Lumetri Colour - Colour Grading Workflows
- Lucy Simmons (Unlicensed)
PAGE IN CONSTRUCTION
Setting up a Colour Workspace in Premiere Pro
Open Premiere Pro (Label with Title, Version & Date, e.g. ColourWorkflow_V1_01.01.24) & Import Media.
Open the Colour Workspace on Premiere Pro – click Window > Workspaces > Color
For most general workflows it makes sense to begin at the top of the panel and work your way down.
Open your Lumetri Scopes panel in the source panel when using Lumetri Colour to view your colour scopes.
If you can’t see the ‘Color’ panel on your premiere pro interface, click ‘Window’, ‘Workspaces’ & then ‘Color’.
Scopes
Scopes are helpful visual aids in the colour correction and grading process.
Darkest value = 0
Brightest Value = 100
Adjustment Layer
It is good practice to first create an adjustment layer to put over the clip you are colour grading.
PrP - Basic Editing - Adjustment Layers
Basic Correction
Double click on a slider to reset any changes made.
You can see before and after by selecting the tick mark in the top corner of each tab.
Input LUT: Use this to apply a preset colour adjustment.
Whilst LUTs are not a colour grade, they do add colour back into your footage so that it is no longer ‘flat’.
Colour & Light
Set the black (0) and white (100) points first by looking at the waveform scope. Start with black, then white, then you may need to adjust the black again.
It will define a whole new tonal range – but will need further adjusting.
Adjust the shadows and highlights so that the values are evenly spread out and the image is not too light or dark.
Play with some of the other sliders to add more stylised looks.
Use the white balance dropper to select an area on the image that is supposed to be white, and the sliders will adjust accordingly. This can potentially correct white balance issues, but it isn’t always effective.
Temperature: Measures colour on a warm-cool spectrum.
Cold: Blue, green & purple tones Warm: Orange, red & yellow tones
This is the easiest tool for correcting white balance issues.
Tint: A shade or type of colour.
This is useful when paired with alterations in temperature to correct white balance issues.
Saturation: The intensity of the colours in your footage.
Bright and vivid colours indicate high saturation, whereas subdued colours indicate low saturation.
Exposure: The amount of light in your footage.
If your footage is too light it is overexposed, if it’s too dark it is underexposed.
Contrast: The difference between individual hues that make elements in your footage distinguishable.
Extremely bright and dark parts indicate high contrast, a range of tones indicate medium contrast and no pure whites and blacks, with a range of medium tones indicate low contrast.
Highlights, shadows, whites & blacks are similar but not exactly the same.
Highlights: The brightness in your footage.
Use this slider to brighten the footage without altering the whites. This can be used along with the ‘whites’ slider to ensure the footage doesn’t become “blown out.”
Shadows: A dark area where light has been blocked by an object.
Use this slider to darken the footage without altering the blacks. This can be used along with the ‘blacks’ slider, to stop the footage from losing detail.
Whites: The white point in your footage, that alters the brightness of your footage.
Use this slider to adjust the white point in your footage - generally using this before your ‘highlights’ slider is better because you can set your white point and alter the highlights from there.
Blacks: The black point in your footage, that alters the darkness of your footage.
Use this slider to adjust the black point in your footage - generally using this before your ‘shadows’ slider is better because you can set your black point and alter the shadows from there.
The check mark in the top right hand corner of the ‘Basic Correction’ tab allows you to preview your changes.
Creative
Gives you some more interesting, stylized options in terms of built in ‘looks.’
Look: This can be used to apply a LUT
You can look through the options with the arrows and then click on the picture to apply the look.
Move the Intensity slider to alter the intensity of the LUT.
Adjustments
Faded Film: Increasing this slider will add a faded look on your footage.
You can get a similar effect in Basic Correction when you increase the Blacks
Sharpen: Increase or decrease the sharpness of your footage.
When you decrease the sharpness of your footage it can appear out of focus.
Vibrance: Alters colour of the muted tone in the footage. Already prominent colours will stay the same.
Saturation: Alters overall colour of the footage.
Shadow Tint: Change shadow colour in footage
Will apply to all - can produce some extreme/ unnatural effects.
Highlight Tint: Change highlight colour in footage
Will apply to all - can produce some extreme/ unnatural effects.
Curves
Find RGB curves & some more specific and advanced controls, that are limited to certain colour controls e.g. Hue vs. Saturation.
RGB Curves
RGB Curves is a good place to correct your colour and make very subtle adjustments.
Set the Black (0) and white (100) points first by looking at the waveform.
Drag to the right on the corners to set shadows/ blacks and the left to set highlights/ whites.
You want the waveform to look relatively spread out.
On the line click and pull down to darken the midtones or click and pull up to brighten the midtones.
Top 3rd is highlights; bottom 3rd is shadows.
You can add as many control points as you need.
You also have access to make individual adjustments to your red, green and blue colours.
Color Wheels & Match
Click on Comparison View – there are different types of views with the split.
Generally, side by side is best, but the other two can be handy when working with skin tones.
Click Apply Match
It will do an overall match, but you will need to make adjustments!
Play with the colour wheels to make subtle adjustments – but mostly in the midtones.
You can then go back into the other tabs such as Basic Correction to make further adjustments.
HSL Secondary
Gives you tools to make precise alterations in the colour.
A lot of the HSL Secondary’s features can be achieved via the Curves tab.
Vignette
Simple feature that can be used to dim the edge of the screen – it’s a nice feature to draw the eye to the middle of the screen if you want that effect.