Color Grading Basics and Advanced Techniques in After Effects

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[Music]
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hey everyone my name is Mason and
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welcome to filter grade if you think of
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color grading you might think of
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Premiere Pro or another program
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dedicated to color grading like DaVinci
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Resolve but of course Adobe Creative
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Cloud programs have a lot of overlap and
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today we'll be using After Effects for
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our color grading if you already know
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how to color gray then this should be an
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easy transition for you color grading in
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After Effects uses a lot of the same
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tools and concepts as Premiere Pro in
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fact today we're going to be focusing on
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the luma tree color effect to apply
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color grading to our footage this is
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something that exists in Premiere Pro
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and is an awesome addition to Adobe
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software if you're just getting into
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color grading this is a perfect place to
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start and again like most Adobe programs
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there are a lot of different ways to
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approach this the approach in this video
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is not the be-all end-all and it's
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certainly not the only way but I think
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it's a great start and this should give
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you some basic knowledge you need to get
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better at color grading so we're gonna
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start with a little clip from an indoor
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shoot that was relatively well lit but
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this camera did not absorb the light
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very well however there's a lot we can
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do to color correct it so we're gonna
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drag in this footage and then we're
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going to right click on our timeline go
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to new adjustment layer this way we can
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be as non-destructive as possible to our
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original footage and we can see a before
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and after so we're going to search our
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effects and presets for lumetri color
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and drag that on to our adjustment layer
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then we'll see all these options on the
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side here go and open up basic
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correction first the very first thing
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that we see here is input LUT and input
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Lutz generally don't look very good but
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there's a variety of different things
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you can do and maybe it's a look you're
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looking for in this case none of these
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look very good so the first thing we're
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gonna do here is white balance this is a
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great tool that you can use to
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automatically white balance your scene
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if out of camera doesn't look very good
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there's temperature and tint which you
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can adjust yourself but to make it easy
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you can grab the eyedropper and click on
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thing light in your scene and that'll
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balance it out I'm going to undo that
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and then bring up the exposure so we can
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kind of see more what's going on here
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you can see that the scene is a little
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orangish so if we grab the eyedropper
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and click on the white wall we see that
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it gets a little more blue takes out
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some of that red that's a little too
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much so I'm going to go maybe here or
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maybe about here I think right there is
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good so it's a little more blue as we
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can see it turned the tint up more into
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the magenta and turn the temperature
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down more into the Blues that's a good
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starting point so that brings me to
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exposure which is the first thing you're
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gonna want to do I'm putting this back
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to zero we can see this is way too dark
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we need to brighten this up a lot so
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we're gonna bump up the exposure don't
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be afraid to bump it up so far that it
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over exposes things because we can we
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can mess with some of that later so we
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can bring that up a little bit and to
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get rid of some of these overexposed
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parts we're actually going to mess with
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the highlights so I'm gonna start by
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dragging those all the way down that
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looks a little weird may bring it back
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up a little bit
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find a good balance it might need to
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lower our exposure in this case and that
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looks pretty good
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you want to make sure the blown out
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parts aren't too blown out but you also
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want to make sure your footage still
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looks natural
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now take let's take a look at what
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contrast does if we bring down our
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contrast then it makes everything kind
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of gray we bring it up there's a stark
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difference between black and white in
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this case it looks pretty good at zero
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we might want to bring it up just a
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little bit hide some of that artifacting
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from bringing up the exposure I think
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actually now that I'm looking at this
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I'm actually going to change the white
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balance to make the temperature a little
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cooler again it's becoming a little a
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little bit too read and then shadows in
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this case I don't think we're gonna want
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to mess with much if we drag them up
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that'll increase and brighten up the
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shadows and bring it down and make the
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shadows darker in this case
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okay we'll bring them up a little bit
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but really they're pretty good where
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they are actually yeah let's just set
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them at zero White's will change the
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intensity of whites so if we drag it up
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that'll make all the white spots even
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brighter in this case we're we can't
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drag them down too much because that
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makes the scene a little bit darker so
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we're gonna leave those at zero as well
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the main thing that shot Nina was
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exposure and the blacks would the same
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thing with the blacks it's quite a
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dramatic effect so we're just gonna
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leave that where it is and then
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saturation of course increases the
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saturation of colors I might want to
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bring this down a little bit in this
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case just because some of those skin
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tones are pretty crazy but overall it's
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not bad and now quickly the before and
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after it's a much better shot and now we
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can see all the lighting that was
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actually in the scene ended up having a
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good effect once we can actually color
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correct it it's a few other things you
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can do
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going into the creative tab there's
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things like faded film that sort of do a
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similar thing to if we upped the blacks
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there's just some certain effects you
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may or may not want to achieve
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sharpening can help a lot you don't want
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to overdo it because that looks weird
