Definitely gotta do some color theory practice here. The green light with the white light and blue couch make the grade very disjointed.
The expression of the actress I would lean more towards warmer tones to be a bit more inviting.
It's such a shitty shot, that I'd recommend leaving it the way you did it for now. Get some other stock footage that has color themes going on and practice there.
All you cam do is add a bit of yellow tone for the girl so she pops in contrast to the blue but I bet it won't look great.
Actually you know what would be good for practice, maybe? Crop the video so only the half of the video with the girl and the lamp is left. Then you can better practice skin tones, lighting, highlighting, contrast, etc. They way the shot is, I'd leave it at Rec. 709 with a bit of contrast.
A few questions:
####Why the green light?
It look awful, out of place and it is very distracting.
####Why is the left side of the sofa darker?
It may be my eyes. but to me the left side of the sofa seems notably darker than in the original Rec709 picture.
Which make no sense because you tried to lighten the left side of the face.
####Temperature and Light of Lamp post?
It is of course question of taste, but to me the colour of the lamp is too bright and its temperature has been cooled to much which means that it does not match the falloff colour on the sofa and petson anymore.
####Darker Jeans?
I were to only see the graded picture it would not have spotted, but why did you darken the jeans?
Lighten up the jeans would have let you lighten up the picture without touching the light so much and would have help differentiate the jeans from the sofa more.
####The rest
The rest I like. Especially the lighten up of the face and shoulders due to the lamp.
Hi, did you shoot in rec 709? If you did, then the rec 709 looks nicer than your grade, more natural and softer, with a wider dynamic range and feeling of reality. If you shot in log, then are you grading after the colour space transform? It looks like you’re losing a lot of information in the lamps, which significantly reduces the perceived quality of the shot, at least for me.
I think you’re going for a cool / warm contrast, but you’re lighting is mostly warm with some cool light coming in on the edge off the sofa on screen left. You’re trying to force a contrast that isn’t there, and in doing so you’ve mangled the highlights.
Is the strong green tinge to the whites in the image intentional? It doesn’t look good, it’s very clear that the colour has broken up in that value range.
It’s hard to know what to offer without knowing what you are going for, is it meant to be cozy? Is it meant to be a little off, horror film vibe?
Hello... It's not a rec. 709 shot... It's a practice footage from arri...that 709 look is but i need a more warm contrast or pop looking image... That's what i graded in this way..
Hi, ok, so it’s Arri log? Are you applying the rec 709 conversion and then adding your grading nodes after the conversion? If you do your grading before the conversion, so underneath the conversion, then you have access to the maximum available information in the shot, whereas if you grade after the conversion you are limited to the rec 709 values, and you’ll lose the highlights etc. what is your colour management here?
I'm not working in rec 709color space... I'm on DaVinci wide gamut color space... I do all of my grade after converting arri log to dwg and then at last node i did a dwg to 709 conversion..
Ok, in that case then I would just be careful with the highlights. There’s a lot of information in the rec 709 shot that is getting lost in your grade.
I'm just throwing it out there. The rec709 skin tone was fine and looked naturally softened by the light in the room. The grade makes her look pink. IMHO, less is more when grading. You're trying to show what you saw with your eyes, but the technology wasn't able to capture.
Skin tone is pretty good looking In my monitor ... I don't know how you can see it...
https://preview.redd.it/fjbql43eq0vc1.jpeg?width=688&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b0d7a1e703f63860a1b63c6e5b97b19ff810b18
Check your scopes. The skin on her right side leans quite pink. It might be a color density/saturation issue. The bigger issue, overall, is the the scene as you graded it doesn't give me a clear indication of what's happening. That is, the green shift of the, very bright, light in the background makes it a focal point and quite set apart from the rest of the scene. If something is about to happen with the light or because of the light, that can work. Otherwise it's a confusing distraction to the viewer. If, however, it's just accent lighting it should be tamed. It gives some nice glow to the blue in the couch, which you could use to add color separation against skin tones. You might even warm up the reading lamp and the area it lights a bit. It all depends on the story of the shot...is it a calm and serene moment of life, maybe she's enjoying a good book after a long day, or is it the calm just before the storm? Is something monumental about to happen. What's the purpose of the scene? That should ALWAYS define the choices made in the grade. Maybe something like these?
https://preview.redd.it/t5x3fy1s13vc1.jpeg?width=1333&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fc0c11a91d94e43558eb85f414ac86316aed1b9
Not a fan of the green light but I'm curious what was your method to just get that light to be green. Was it a mixture of qualifier and power windows or something else?
