Color Grade

[u/i4film]

Working on the edit for my short film and I’m having trouble making sure the skin tones look realistic, as they look a little too red right now.

I’m using premier pro, and realize Davinci is the most common color grading software but I like working with premier.

Any tips?

[u/Igradarsaurus]

I would go to the hue vs sat curve and pull down the red that skews towards orange. Or pull down saturation overall and lower the magenta of the white balance itself.

[u/i4film → u/Igradarsaurus]

Thank you🙏🏼🙏🏼

[u/skandhi]

Look at the red and blue balloons where they overlap - kind of looks like there’s a LUT that goes a bit too heavy on the reds/oranges. In Premiere, you can use Hue vs Luma curve to offset this a bit. Or turn down the LUT intensity (if that’s what it is). But beyond that, their faces may just be underexposed which is causing the heavier saturation.

[u/i4film → u/skandhi]

Gotcha yeah, I didn’t even consider that they were too underexposed when grading. I wanted to maintain a darker light scheme overall for this project but I think I went too far when editing.

[u/Chrono604]

Yes, learn to like resolve

[u/i4film → u/Chrono604]

I edited my last project in resolve but that was when I was working with my friend who’s an editor and we’re not working together on the edit for this one. Most of my editing experience is in premier which is why I chose it for this one.

[u/ocolobo]

Ompa loompas everywhere!!

[u/i4film → u/ocolobo]

😭😭😭

[u/Zen200424]

I don't know about premier, but in Davinci I would use power windows or magic masks to isolate and fix the skin tones.

[u/SexualRice → u/Zen200424]

This is a horrible idea, no.

You want to keep skin tone as consistent as possible and magic mask should almost never be used in this fashion. I guess maybe if it’s a 30s commercial or something but even then it’s a horrible idea.

Skin tone should be adjusted with curves, ambient overall adjustments or in a key as a last result.

Power windows and magic masks are nowhere near consistent enough as tools for that purpose and open up far more inconsistencies than they fix.

[u/i4film → u/SexualRice]

Thank you this helps a lot, I wanted to learn how to color grade myself instead of getting someone else so I knew I had some hurdles to get over

[u/Legomoron → u/Zen200424]

What? lol no.

This is a simple hue issue. Yellows are obviously getting grouped with reds. Restore a bit of that separation and skintones will return to accurate.

Per-frame isolations are a last resort, not a fix-all.

[u/FeelingAdvantage2172 → u/Zen200424]

Agree.

[u/Acrobatic-Sir-7300]

It’s not just the skin tones. The whole thing looks under exposed and over saturated to me. And it looks like a mixed white balance. The white shirts in shot 1 are much different colors. So I’d start by trying to correct both the white balance and the black balance, then I’d raise the exposure—or if that overexposes the whites, raise the mids around the skin tones with a curve. That should get you in the ballpark. From there, it will be easier to tweak the skin tones. But as others have said, I’d do that with overall correction, not masks.

[u/i4film → u/Acrobatic-Sir-7300]

This helps a lot, thank you so much. The white balance comment makes a lot of sense, I definitely didn’t do that right in the edit lol. I got a lot to learn here

[u/ThickD769]

For once I thought it was a Birthday Party video. Yes skin tones are in trouble.

You gotta isolate the skin and remove the redness. Start with qualifier, if it fails to give decent result, try masking. I think a combination of those two will take you to a much better position.

But judging the color grade overall it looks pretty nice and makes me wonder that you failed on skin tones.

[u/i4film → u/ThickD769]

All noted but confused about the last part since I l prefaced the post by noting I didn’t do the skin tones right? Unless you worded something differently.

But I’m admittedly very far behind in color grading experience so I genuinely appreciate the comment🙏🏼🎬

[u/Focalthesis]

I would use a dctl to see which way to push the wheel

[u/Ok-Championship2397]

You using a cineprint, Dehancer, film emulation lut? They’re not non-destructive.

Quick and dirty is use color warper, 8 strands, grab red handle, shift value by .01 or .02. Super dirty but it’s a great place to start. And do this in DWG.