calibrating see log footage is actually much easier than you think with a tiny bit
of knowledge you'll be able to go from this to this in about one minute today I'll show you how
to do it without any special plugins or let's I'm Rafael and welcome to the channel conversion lots
are great when they work what do you do when they fail and they will fail this technique
I'm using in this video will work in any editor that has color correction tools I did this exact
same walkthrough in DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut Pro you can find those links in the description
below in this video we'll talk about how to set the exposure and contrast properly in log3 how
to easily white balance with and without a color chart using the waveform how to correct skintone
issues using the vectorscope how to check to make sure that the skin tone is set between 40 and 70
Ayari and exposed properly how to set the presets to use on all your footage and how you'll never
have to ask for help again once you've practiced these steps full disclosure I am NOT a colorist
but for most of my client work I will gladly hire pros to be as precise as possible to grade the
footage however for smaller projects and my own personal work I've learned these steps required
to quickly get from log footage to the base grade without using lots or expensive plugins so this
isn't the be-all and end-all for color correcting see log footage or any log footage for that matter
there are many ways to do the same thing but it's a method I found that works really well
to rough in a base grade and add some personality to it after so let me ask this question why do we
shoot log in the first place it's to ensure that the camera captures the most amount of detail in
any scene the darkest dark and the brightest bright rec.709 is designed to output between
seven and nine stops of dynamic range and it's mostly a display standard log helps expand that
distance to twelve to sixteen stops depending on the camera rec.709 color space looks pleasant log
footage does not so then we have to bring back the information to a pleasant look but now we can
choose if we want the brighter end the darker end or a nice mix of both as I go through this method
I will try to cut it down to only the essential things you'll need to know to correct and then
grade your footage all these steps assume that your footage is exposed mostly correctly is within
the right white balance check out this video where I talk about correctly exposing your EOS r4c log
footage and since you're here give this video a thumbs up and subscribe if this video helps you
out quick terminology recap we'll be talking about in this video color correction and color grading
color correction is when you fix color issues color space color temperature the white balance
or skin tones in the video color grading is adding color for creative purposes to convey meaning mood
location time of day themes character associations it's really powerful stuff psychologically if you
have a color chart this will help setting up your own Luntz or correcting for any location
but don't worry I'll show you how to correct even without a color chart all a lot does is tonal ease
remap colors from one place to another this value should be this and that value should be that and
it's all based on log footage you start with that is why different lots don't work with different
log footage and it's why creative lots never work without normalizing your footage first they
all assume the footage is starting from a certain color space like rec 709 which is the most common
but we won't be talking about the creative grading much in this video this video is how to get your
log footage to a starting point by normalizing it the creative decisions you make on how you
want your footage look after that that is up to you that's where you get to play and have fun if
you like it and you think it looks good go for it there really are no rules to be clear there isn't
unless your footage is perfectly exposed with 100% perfect white balance expect to do a bit of
tweaking either the color tint or the luma though there are some simple truths that do work as a
starting point and today we'll cover that workflow so the first thing you want to do is go over to
the color tab and if you have a color chart up I know what you're thinking but Rafael I don't have
a color chart so this is gonna work for me and you would be wrong random citizen I am going to show
you how to do it without color charts and even without any skin tone in the shot so just give
me a second we're gonna start with the color chart first because this is the best way to get precise
colors open up the waveform monitor let's make it a little bit bigger this represents the luminance
values across the image from left right the bottom is black and top is full white so from left to
right you can actually see where all the hot spots are where all the brightness happens here are all
the colors on the color chart the white gray and black right here so what we want to do with these
three stripes right here we want to bring the white as close to the top as we can we want to
bring the middle gray right into the middle and we want to bring the black as close as we can to the
bottom without touching it I like bringing the black to about 5 or 10% and the white to about
90 95 % and then adjust from there so also open up vectorscope because these are the tools we'll
be using make sure you have your clip selected go into basic correction this is where we're
gonna start bringing down the black slate not too far we're gonna also bring up the whites expand
that out and it's finding the balance between highlights and shadows and the black and whites
about pushing it too far if you need to you can bump up the exposure but again you're trying to
get the blacks to about five to ten percent and the whites to about ninety ninety-five percent
so already this image is looking better next we want to add some contrast not too much twenty five
fits pretty good want to add some saturation at about 115 to 120 depending on the shot
so before and after and now we're going to make sure that the white balance is good
so so we're going to make a mask around the white gray and black go back to the Scopes
and we want to turn on parade RGB we want to make sure that the red green and blue
are all they're all the same height this is where you can adjust your tint you can
notice that they're dancing so we just want to bring them in line we want to make sure that
that male gray gets down to the middle here so this is where we can draw up everything down
and the blacks are about 10% middle grades at 50 and the whites are about 90% if we check
these lines here you can still see that there's a little bit of extra blue in in the shot this
is where I would go to color wheels and I would add in a little bit of green that drop down the
blues and even looking here looks like there's still more blue and green and red in the shadows
so I would push it away from blue to balance it out a little bit better we know that this
is white this is gray and this is black so I'm just gonna turn off masks so now that we're here
we're just gonna double check the skin tones to make sure that they are the right exposure as
well and also the right color so I want to go back to scopes and we're looking at the color
and that looks pretty good overall if you need to adjust it this is where you can use tint to
push it one way or another so definitely a little bit to the right of the skin tone
indicated would be ideal but we're noticing that it's a little bit hot so this is where
we can drop down the highlights overall because proper exposure for skin tone is between 40 and
70 Ayari you know a little bit over a little bit under depending on the situation and definitely
the tone of the skin so we're just gonna drop it down just a little bit the highlights gonna
drop it down so it was comfortable you can also drop down the whites just bounce it out because