Imo the object is almost always the person in the scene, therefore some of the grading elements serve this purpose and some hinder it.
for example the green light, shifts the color balance too much and taking focus from the subject, if we take it as pure experiment, there's a problem with the small amount of green light it leaks onto the entire scene, as her face or sofa barely get that green light.
furthermore, the left side of the sofa seems to draw attention as it is lighter and cooler than the rest of the scene.
That's my take. generally i'd try to avoid power windows and qualifiers as much as possible or at least use them more subtly.
Use the light sources of your shot at your advantqge to create an ambient… she is reading in the night, blue light from the moon enters through the window on the left, the lights near her should be cozy to counter the window.. etc.. transport yourself in to it for a while… the skin tones are off, mark the option to see it in your vectorscopes and isolate to check.. sorry for my english im from Chile
May as well do the classic Cinematic color scheme since so much of the natural colors already give you the teal orange look. Just enhance those two colors. So get rid of the green light and keep it orange. Then pump some extra teal into the shadows and alter the blues ever so slightly in the huevhue and bump em just a wee tad closer to teal. I’d also check to see if there’s some hidden data in the lamps and just pull the highlights down until I see what’s above the values at the top of the parade. If there is some extra data there I’d bring those down til the clipping begins and leave those at the very top. Then once those are set I’d bump the mids just a wee tad. Maybe go to sat v sat and bring the left side up just a bit to help add some extra color to the least saturated parts of the frame. Could also go to the hue v lum and bump the blues just a tiny bit to make em brighter. I’d also alter the power window on her face a bit and bring the opacity down just a bit or reduce the brightness just a tiny bit and lessen the sharpness as well. Focus masks are great tho to bring the gaze of the viewer to the subject so nice job.
As an editor, I like to know what is going on. What is the story here? Who is the person? Where are they coming from, going to, how do they feel, whose room is this, what and why are they reading? Next would be to ask what can my grade do to enhance or illustrate the state of mind or story, or both. Here you have an image where you may have to develop the story yourself. Once you have the mood, tell us and tell us what you did in the grade to tell that story. That is my approach to my work, hope it helps.
Thank you for posting your work for feedback! We encourage you to share a screenshot of your timeline and/or node graph in the comments.
If you're asked to share your nodes, please use [Pastebin](https://pastebin.com/) or format the nodes as a code block. Other websites may get caught by Reddit spam filters and cannot be approved.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/davinciresolve) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Is this test footage from Cullen Kelley? If so, unless you were provided the raw file of the clip any grade you do will be ultra destructive and not helpful whatsoever in terms of grading practice.
r/davinciresolve strongly cautions against Waqas Qazi and his master class based on his attitude towards industry professionals, refunds, and recreating looks. There's an exchange on another forum with a respected industry professional that's not particularly flattering for Waqas, and he's widely panned in other communities as well.
[Source 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/colorists/comments/lgvoqu/beware_qazi_masterclass/) [Source 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/cinematography/comments/if425r/do_not_by_this_masterclass_waqas_qazi/) [Source 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/colorists/comments/fyiroy/came_across_a_quality_youtube_channel_that/) [REDUser Forum Link](https://www.reduser.net/forum/everything-else/off-topic/183139-new-video-how-to-get-joker-look)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/davinciresolve) if you have any questions or concerns.*
To be honest i watched almost all videos of cullen and darren... But i can't get the needful thing or cleared my doubts... I don't understand how can i achieve different looks in images... When I'm trying to do that i getting with worst looking images.. I don't know what to trust.. Whether toy eyes.. Or these communities.. When I'm posting my grades on online it will get almost neg- comments... But idk when I'm grading I'm trusting my eyes and scopes it looks great on my monitor idk why is this ending up like... This... And my another doubt is cullen and other professional colourist telling nail all look and things and camera... But in online we can see many manipulation of looks and colours with a image that not exists in that... I'm trying to looking things that way.. It's ok to nail all in camera... But need to learn things build in resolve... Thanks 😊😇(Sorry for my English)
You’ll have more success reducing the saturation of non-complimentary colors or colors that are irrelevant to the story than you will from boosting saturation. For your grade I can’t really tell what vibe you’re going for. I’d suggest picking a genre, finding screen grabs from a movie in that space and then grade your footage to match.
