Need “Look” Suggestion

[Glenn Sakatch]

If you are thinking you should simply use a lut to color correct your show, then you are falling into the same trap that a lot of people who are new to Resolve are falling into. LUTS are not the solution to your color correction problems.

Learn to use the program and the controls it offeres. Adjust your whites, blacks and mids. Play with the saturation and the color controls.

The “look” you are referencing is called “clean, color corrected footage” There is nothing special about it. The whites are white, the blacks are black and the mids are somewhere in the middle. The colors are fairly natural, not over saturated or under saturated. There is not color wash taking the hue to a strange place…it is clean.

You do not need a LUT for this (or any other) look.

Glenn

[Marc Wielage]

And to add what Glenn says: the longer I work in the business, the more convinced I am that the look is mostly due to the work of the cinematographer. 90% of the magic happens in front of the lens. It’s lighting, it’s the exposure, the lenses, plus the art direction, the costumes, all the various stuff that goes into a set. The colorist can only do so much if most of the desired look isn’t already there. We can always enhance great material, but we can’t make bad material good.

[Noob Colorist]

Thanks guys for quick response.
I know LUT is not everything for grading. But my question was to know for the reference grade that if the colorist used any special LUT at the end of balance and correction NODE to achieve that look.

Though “Glenn” said that there is no specialty in the image, Those are Just clean and natural Color corrected Image.

Of course Glenn is right, but with the same footage I’ve tried in many ways (with my tiny knowledge) to get that look, but i’ve failed.

[Marc Wielage]

A lot of power windows, very aggressive grading, and selective pushed saturation could do it. So much depends on the original material, it’s hard to say. Some people like the Color Boost control for added punch.

I’ve told students before that much of what we do is giving added punch to images, and also finding ways for the actors to stand out from the background. Windows can help, a little defocus can help, a shaft of light here (through a window), a little log control tweak… there’s a couple of dozen steps. There is no one thing that makes it happen besides experience.

[Geoff Johnston]

Rakib, I think I know what you mean by “this LOOK”. It seems your task is very simple.

add a new serial node at the end of your node tree, go to your color wheels and move the gain slightly “southeast” into the blues.

[Geoff Johnston]

My mistake, I meant to say move the Gamma, not the Gain.