ultimately it's the skin tone that we want to make sure that is completely accurate and the
color looks pretty good you can tweak that just a bit so now we're going to turn off the mask
and we're gonna save right-click save this as a preset we're gonna call this color chart studio
we're gonna save it in presets and where it's saved its saved into your effects palette there
it is so we're gonna go to a shot that I know was filmed in the same location we're gonna take that
preset double click it it'll add it that looks pretty good we're just gonna double check to
make sure that the skins are exposed properly and definitely make sure that you don't select
the lips or the eyes because that will give you interesting color variations so it does seem a
little bit hot even for this so this is where you can drop it down even further the highlights and
just bring bring the color back to the skin tone indicator close to that line because the other
shot we were working off hands so this is more accurate representation of what you will actually
see and what will actually work best we're just gonna turn off the mask right now just take a
look at it and that looks and feels good as a good base color correct this is where I would add in a
little bit of sharpness about 15 I try not to go higher than that the reason I like to have
sharpness at zero in the camera and added in post because if there's any skin blemishes that I don't
want to accentuate having that sharpness already baked into the image I won't be able to get rid
of it so this way I can add in sharpness if you wanna do selective color correction this is where
you can do it where you just select the highlights where you just select a specific color and you're
able to adjust it by itself but we're not gonna be talking about that today this is also where you
can start adding in the teal and orange looking for the shadows so base color correct and a simple
teal and orange it's really about subtlety when it comes to color correction but again we're not
gonna be talking about that too much today it's just about the base correction to make sure that
the image is exposed from sea log all right let's do another image from scratch so this one can open
up our scopes go to base color correction and drop the blacks down the highlights already look like
they're pretty far out there drop the shadows add a little bit of contrast add the saturation
we're gonna select we're gonna add the skin tone making sure to avoid the eyes and the mouth that
looks pretty good we can tweak it just a bit but definitely feels a really bright comparatively
because we want the skin tone the brightest part to be around 70 so this is where you can drop down
overall let's take a look at that you can add in a little bit more contrast definitely bringing the
blacks down if you wanted to just go to where the image feels good overall that feels pretty good
properly exposed because the waveform is showing us from left to right so everything here in the
middle is the yellow shirt and the face tones and probably add in a little bit of saturation I would
save this out and apply to every piece of footage that I have in the timeline you can work on your
final grade here and then apply to everything else premiere also lets you export a lot where you can
use in other applications so let's do another image and see how fast we can get it done again
starting from scratch looking at the waveform drop the blacks down along with the shadows now
I know this is a black shirt but it shouldn't be completely black add some saturation add
some contrast next we're gonna check the face to make sure that the skin tone is exposed properly
trying to avoid the lips and the eyes so it's a little bit bright so I can drop that down
overall the color looks pretty good we can add a little bit of saturation into that and the more
saturation you have it depends on the skin tone and the subject that you have but pale
skin tone is closer and then you can push it a little bit further out so let's take a look at
that turn off the mask so this is the before and after that's your base color correction so
let's do a shot where we don't have any skin tones and no color chart again starting from
scratch wear and drop blacks and the shadows down going to bring up the whites and the highlights
that's some contrast and some saturation now I know that this shot was exposed correctly for
the color temperature but because it feels on the warm side I want to add a little bit of the blue
back in and I know that these are black so I'm going to double-check this so I'm just going to
select the black I'm gonna select the black boots I'm going to open up the parade and I want to make
sure that these line up as close as possible this is where you can so then I would go to wheels and
in the shadows I would add more blue to the shot which brings down the red and the green so let's
jump back out turn that off there's the before and after and even before we added the blue and
then after and then I would say this out and put it for the rest of the image add some sharpness
add a little bit of vignette just keeping it subtle to keep the focus on there okay let's
do one more shot where there's not much skin tone just starting from scratch again drop the blacks
trying to keep them out around 5 or 10 between there we're gonna bring up the highlights we're
gonna bring up the lights bring down the shadows and the blacks add some saturation a little bit
of contrast and the contrast and saturation are what is key to bring back log footage
into something that is very pleasant in rec.709 trying to get rid of that flat image so because
we have a little bit of skin tone here so we're gonna double check that to make sure that it's
properly exposed so let's take a look at that so just checking on the vectorscope definitely
push the tint towards magenta and red and the exposure is a little bit hot so we can bring
down the highlight a little bit of the lights so let's jump out of that take a look at it overall
add a little bit more contrast blacks feel a little too black and that feels pretty good we
have our saturation and it really comes down to what feels good there are no real rules let's
just remap what colors should be and should look like so this so this value should be this value
and that value should be that value and that's exactly what we're doing we're doing the exact
same process but this allows you to have complete control over your image for every single project
and you can save these lets out if you're filming in the same location over and over again you can
save these presets and Lutz and use them as you see fit there are many other things you
can do but I just wanted to show how to color correct for C logged footage from the Canon USR
and C log three footage from the C 200 so let's recap use the waveform monitor drop the shadows
to about 5% bring the highlights to about 95% add a little contrast boost the saturation using the
vectorscope check to make sure your skin tones are on the skintone indicator use the luma value
between 40 to 70 or for skin add your creative grade that fits your story and mood sharpen the
image to what feels right for you add a vignette to help focus on the important thing in the scene
save your preset or LUT apply the grade to the rest of your footage and you are done if you do
find a lot that works for you and it converts and corrects your log footage correctly use
it you'll save you a lot of time I made this video as a guide from when you're Luntz don't
work or you get tired of a particular look and you want to create your own and for you to be
able to color correct your C log footage in any scenario let me know if you guys have any
tips or tricks to color grade your C log footage also I would love to see how you guys use these
techniques to color grade your own C log footage as always thanks for watching give this video a
big thumbs up subscribe if it helped you out I'm Raphael I'll talk to you soon bye for now you