Everything you could possibly need to know about color correcting and grading in Premiere Pro!
Unlike correction, grading involves adding a particular look or style to your footage, through coloring. We’re looking at similar parameters to correction, but more specifically at manipulating the colors to achieve a particular results. These outcomes could be things like:
When you’ve mastered the basics, get ready to pick up some advanced Premiere Pro skills with this free three-hour course with Dave Bode. You’ll learn:
Skin tone is often overlooked but it’s really important to get it right. The vectorscope has a skin tone indicator and you’ll want your skin tone to fall within a particular range on this graph. I’ll explain where that should be in this quick video lesson.
I’ll give you a roadmap of what you’re looking at when it comes to Lumetri Color Effect. By the end of this lesson you’ll understand where to find tools for basic corrections, color grading for more creative styles, where your color wheels are, and so on.
“It pays to know where the footage you’re working with, came from and how it was captured.”
This lesson is where we’ll get started with practical color correcting, using LUTs. A LUT is a Look Up Table with set values designed to change the color of your footage. Some of these are camera-specific, so you can get a very precise correction for your imagery, to get it looking right.
If you don’t want to use LUTs, how do you color correct? I’ll go through some essential steps in Premiere with you.
You’ll need consistency across your various clips so that they don’t jar when put together. There are a few ways to do this and I’ll talk you through some of them, including how to export your grade as a LUT that you can then reuse.
An adjustment layer means you can make changes without directly affecting your footage. You can apply a LUT to an adjustment layer above multiple pieces of footage and it will apply to them all. You can then turn off and on the adjustment layer to see its effect. I’ll show you how in this lesson.
You’ll have noticed the traditional ‘cinematic widescreen’ black bars when you’ve watched films. I’ll show you how to add your own here in our last lesson of this course, and if you’d like to learn more about aspect ratios and their fascinating history, I’ve made a little video for you on that too.
You can do more than just color grade in Premiere Pro! Why not try a range of Premiere Pro templates available from Envato Elements. They’re all included in a monthly subscription, so you can try and use as many as you like.
If you’d like to improve your filmmaking skills check out some of our best free Premiere Pro video tutorials and courses!
Or if you prefer to follow along with something written to help you learn, we’ve got a huge library of free Premiere Pro tutorials and template suggestions.
