These three clips are all taken from my Lenny Cut exercise.
Clip one
Version one
This clip was shot during the sunset, and we forgot to adjust the white balance, so it looks so blue. In the first version of my color grading, I did the color correction first. I brought the temperature up to 58.9 to get rid of the blue color, then I brought the tint down to -31.1 because I want this scene to look cinematic. Next, I turned up 0.3 of exposure since the brightness its enough, and brought the contrast up to 41.6 and did some adjustment to its highlights, shadows, whites and blacks to strengthen its cinematic quality.
After the color correction, I began to experiment with color wheels. The skin tone of Steve still looks a lit bit blue, so I pulled the highlight cross and shadow cross to the yellow area, and applied a little bit blue in the midtones to make Steve’s skin tone looks normal. I am not very clear about how color wheels work, I just watched the color grading tutorial shared on canvas and imitated what the YouTuber did. It seems like he drags the highlight cross and shadow cross to the color area that is opposite to the skin tone of the person in the video if his or her skin tone looks wrong, then makes the midtone cross opposite to highlight cross and shadow cross to balance them. I don’t know if my understanding is right but Steve’s skin tone looks better in this version.
Version two
In the version two, I wanted to give this scene the normal look. I did the basic color correction, like white balance, exposure, contrast, shadows, whites and blacks. I turned the contrast to 23.4 for the purpose of highlighting the edges of Steve’s body. Also, the color of this scene looks a little bit pale to me, so I increased the saturation to 116.7. I only want the color of this scene looks normal, and Steve’s skin tone looks fine to me, so I did nothing to the color wheels.
Version three
Since the indoor scenes of Lenny Cut have orange look, I wanted to give my version three a warm look so that the whole Lenny cut can have the same tone. I brought the temperature up to 58.9 but down the tint only to -14.8, which makes the clip more orange rather than purple. Actually, I don’t remember why I did that to the tone. Maybe I wanted to bring up the contrast to create the cinematic look but I don’t want the highlight too bright on Steve’s face, so I decreased the highlights and the whites. On color wheelings I did nothing to the highlights and the shadows but applied a little bit orange to strength the warm look.
Clip two
The blue color is also caused due to the lack of white balance adjustment before shooting, but it can be fixed by color grading.
Version one
In the first version, I wanted to make it pretty warm so I adjusted the temperature up to 69.4 and tint up to 19.6. Then I did a little bit change to exposure, contrast and shadows but increased the highlights up to 30.1. I think the reason why I did is because I wanna give more exposure only to the brightest part. If I increased the exposure rather than the highlights, the darkest part would be brighter and the sunset scene would be spoiled. After finishing the basic correction, I found it looks like the sunset was pink at that time, which is great. So I ended it and began my next version.
Version two
In the version two, I experimented with the yellow-green look. I increased the temperature to neutralize the blue and decreased the tint to about -30 to create a green look. Then I slightly adjusted the exposure, shadows and blacks, brought the contrast up to create the cinematic look, and increased the highlights and the whites to brighten the brightest part. In the color wheels, I pulled the highlight cross and shadow cross to the yellow area to create the yellow look, and pulled the midtone cross to be opposite to yellow.
Version three
In the version three, I wanted to make a matched look with the version three of the first clip. So I turned up the temperature and turned down the tint, and increased the contrast and the saturation for the cinematic look. Since Yuchen’s face look a little bit pale in the clip, I pulled the highlight cross a little bit to the red area to make her face ruddy.
Clip three
Version one
The clip three is an indoor scene. I wanted it to look pretty different from the original version, so I made it a blue look. I brought the temperature down to -76.1 to make it blue enough. I did some slight change to the tint, exposure, shadows and saturation. Then I increased the contrast, highlights and whites, which produce the cinematic look and also make Steve’s face angular.
Version two
I wanted the version two look a little bit purple, so I turned down the temperature to -10 and turned up the tint to 15.8. Then some slight changes to exposure, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks to decrease the brightness. An obvious increase in the contrast was made to bring the cinematic effect. Because I only brought the temperature down to -10, the clip still looks a little bit orange. On the color wheelings I pulled the highlights and the midtones a little bit to the blue side. Then to make his skin looks ruddy, I pulled the shadow cross a little bit to the red area.
Version three
We shot this scene in several shots, and this clip is less saturated than other shots due to the wrong operation of white balance. In this version I was trying to make the color look the same as others. So I brought up my temperature and tint to make it more saturated, then increased the contrast. I wanted Steve’s face to look natural, thus decreasing the highlights and whites to avoid overexposure and increasing the shadows to brighten his right face. What I did to the color wheelings is that I pulled the shadows and midtones a little bit to the blue side to decrease the ruddy hue on Steve’s face, and pulled the highlights a little bit to the orange side to make it warmer.
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