Hey Guys, it’s Gaba VR!
Today let’s get a little bit deeper in color grading 360 videos.
Or actually it’s a little bit more than playing around with colors.
I show you some practical tricks to improve 360 video quality and get the best look possible.
In a previous episode I was talking about my basics,
so if you have any questions about the structure of my editing concept, take a look at it in this video.
And now let's jump into the middle of it.
As you can see I have three different Adjustment layers and each one have a dedicated function.
Firstly apply global sharpening. It's quite a soft sharpening
Then I have another layer to colorgrade all the individual clips.
These setting are different from clip to clip, so I have a lot of small units here.
Actually I put them on two layers, and later I will tell you, why.
And finally I have a third function, a further Adjustment Layer with the same settings all along the video.
I use this layer to set up the final sharpness and contrast after all the other final adjustments.
But let’s start with the first layer.
Here I sharpen the footage a little bit.
I just use Unsharp Mask, and sharpen everything, just a tiny bit.
Actually I pull Sharpening a little bit high, but the size of the affected parts is quite small.
The settings depend on the resolution of the original video,
so you can play around with it to find the best combination for you.
But don’t go crazy, just make things pop up a little bit.
There will be some further steps to boost sharpness and contrast,
so if you want, you can even skip this step.
But the next step is much more important.
That’s color grading. And I have a little bit different approach in 360.
Besides being a content creator, I’m also a photographer, and I’m working with Lightroom and Photoshop a lot.
So that’s why I’m familiar with masks and local adjustments.
And that’s why I started applying such things in 360 videos, too.
As I mentioned in the previous episode,
in a 360 video there are a lot of things happening on the scene in the different directions.
And that's why I like editing the different parts of the video separately.
I start with a general balancing,
while I make a nice balance between the bright sky and ground with the main action.
I start with a manual mask, using the guidelines provided by the Safe Margins tool.
This way I can draw an absolutely straight line
To draw a mask I have to create at least four points, and the mask must run out of the borders.
So I have to zoom out a little bit, to see the whole mask even outside the video.
First I draw a perfectly straight line, and then I move the whole mask to the horizon level.
But this way I get a very strong line. So in such cases I set up an edge feather around 200-300 pixels.
Now I can modify the shape of the mask, depending on the content, while I take care of the sides.
It’s very important, because when the mask doesn’t fit perfectly on the edges, you will see artifacts in 360.
There will be a visible vertical line, looking like a fake stitch line.
It’s also very important to set up the main directions first and only start color grading later.
Otherwise this mask (or any further masks you create) won’t fit on your image.
So my advice is to apply Offset or any other plugin which affects the orientation of your 360 video right on the clip
before you start color grading, because the mask you add later won’t move with these settings.
Now the colors and tones are matter of the taste,
but the point is that I always make the scene more balanced,
brightening up everything under the horizon line.
I check out Lumetry scopes to see the final dynamic range.
Even though if everything seems okay first, after opening up the shadows, there can be some weird artifacts
And here comes the advantage of working on Adjustment layers.
In this case the black parts got a little bit pixelate
and in some areas they turned into a reddish color, which looks bad.
But now I show you in practice, what I was talking about in the previous video,
and I apply multiple masks on the same effect.
First I have this mask on the horizon,
and now I can create another mask directly on the Adjustment Layer, too.
Actually, I don’t want to apply my color grading settings on this black area at all, so I can mask it out.
And I create an inverted mask in order to get rid of this reddish artefact.
Then I can set up keyframes to make this mask follow a moving shape or area.
It’s quite easy. But once again, you have to make all the Offset settings before this step.
Otherwise you will mess up with the masks, especially because now I will start creating a lot of masks.
Editing this video I have a lot of effects, which I only apply on this specific scene.
I can turn them on and off with one single click, while I still have some global settings, too, independently.
But why am I using so many effects? Actually I don’t do that.
I just use these effects as local adjustments.
So I have multiply copies of the same effect and settings with different masks,
affecting different parts of the video.
And I think this is the key to create the best look in 360 videos.
One single video has different scenes in different directions, and I treat them this way.
I set up quite strong sharpening and contrast, and maybe I boost the exposure a little bit, too.
In most of the times, I do this playing around with Highlights and Shadows and Whites and Blacks
instead of changing the actual Exposure value.
This way I don’t go crazy with contrast and sharpening in the video, but locally, I can boost some sights.
The point is that these small things look way bigger, when people watch them in 360,
and these adjustments will look more natural this way.
So instead of applying a global sharpening on my whole footage, I just spice up some smaller parts,
and this way I don’t create ugly and crazy things.
And after all, when I see that the movie needs some extra grading, I use a third Adjustment layer.
When all the clips of the video are matched, I can finally play around with some global sharpening and contrast
or as a final touch I add a lut or further effects, if I want.
In most of the cases, I boost contrast and a little bit of sharpening, too.
Working with Lumetry colors, I just simply open the creative tab and use the sharpening slider.
But I prefer to apply sharpening locally instead of creating an unnatural over-sharpened video.
So this is just a kind of fine tuning.
Just like creating a personal image style, adding luts or customs settings before rendering.
So my first layer is a sharpening layer, but a really soft one,
the second layer is always a specific Adjustment Layer depending on the footage above,
and finally I make some global settings, applied on all of the clips,
creating the final look and image style of the video.
With these three steps I can be sure that the single clips will look nice,
and globally the whole video will get its own look and style.
But of course, there are even more tricks, and unfortunately some problems, too,
during masking and working on different layers.
So if you are interested about these solutions, subscribe to my YouTube channel,
ring that notification bell, and join me next time.