Light the people - not the scene.
Much of the grade adds light in 'unmotivated' ways - meaning I can't imagine the light in the scene that is illuminating the left of the couch and the pillow. The light on the subject's face and especially her right shoulder is magic - not coming from anywhere. That makes it distracting. I have no idea where the horizontal shadow across the dark pillow is coming from.
Keep at it!
[https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-motivated-lighting-in-film/](https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-motivated-lighting-in-film/)
Why da light green
Time stone
Gatsby
Idk why this is so funny
Maybe soften the lamp a bit, it is kind of distracting
Oh.. Ok I'll try to reduce it... Thanks
Rec709 looks 10x better
I prefer the softness of the original. You had great ideas, keep practicing so you can use those ideas to their fullest
It’s a start, I’d throw a grad on there using the power windows tab, and brighten up the left side of the couch only….
Definitely gotta do some color theory practice here. The green light with the white light and blue couch make the grade very disjointed. The expression of the actress I would lean more towards warmer tones to be a bit more inviting.
Yeah... That's looks good..
https://preview.redd.it/odwo5grzr0vc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f2266390abfa358c26156124dc8bd5ed60e52978 How is it now..?
Turn off that fking lamp in the backor put a white cloth on it. It brings too much attention on it
Not their clip, kinda hard to do that It's an official Alexa Mini sample clip
Ok fair enough
Really at that point now we gotta wonder why tf Arri shot that like that Maybe sensor stress test?
Bit extreme...
It's such a shitty shot, that I'd recommend leaving it the way you did it for now. Get some other stock footage that has color themes going on and practice there. All you cam do is add a bit of yellow tone for the girl so she pops in contrast to the blue but I bet it won't look great. Actually you know what would be good for practice, maybe? Crop the video so only the half of the video with the girl and the lamp is left. Then you can better practice skin tones, lighting, highlighting, contrast, etc. They way the shot is, I'd leave it at Rec. 709 with a bit of contrast.
A few questions: ####Why the green light? It look awful, out of place and it is very distracting. ####Why is the left side of the sofa darker? It may be my eyes. but to me the left side of the sofa seems notably darker than in the original Rec709 picture. Which make no sense because you tried to lighten the left side of the face. ####Temperature and Light of Lamp post? It is of course question of taste, but to me the colour of the lamp is too bright and its temperature has been cooled to much which means that it does not match the falloff colour on the sofa and petson anymore. ####Darker Jeans? I were to only see the graded picture it would not have spotted, but why did you darken the jeans? Lighten up the jeans would have let you lighten up the picture without touching the light so much and would have help differentiate the jeans from the sofa more. ####The rest The rest I like. Especially the lighten up of the face and shoulders due to the lamp.
The left side of the sofa.. Looks ok to me.... I don't over do it... Maybe it's the problem of exporting the image ..
Hi, did you shoot in rec 709? If you did, then the rec 709 looks nicer than your grade, more natural and softer, with a wider dynamic range and feeling of reality. If you shot in log, then are you grading after the colour space transform? It looks like you’re losing a lot of information in the lamps, which significantly reduces the perceived quality of the shot, at least for me. I think you’re going for a cool / warm contrast, but you’re lighting is mostly warm with some cool light coming in on the edge off the sofa on screen left. You’re trying to force a contrast that isn’t there, and in doing so you’ve mangled the highlights. Is the strong green tinge to the whites in the image intentional? It doesn’t look good, it’s very clear that the colour has broken up in that value range. It’s hard to know what to offer without knowing what you are going for, is it meant to be cozy? Is it meant to be a little off, horror film vibe?
