Color grading is the creative process of adjusting the colors, contrast, and overall visual tone of footage to establish a mood, style, or visual identity.
Color grading is one of the most impactful stages of post-production. While color correction fixes technical issues to make footage look natural and consistent, color grading goes further by applying a deliberate creative look. A warm, desaturated grade might evoke nostalgia; a cool, high-contrast grade might create tension. The same footage can feel dramatically different depending on how it is graded.
Professional colorists use specialized tools like DaVinci Resolve, Baselight, or the Lumetri panel in Adobe Premiere Pro. They work with color wheels, curves, and secondary qualifiers to adjust specific colors or regions of the image. Common techniques include teal-and-orange grading for cinematic appeal, desaturated looks for documentary-style authenticity, and high-saturation treatments for vibrant commercial content.
For brand videos, color grading should align with the brand's visual identity. Consistent grading across all video content creates a cohesive, recognizable look. When commissioning video work, providing color references — such as screenshots from films, other brand videos, or mood boards — gives the colorist clear direction and ensures the final product matches your creative vision.
Color correction is the technical process of adjusting footage to achieve accurate, consistent, and natural-looking color across all shots, fixing issues caused by varying lighting conditions and camera settings.
LOG footage is video recorded using a logarithmic encoding curve that captures a wider dynamic range by distributing more data to shadows and midtones, producing a flat, desaturated image designed for color grading.
A LUT (Look-Up Table) is a mathematical table that maps input color values to output color values, used to quickly apply a specific color transformation or creative look to footage.