Editing & Post-Production

Colour grading

Also called: color grading, grading, the grade

Two jobs sit under one word. Correction comes first and is technical: fixing exposure, setting white balance, matching shots so the A camera and the B camera look like the same room. Grading is the choice made afterwards, warm or cool, contrasty or flat, crushed blacks, a particular skin tone, whatever the video is going for.

Skipping correction and dropping a LUT over the top is the common mistake, because a look built on mismatched footage exaggerates the mismatch. Where you judge it matters too. A grade approved on a bright uncalibrated laptop rarely survives contact with a phone screen in daylight.

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All 131 Editing & Post-Production terms

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