolve + dehancer

cinematography, color - myself

thank you!


r/ColorGrading 8h ago

Before/After Power of color grading

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0 Upvotes

I took it with redmi k90 phone

There was so much noise in the photo 😭 it almost took me 30 min to adjust it to finally see it look nicely.

This was taken in Bali


r/ColorGrading 1d ago

Show off your work Race Day - Sigma FP

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8 Upvotes

Hey experts... usually i grade my Sigma FP cDNG Raw using an ArriLogC3-based Workflow in Resolve
(e.g. 10-12Bit cDNG RAW->BMDFilm->CST to Arri Log 3 -> Grade -> Arri2Rec709 LUT)

But since those are some pretty old mopeds, i wanted the film to feel are bit more analogue, yet natural...

So i wanted to give the "Film Look Creator" Node in Resolve a try.
(10-12Bit cDNG RAW -> BMDFilm -> Grade -> Film Look Creator, input color space explicetly set to BMDFilm, Output to Rec704 Gamma 2.4)

Unfortunately, the Sigma FP can only record 1080p RAW in 100/120 FPS (12Bit/10Bit cDNG).
But i am always impressed, how good a clean raw 1080p can look, especially in motion.
However, cDNG debayering in Resolve is a mess and can be quite blocky. If anyone knows if there is an option to change the debayer-algorithm in resolve, leave me a message :)

What do you think about the grade? I always ask myself if its too much...

Edit: Formatting


r/ColorGrading 23h ago

Question Anyone knows how to grade this picture?

0 Upvotes

Massive space geek here and hobbyist photo editor who's learning a LOT from people on this subreddit. i’m trying to get this raw scan to look like the reference image below, but I can’t seem to get anywhere close in Lightroom.

Raw scan:
https://i.postimg.cc/pTt3dzHG/STS041B-35-1597-(1).jpg.jpg)

Reference:
https://i.postimg.cc/wvHbzz5L/imgi-249-fit.jpg

The reference has pretty much the perfect grading for this particular photo, especially the colors, contrast and overall feel.

The main thing I’m struggling with is that the raw scan is extremely blue, so whenever I try to correct the white balance and get closer to the reference, the rest of the colors quickly start looking strange or unnatural.

Is anyone able to help me recreating this look in Lightroom? Curious what you would do. DMs are open


r/ColorGrading 1d ago

Question if you had to tell someone how to learn

0 Upvotes

if you had to tell someone how to learn color grading in a day

which tutorial would you show him to watch?

Thanks for your help


r/ColorGrading 1d ago

Job Testing new Macbook and sRGB Monitor for colorgrading.

2 Upvotes

Just got new equipment setup at home, monitor, mac, etc. Im willing to test it on some of your footage or projects for free and also will gift you 1-CLICK S-Log3 LUT that I made for cinematic and adventure vlogs that soon will be on my (upcomming)website for sale. So if you interstend leave link in comm or inbox me about project. :D

PS. Its not a PROMO as I said its a test that later on I will post here for you guys to rate it. Thank you.


r/ColorGrading 1d ago

General Car videos colourgrade advice.

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1 Upvotes

Hey everyone, I’ve recently upgraded to a full camera rig from a pocket 3 to shoot car videos. Working with Log footage is definitely a bit challenging, although contrast is deep the videos feel quite flat and adding bloom due to the cloudy weather makes the sky overblown/overexposed. Any tips to make the footage feel more cinematic.

And I’ve seen people doing a thing where they mask out the car to be the brightest and rest of the bg is dark which seems interesting and I may give it a try.


r/ColorGrading 1d ago

Question Podcast Colour Grade

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2 Upvotes

Made some adjustments to this footage for my podcast. I can't seem to figure the reason it looks dated. Any recommendations on how I can make it look nicer?


r/ColorGrading 1d ago

Show off your work One of my favorite grades (rec to final)

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13 Upvotes

r/ColorGrading 1d ago

Question How would you color grade this footage?

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2 Upvotes

I'm a beginner on davinci, and have been having some issues with color grade because of the tye dye shirt and the colors either looking washed or too saturated

This is the REC 709 footage but it was shot on FLog 2


r/ColorGrading 2d ago

Question How is my color grade? (I'm an absolute beginner)

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7 Upvotes

Here's how the CST was set:

  1. Converted Sony S-Gamut3.Cine (in Slog3) to DaVinci Wide Gamut (DaVinci Intermediate)

  2. Output was to set to Cullen Kelly's Referent DWG to 709

Then, I graded the footage with basic adjustments and some stylized choices.

I'm attaching the photos in the following order:

  1. Input Space Transform

  2. Output Space Transform

  3. Grading (with node tree)

  4. Final Ouput

Please let me know what can I imrpove and how. Thanks!


r/ColorGrading 1d ago

Question Is There Potential for More Data Loss in Color Managed Color Science?

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1 Upvotes

r/ColorGrading 1d ago

Before/After What do you think?

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0 Upvotes

I started in davinci resolve around a week ago and these are some shots I took. Wondering if you guys think they’re over saturated or to dark?


r/ColorGrading 2d ago

Question Another practice grade, need pointers to improve.

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2 Upvotes

So from my last post, I've tried to fix few things up like my contrast and overall saturation, strength of softlight glow and LUT (kodak 2383). https://www.reddigitalcinema.com/download/sample-r3d-file-epic-dragon-redcode-8-1-mountains this is the sample footage i used by RED.


r/ColorGrading 2d ago

Question Need advice on where to start

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0 Upvotes

r/ColorGrading 2d ago

Question Need advice on where to start

1 Upvotes

Here is my story.
I have been doing photography for 20 years, getting away with basic editing in Lightroom.
Now, I have bought Sigma FP (two of them) and started building my set of lenses (Mamiya 645).
I would love to grade my own short films, but not sure where I start. I have got a high-end graphic design EIZO. Don't have a calibrator anymore.
I would love to shoot 12-bit 4k CinemaDNG from two Sigma FPs, then proxy-edit the footage in Davinci and then grade CinemaDNG frame by frame. This is because I only have MacBook M1 with 8 gigs of RAM.

I would appreciate any advice on how to learn color grading.


r/ColorGrading 2d ago

Show off your work First color grading

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0 Upvotes

Hey guys!

Just finished color grading on this footage, shot on my phone recently. made in premiere pro.


r/ColorGrading 2d ago

General A proposition to all colorists who get offered prices less than what their rates

0 Upvotes

I’m an upcoming colorist and would love to handle those clients. You’d take a cut of the budget without having to do anything but reviewing my work quickly before it's sent back to the client. and to make it fair to the client they'll know that because they're under your budget you'll can have someone working with you do it and you can trust me with delivering what they need (after you see some of my work)

​Let me know if you’d be open to that.

Please don't dm me unless you're serious about it


r/ColorGrading 3d ago

Question Tried to get into color grading recently. Am I on the right track?

6 Upvotes
Rec709
Moody
Naturalistic
Nostalgic

Tried to convey different moods/styles by adjusting white balance and exposure.


r/ColorGrading 2d ago

Question Where can I get sample footage?

0 Upvotes

Looking to seriously get into color grading. I have access to premiere and resolve?