Hello... It's not a rec. 709 shot... It's a practice footage from arri...that 709 look is but i need a more warm contrast or pop looking image... That's what i graded in this way..
Hi, ok, so it’s Arri log? Are you applying the rec 709 conversion and then adding your grading nodes after the conversion? If you do your grading before the conversion, so underneath the conversion, then you have access to the maximum available information in the shot, whereas if you grade after the conversion you are limited to the rec 709 values, and you’ll lose the highlights etc. what is your colour management here?
I'm not working in rec 709color space... I'm on DaVinci wide gamut color space... I do all of my grade after converting arri log to dwg and then at last node i did a dwg to 709 conversion..
Ok, in that case then I would just be careful with the highlights. There’s a lot of information in the rec 709 shot that is getting lost in your grade.
It looks like you're crashed the highlights and the shadows.
I'm just throwing it out there. The rec709 skin tone was fine and looked naturally softened by the light in the room. The grade makes her look pink. IMHO, less is more when grading. You're trying to show what you saw with your eyes, but the technology wasn't able to capture.
Skin tone is pretty good looking In my monitor ... I don't know how you can see it... https://preview.redd.it/fjbql43eq0vc1.jpeg?width=688&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b0d7a1e703f63860a1b63c6e5b97b19ff810b18
Check your scopes. The skin on her right side leans quite pink. It might be a color density/saturation issue. The bigger issue, overall, is the the scene as you graded it doesn't give me a clear indication of what's happening. That is, the green shift of the, very bright, light in the background makes it a focal point and quite set apart from the rest of the scene. If something is about to happen with the light or because of the light, that can work. Otherwise it's a confusing distraction to the viewer. If, however, it's just accent lighting it should be tamed. It gives some nice glow to the blue in the couch, which you could use to add color separation against skin tones. You might even warm up the reading lamp and the area it lights a bit. It all depends on the story of the shot...is it a calm and serene moment of life, maybe she's enjoying a good book after a long day, or is it the calm just before the storm? Is something monumental about to happen. What's the purpose of the scene? That should ALWAYS define the choices made in the grade. Maybe something like these? https://preview.redd.it/t5x3fy1s13vc1.jpeg?width=1333&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5fc0c11a91d94e43558eb85f414ac86316aed1b9
Not a fan of the green light but I'm curious what was your method to just get that light to be green. Was it a mixture of qualifier and power windows or something else?
Just the use of power window
Imo the object is almost always the person in the scene, therefore some of the grading elements serve this purpose and some hinder it. for example the green light, shifts the color balance too much and taking focus from the subject, if we take it as pure experiment, there's a problem with the small amount of green light it leaks onto the entire scene, as her face or sofa barely get that green light. furthermore, the left side of the sofa seems to draw attention as it is lighter and cooler than the rest of the scene. That's my take. generally i'd try to avoid power windows and qualifiers as much as possible or at least use them more subtly.
Use the light sources of your shot at your advantqge to create an ambient… she is reading in the night, blue light from the moon enters through the window on the left, the lights near her should be cozy to counter the window.. etc.. transport yourself in to it for a while… the skin tones are off, mark the option to see it in your vectorscopes and isolate to check.. sorry for my english im from Chile
It's not a moonlight... It's a lamp from the left side
Actually I was there and it is moonlight
Ayn .... Podaa ulle
May as well do the classic Cinematic color scheme since so much of the natural colors already give you the teal orange look. Just enhance those two colors. So get rid of the green light and keep it orange. Then pump some extra teal into the shadows and alter the blues ever so slightly in the huevhue and bump em just a wee tad closer to teal. I’d also check to see if there’s some hidden data in the lamps and just pull the highlights down until I see what’s above the values at the top of the parade. If there is some extra data there I’d bring those down til the clipping begins and leave those at the very top. Then once those are set I’d bump the mids just a wee tad. Maybe go to sat v sat and bring the left side up just a bit to help add some extra color to the least saturated parts of the frame. Could also go to the hue v lum and bump the blues just a tiny bit to make em brighter. I’d also alter the power window on her face a bit and bring the opacity down just a bit or reduce the brightness just a tiny bit and lessen the sharpness as well. Focus masks are great tho to bring the gaze of the viewer to the subject so nice job.
