today I'm looking at how to use color grading in Capture One to produce
dramatic landscape photography I'll be processing this image into this image
and I'll be sharing the step by step changes I used to achieve this result
Hi I'm Robin Whalley welcome to lenscraft today I'll be showing the processing of
this landscape image before applying a color grading effect in capture one I'll
be adding the color grading effect with what is probably one of the most
underutilized capture one tools and I'm going to explain exactly how it works
step-by-step but before we look at this I need to finish the editing of my raw
file it's important to get the photo looking more or less how you want it to
before starting to color grade I'll start my editing by setting up my lens
profile now I captured this image using a Fuji xt3 with a Samyang 12mm
prime lens the Samyang 12mm is a great wide-angle prime
by the way I've included a link to a recent review that I've done in the
youtube video description for my processing I'm going to use the
manufacturer profile and apply the option to remove the chromatic
aberration chromatic aberration is the color fringing that you sometimes see
around high contrast edges in an image the other option I'll be using is
diffraction correction which helps to remove any softness caused by
diffraction you get diffraction when you use a small apertures you typically do
in one scape photography next I'll use the exposure settings tab where I'm
going to pick a curve to apply to the image usually the film standard curve
gives a good result with most landscape images this is also where I'll correct
the image exposure as it's slightly overexposed I shot this just after dawn
when the Sun was coming up over the horizon but the cameras made it look
like it's the middle of the day they'll therefore reduce the exposure slightly
then I can use the levels adjustment to darken the mid tone level whilst it does
much the same thing as the exposure slider I think a small adjustment with
both tools works better than a single large adjustment with either of them the
other thing I don't like about the image is that the cameras white balance is
neutralized the warmth in the light I can correct this by increasing the
Kelvin slider to warm at the scene the image now looks better but the shadows
on the rocks are becoming quite dark I can easily fix this though with the high
dynamic range sliders
the image is now ready to apply some localized adjustments to the sky in the
foreground I want to adjust the sky first by adding a new adjustment layer
then I'll draw out a selection using the gradient mask tool
if I turn on the mask you can see this it's also selecting parts of the
hillside which I don't want one way to fix this is using the luminance range
control because the hillside is much darker than the sky
I can then apply the high dynamic range and levels adjustment to darken the sky
if I want to create a little more the cloud I can use the clarity tool now
I can add another adjustment layer to select the foreground also using the
gradient mask tool
this time rather than using the luminance range to control the mask I'll
use the erase tool that's because the seat and the foreground are similar in
tone
I'm just going to roughly clean up the edge of the selection using the erase
brush
Now I can use the levels adjustment to darken my selection
before applying additional contrast and clarity
to increase the appearance of warm light falling on to the foreground rocks I'm
going to increase the kelvin adjustment I'll leave the adjustments there and now
it's time to apply the color grading effect to the image I'm going to do this
by adding a new filled adjustment layer which is where I'll apply the color
grading but before I do this I'll reduce the opacity of the layer down to 60% I'm
reducing the opacity because it gives me greater control of the effect later by
working on a layer with a reduced opacity it allows me scope to increase
the intensity of the adjustments as well as reducing trying to increase the
strength of a color grading effect would be difficult without this because you'd
need to adjust each of the controls use for the grading being able to increase
the opacity of the layer is fast and easy and it maintains the balance
between the colors you've used now there are a few options you can use to color
grading capture one but the one I'm going to use is possibly the most
underrated tool of them all which is the color balance I'll just remove the color
balance from the dock and enlarge it so that it's easier to see now this 5 tabs
you can pick from the master controls the overall color balance of the image
we then have the shadows mid-tones and highlights where you can control the
color balance for each of these tonal ranges there's also a 3-way option which
shows all three tonal ranges in the same place I'll explain how to use the color
balance using the highlights control the circle is a color wheel where you can
pick which color you want to use to apply the color grading if for example I
want to apply orange to the image I can move the dial route to that color next
we have the slider on the left which controls the intensity of the color if I
move the slider up the orange in the highlights intensifies which makes it
more obvious notice that as I'm doing this the marker inside the color wheel
moves towards the outside it's also possible to click and drag this point to
change the color and the intensity without using the controls this can be a
useful and quick way to find a color for use in the color grading after that you
can use the other controls to fine-tune a selection there the other slider on
the right controls how light or dark the grading is
if you want to reset an adjustment double-click any wire on the color wheel
and you'll see the marker return to the center now that we've covered the
controls let's look at how to apply the color grading to the image for the
highlights I'm going to pick an orange color because there's already a nice
orange color in the image that I want to emphasize color grading often works best
when you use colors that are already in the image
next I'll switch to the mid-tones and use a reddish orange color for degrading
finally allowed the dark-blue tone which is the opposite of the times I've been
using
it's also possible to change the master color balance independently of the over
tonal ranges
don't forget as well as this each layer has its own set of color balance
controls that you can use for color grading there's nothing to stop you from
applying a different color grading to different areas of the image now because
I created a layer at the start to use for the color grading I can turn it on
and off so you can see the effect and I can also use the opacity controls of the
color grading layer to reduce or increase the intensity of the effect
as a final step I could also use the color editor to balance out the colors
and saturation if I don't think they're quite right
here's the before version of the image
and here's the after now I've probably taken these adjustments too far but it's
to help demonstrate what's possible color grading with the color balance
tool is a powerful way to inject emotion and drama to an image I hope you found
something in today's video to help you with your own editing if you haven't
done so already be sure to subscribe I'm Robin Whalley you've been watching
Lenscraft I'll see you next week for another video