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and like a painting but if we just up
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our sharpening a little bit sometimes
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that can make our subject pop a little
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bit more set that around 20 that makes
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the subject here pop quite a bit more
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than the before and here's that at zero
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again and 20
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here we have more things like saturation
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and vibrance so vibrance work similar to
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saturation but it boosts the colors that
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are not saturated first and then we have
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the more complex things like curves
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we're not going to be using curves today
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but if you wanted to adjust curves you
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could change things like shadows
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highlights and mid-tones as well as the
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same thing for every color with these
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curves so there are a lot of options and
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you can do the same with all the colors
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but again that's similar to some of the
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things we're doing up here especially in
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terms of exposure and shadows so really
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whatever you're comfortable with if you
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have prior experience color grading you
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may want to use some of those things and
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then of course if you want to get very
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creative you can go into color wheels
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and change the actual colors of shadows
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mid-tones and highlights directly here
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so in this case that's not something
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that we want to do but let's say we want
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to make those highlights green then we
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would get this image here which is
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obviously not what we want but if you do
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it in subtle ways like the classic teal
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and orange you know we make our make our
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shadows a subtle teal and make our
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mid-tones a subtle orange and that
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accomplishes a very popular filmic look
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so there's a lot you can do to customize
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exactly what you're going for so feel
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free to definitely play around with all
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of these things because there's a lot of
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options and you might stumble upon
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something that you like some things to
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avoid you got to make sure that you
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understand your knowledge level with
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color grading it takes a long time to
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figure out how to color grade well and
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to get an eye for it in this case I
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don't think that this looks good with
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all of these changes we just made so of
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course I'm gonna set that back to where
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it looks a lot better and more natural
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you know it takes a long time to figure
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out what looks natural
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in general the human eye and human brain
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are pretty good at understanding what a
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natural skin tone looks like as well as
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things like grass and sky those are
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things that we know well and can tell if
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they're color graded oddly but still
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with that in mind it can still be hard
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to figure out what looks unnatural
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sometimes you need to take a step back
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because you can end up taking it too far
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so with some of these lessons in mind
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that we've looked at let's go ahead and
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take a look at some other clips so
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here's another quick clip we can look at
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that is decently exposed but we can see
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in the background there's quite a bit of
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bright overexposed light so let's go
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ahead and see what we can do with this
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so we're gonna go to make an adjustment
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layer and then we're going to drag luma
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tree color onto that adjustment layer
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now the first thing that I want to do
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here is of course look the white balance
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there's nice lines here so that can I
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can show the white balance but overall
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it seems like a pretty well-balanced
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scene even if I go to some of these
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other whites it's a it overall is pretty
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good so see I'm gonna say that's pretty
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good so the first thing I might want to
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do here is go into the highlights turn
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them away down now all the way down
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doesn't look good but if I turn them
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just you know that's all the way up as
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all the way down so if we turn them down
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most of the way if that helps a lot
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and then we can adjust the whites so
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it's still bright enough overall
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exposure is good I don't think we need
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to mess with that
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but contrast contrast maybe down a
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little bit but doesn't make too much of
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a difference shadows we might want to
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increase to sort of increase that
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contrast and then blacks I think blacks
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in this case it really depends on what
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you're going for I think they look good
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both all the way down and all the way up
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in this case I think I'm gonna bring
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them up a little bit give more of a gray
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tone and then increase the vibrance a
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little bit to give this green a lot more
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pop at zero this green really doesn't
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look like much we're going to increase
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that a little bit now let's watch the
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footage back yeah it looks a lot more
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lush a lot better now let's take a look
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at those color wheels again and I think
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there's some opportunity to mess with
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them here so let's go to our mid-tones
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which is a good chunk of our footage
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let's try to give that a different look
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so you know we have this green look but
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let's say we want to let's say we want
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to give it a cold look you know maybe
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it's early in the morning it's a little
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chilly out still so we want that green
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in there but we also want a fair bit of
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blue so we can change the highlights
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over to blue we want to be subtle here
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mid-tones can be we don't want them to
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be blue also because then we get very
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much a blue tone so we can make those
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ever so slightly green yellow to kind of
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counterbalance that and then the shadows
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that's something that can definitely be
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blue as well we want that to be very
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subtle in this case the highlights
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really add a lot of the blue in this
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case and it helps take away some of that
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yellow light and the yellow fringing
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around the trees so here's before and
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here's after
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they'll get a much cooler looking scene
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but also more lush at the same time so
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now this kind of shows how you can
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really use these three color wheels to
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play around a lot and fundamentally
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change your footage and looking at the
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original footage this is very warm very
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neutral colored which is a great
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starting point for color grading and now
