Colour Grading

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I for one use AE for grading. I like the variety of plugins – Color Finesse, Colorista, Magic Bullet Looks and a bunch of others can give you a quick fix or in depth control. It’s also easier to combine the color correction filters (native and third party) with the masking and tracking capabilities of AE.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Walter Soyka]

[Scott Gaskin] “I am trying to understand more about colour grading and just wondered if After effects is a better tool for the job than Final cut Pro or Premiere? I have all 3 apps and would rather learn using the most recommended. Does anyone recommend a particular one to use and why?”

After Effects is immensely flexible and powerful, and as Ted said, it has a nice toolset for things like masking and tracking, which are very useful for grading.

However, AE is not an NLE like FCP or PrP, nor is it a dedicated grading app like Resolve (or dare I say SpeedGrade?). As such, there are a few areas where its toolset is weak (conform and re-conform, timeline navigation, still store, real-time performance, scopes).

No matter what system you learn with, the fundamentals you learn will apply on the other systems, too. Also, some of the plugins that Ted mentioned will work in all three of the host apps you mentioned. I’m a big Colorista II fan.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Scott Gaskin]

Thanks for the info

Scott

[Scott Gaskin]

Thanks Walter, seems I have a bit to learn!
Scott

[Walter Soyka]

Scott, if you’re interested in learning more about color grading, check out Alexis Van Hurkman’s Encyclopedia of Color Correction [link].

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Scott Gaskin]

Thanks again dude, i’ll check it out
Appreciated