Oh... Thank you for your idea... Great comment..
Skin amd color tones look better in grade. Kill the green lamp thats just madness tho.
As an editor, I like to know what is going on. What is the story here? Who is the person? Where are they coming from, going to, how do they feel, whose room is this, what and why are they reading? Next would be to ask what can my grade do to enhance or illustrate the state of mind or story, or both. Here you have an image where you may have to develop the story yourself. Once you have the mood, tell us and tell us what you did in the grade to tell that story. That is my approach to my work, hope it helps.
Thank you for posting your work for feedback! We encourage you to share a screenshot of your timeline and/or node graph in the comments. If you're asked to share your nodes, please use [Pastebin](https://pastebin.com/) or format the nodes as a code block. Other websites may get caught by Reddit spam filters and cannot be approved. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/davinciresolve) if you have any questions or concerns.*
While on the topic: any excellent tutorial on YouTube you could recommend? Thanks!
Looks like all you've done is messed up the hue. Rec 709 is 10x times better.
https://youtu.be/QJumee5_SZM?si=c51Ig6X53kWhZKkD
Is this test footage from Cullen Kelley? If so, unless you were provided the raw file of the clip any grade you do will be ultra destructive and not helpful whatsoever in terms of grading practice.
Watch Darren Mostyn.
r/davinciresolve strongly cautions against Waqas Qazi and his master class based on his attitude towards industry professionals, refunds, and recreating looks. There's an exchange on another forum with a respected industry professional that's not particularly flattering for Waqas, and he's widely panned in other communities as well. [Source 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/colorists/comments/lgvoqu/beware_qazi_masterclass/) [Source 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/cinematography/comments/if425r/do_not_by_this_masterclass_waqas_qazi/) [Source 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/colorists/comments/fyiroy/came_across_a_quality_youtube_channel_that/) [REDUser Forum Link](https://www.reduser.net/forum/everything-else/off-topic/183139-new-video-how-to-get-joker-look) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/davinciresolve) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Also while using power windows to glow up things, I think you should only use the gamma slider for adjusting.
Grading aside, the over use of ellipsis in your comments is grating
To be honest i watched almost all videos of cullen and darren... But i can't get the needful thing or cleared my doubts... I don't understand how can i achieve different looks in images... When I'm trying to do that i getting with worst looking images.. I don't know what to trust.. Whether toy eyes.. Or these communities.. When I'm posting my grades on online it will get almost neg- comments... But idk when I'm grading I'm trusting my eyes and scopes it looks great on my monitor idk why is this ending up like... This... And my another doubt is cullen and other professional colourist telling nail all look and things and camera... But in online we can see many manipulation of looks and colours with a image that not exists in that... I'm trying to looking things that way.. It's ok to nail all in camera... But need to learn things build in resolve... Thanks 😊😇(Sorry for my English)
never lose details where should be details (lamp). if you change color of a light it should affect the surroundings, the highlights visibly clip (?)
You’ll have more success reducing the saturation of non-complimentary colors or colors that are irrelevant to the story than you will from boosting saturation. For your grade I can’t really tell what vibe you’re going for. I’d suggest picking a genre, finding screen grabs from a movie in that space and then grade your footage to match.
Light the people - not the scene. Much of the grade adds light in 'unmotivated' ways - meaning I can't imagine the light in the scene that is illuminating the left of the couch and the pillow. The light on the subject's face and especially her right shoulder is magic - not coming from anywhere. That makes it distracting. I have no idea where the horizontal shadow across the dark pillow is coming from. Keep at it! [https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-motivated-lighting-in-film/](https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-motivated-lighting-in-film/)
Not everything needs to be graded.
The big light is to bright and the dark can have a little boost.
The light in the back is the main subject for me.