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here we can see that we've accomplished
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something that's much more pleasing to
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the eyes in general another thing that
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we can do here is a vignette and the
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first option on vignette is a mount if
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we drag that up we get a white vignette
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if we drag it back we get a black one so
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if we drag that all the way to the left
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then that gives us this nice little
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focus
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you know we have some vignette around
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the edge and they just focus more on our
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subject this can be very useful in some
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cases you know it's a stylistic choice
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you can also change the feather to
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change how intense it is obviously
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you'll never want to do this but you can
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make it more intense by decreasing the
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feather I think something like that
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looks good so yeah you can adjust that
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as you see fit but it definitely adds a
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lot more focus keeps the eyes away from
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those corners makes you focus in on
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what's going on at the center of frame
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now lastly let's look at this interior
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shot similar to the first shot we're
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looking at but this one's a little
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better exposed right out of the gate and
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it's only light sources are some light
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shining from outside and some overhead
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light whereas the previous one was only
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you know fluorescent lights on the
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ceiling and then some artificial light
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from soft boxes and things so this is
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all natural no photography lights here
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let's go and add our adjustment layer so
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we're gonna go grab our loom entry color
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and we're gonna go to basic correction
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the first thing we're gonna do is the
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white balance selector this is gonna
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make a big difference in this shot
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because you can see this wall it seems
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like it's supposed to be white or maybe
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off-white and this whole scene is very
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warm and yellow so if we do our white
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balance over here
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look how much that fixes this shot I
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think that in this case the white
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balance makes this shot
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look infinitely better so we've really
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cooled down the temperature and then
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made it a little more magenta exposure
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it's pretty good we're gonna bring it up
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a little bit not so much they blow out
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that wall but just like two or three
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ought to do it and overall I'm pretty
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happy with this shot this walls a little
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blown out so we're going to take the
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highlights and drag them down a bit so
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it looks more natural I think that looks
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pretty good and really there's not a lot
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that we need to do here and bring down
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the blacks just a little bit just barely
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because if we have it at zero
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you know this door is pretty detailed
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but what if we want to put that more in
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shadow something like that I think we
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can darken the shadows here and then we
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can decrease the blacks to get a more
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pure black so in this case I'm doing
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this we can barely see that line on the
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elevator but I also want to make sure we
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have enough light in this corner that we
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can still see the plant and everything
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that's going on over there so bring up
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the exposure and bring down the
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highlights a little bit more drag down
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the whites slightly and now I'm actually
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feeling like the color temperature is a
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little too warm again so I'm gonna drag
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it down a little bit it's a little
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better let's go into the color wheels I
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want my shadows to not be so yellow I
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want them to be more blue toned I think
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that yellow looks pretty gross you know
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it's an office scene a lot of the lights
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kind of make it make everything look
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yellow so I want to turn that on turn
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that blue not green but blue
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and mid-tones since this wall is orange
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I kind of want to go for an orange town
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opposite of the blue again I don't want
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those shadows to turn green like
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something like that looks pretty good
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and then four highlights yeah I'm not
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sure let's kind of mess around with that
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I think something in the red area would
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look pretty good but really we don't
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want to do too much with the highlights
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here maybe just some light blue if that
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wall a little bit more of a blue tone it
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looks pretty solid so here's the after
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and here's the before a little too blue
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now I think that looks pretty good so we
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had a very kind of dark shot you know
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not a lot of light in pretty yellow
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pretty warm and now we have something
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that's a little more neutral almost on
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the cool side doesn't look as badly like
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it's a lot lit with fluorescent light
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and a big thing is that you know some of
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the details we've either captured or or
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hidden so that elevator not important so
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we've kind of darkened it up in that
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corner is a little mysterious a little
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higher contrast but it just looks like a
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much more neutral scene let's go ahead
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and go into creative again let's try to
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sharpen this up a little bit that can
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sometimes help we don't have a clear
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subject in here but sharpening will help
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us a little bit and then
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looks like we're good without vibrance
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and then a little bit of faded film and
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give us a little more of a vintage look
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but it's not too too important in this
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case we don't want to you can see the
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blacks are already kind of struggling
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here on the elevator so I might turn
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both those down a little bit
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just give it a subtle look and I think I
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think we're done looks a lot better so
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thank you all for watching this tutorial
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on color grading in After Effects the
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Lindt recolor panel and After Effects is
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exactly the same as it is in something
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like Premiere Pro so feel free to learn
18:14
whatever software you want but you may
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find that you're spending spending a lot
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of time in After Effects and that you
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want to learn how to color grade in it
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as well let us know your questions or
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comments down below let us know if you
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want to make any further videos on color
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grading or on After Effects and we'll be
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sure to do so thanks for watching and
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we'll see you in the next one if you
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enjoyed this video be sure to LIKE and
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[Music]

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