Color grading

Learning goal

Knowing the difference between showing a photo's colors correctly and giving it a mood, you will be able to give separate colors to the shadows, midtones and highlights. First you will bring the photo to a neutral, correct starting point with color correction, then build a deliberate color atmosphere for it with color grading. You will use split toning, which gives one color to the shadows and another to the highlights, and color wheels, which work separately for shadows, midtones and highlights, and explain how these choices relate to complementary color contrast. You will see what presets and lookup tables are for, and their limits, in giving the same mood to a series of photos. You will know that color grading is an aesthetic choice, but that because skin tones sit in different places in the midtones and shadows it leaves a different effect on every skin, and you will protect skin with a mask.

The question

In the photo shot for the band's new album cover, the four members stand in the courtyard of an old factory in the late afternoon. The photo is correctly exposed, and its colors are close to reality: gray walls, brown bricks, a pale sky, the natural skin tones of four faces. But when the band looks at this frame they don't see a cover; they see only a document. They want that familiar mood they've seen on posters and covers, the image whose shadows lean toward a cool blue-green and whose highlights lean toward a warm orange.

The drummer raises the saturation; the photo becomes more colorful, but its mood doesn't change. They shift the white balance; the whole photo turns blue or orange, and the faces along with it. What they want isn't painting the whole photo a single color; it is separating dark and light into two different colors. How are the colors in feature films made? How do you give a photo a mood with color?

Context

In the module's first lesson you tried adding color to the dark and the light by bending the red, green and blue channels separately (Lesson 21.1); with HSL you also learned to change each color one by one. Color grading uses these tools together to build the whole color mood of a photo or a series. In cinema and advertising this job is often seen as a separate specialty; in photography, on the other hand, the same logic is applied in a single frame, with the same tools.

Color grading isn't a technique with a definite right answer. The same photo can tell completely different things with a cool, warm, faded or saturated mood, and none of these is more correct than the others. This lesson tells how to build a mood deliberately, create a consistent series, and protect people's skin while doing so.

Simple explanation

How do you tell color correction from color grading?

Color correction is making a photo's colors correct and neutral: showing white as white, gray as gray, and skin close to how that person looks in daylight. Setting the white balance, removing a color cast, and balancing exposure and contrast are the jobs of this stage. Color correction has a measurable target; a neutral gray card or a known color shows whether it is correct.

Color grading, on the other hand, is deliberately giving a corrected photo a color mood. Here the target isn't accuracy but expression: making a photo feel cooler, warmer, older, tenser or calmer. The order of these two stages matters. Applying color grading to a photo without color correction means adding another color on top of an existing cast, and the result can't be controlled. First a neutral starting point, then a deliberate mood.

How do you give separate colors to shadow and light?

Split toning is giving one color to a photo's shadows and another color to its highlights. In most editing programs this is done with a separate color picker for shadows and for highlights, and a saturation setting that decides how strongly these colors are applied. A balance setting decides where the boundary between the two colors sits on the tonal axis: shifting the boundary up spreads the shadow color over a wider area, shifting it down spreads the highlight color over a wider area.

Color wheels are a tool that works separately for shadows, midtones and highlights, and gives color to each by choosing a direction and strength on a color wheel. They are a more detailed form of split toning, because the midtones can also be given a separate color and each region's brightness can also be adjusted separately. The farther you move from the wheel's center, the stronger the color gets; the center is the colorless neutral point. The same job can also be done by bending the tone curve's red, green and blue channels separately in the shadow and highlight regions.

Giving the shadows a cool color and the highlights a warm one is one of the most commonly used color grades. One reason is that these two colors sit opposite each other on the color wheel and strengthen each other; you saw in the color lessons that complementary colors build contrast in a photo. Another reason is that most skin tones sit in the orange and red region: the warm color given to the highlights keeps skin natural, while cool shadows separate the face from the background. But this is only one option; the same photo can also carry a strong mood by keeping the shadows warm and the highlights cool, or by staying within a single color family.

How do you keep a series consistent?

The mood given to a single photo becomes that series' identity when it is carried to all the photos in a series. The presets you got to know in basic editing are the simplest way to save a color grade and apply it to other photos. A lookup table, on the other hand, is a file that stores a color transformation as a table defining which output color each input color will turn into; it is also known by its abbreviation, LUT (lookup table). Lookup tables are used to carry the same mood across different programs, even between photo and video.

But a preset or a lookup table doesn't give the same result in every photo. Photos shot in different light, at different exposures or with different colors pass through the same transformation differently. That is why you need to first do each photo's color correction and bring them to the same neutral starting point, then apply the preset or the table and make small corrections in each photo. Lining the photos up side by side and looking at them together is the best way to see the series' consistency.

How does color grading affect skin?

Because skin tones sit in different places on the tonal axis, the same color grade leaves a different effect on every skin. Light skin often sits in the midtones and highlights; a strong orange given to the highlights can drown light skin in orange and turn the face into an artificial tan. Dark skin, on the other hand, extends from the midtones toward the shadows; a blue-green color given to the shadows also works into the shadow side of dark skin and can pull the skin toward a greenish, grayish, lifeless tone. If there are different skin tones in the same photo, the grade can protect one while spoiling the other.

The way to prevent this is to apply the color grade and then protect the skin. Selecting the faces and hands with a person mask or a range mask that selects skin tones, and reducing the color grade's effect in these areas, keeps skin close to its own color while preserving the photo's mood. Color grading is a tool of expression; turning a person's skin into another color, on the other hand, as we discussed in the previous lesson, is touching their identity. After every grade you need to enlarge the faces and check whether the skin stays close to the person themselves.

Visual evidence

The drummer first does color correction on the factory courtyard photo: they set the white balance by a gray concrete column in the courtyard, and balance the exposure and contrast. The photo is neutral and correct. Then they open the color wheels: they push the shadows slightly toward blue-green and the highlights toward orange, and add very little warmth to the midtones. The shadows of the courtyard walls turn a cool blue-green, the bricks hit by the late-afternoon sun and the part of the sky near the horizon turn a warm orange. The photo is no longer a document, but a cover.

But when they enlarge the four faces, they see two different problems. On the dark skin of two members, the dark side of the cheeks has slipped to a greenish gray; the keyboardist's light skin, on the other hand, is too orange in the highlights, almost bronze. With a person mask they select the four faces and the hands and cut the effect of the shadow and highlight colors in half in this area. The dark skin tones return to their warm browns, the light skin to its own pinkish color; the courtyard's cool shadows and warm highlights, on the other hand, stay as they are. They save the same settings as a preset and apply it to the band's other cover photos, doing the color correction first in each one and checking the skin again.

Common mistakes

Summary

Color correction brings the photo to a neutral, correct starting point, while color grading gives it a deliberate color mood; the order is always correction first, then grading. Split toning gives separate colors to the shadows and highlights, and color wheels do this separately for shadows, midtones and highlights; cool shadows and warm highlights are a commonly used option based on complementary color contrast, but not the only right one. Presets and lookup tables give a series a consistent mood, but each photo must be corrected first; because skin tones sit in different places on the tonal axis, color grading shifts dark and light skin differently, and faces are protected with a mask.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will give a photo two different color moods and make a series consistent; choose an outdoor photo with people in it.

1. First do the photo's color correction: set the white balance by a neutral surface, and balance the exposure and contrast.
2. Apply two different color grades to two copies of the same photo: in one, make the shadows cool and the highlights warm; in the other, make the shadows warm and the highlights cool. Write the mood the two results evoke in you.
3. Enlarge the faces in the photo; see how the color grade shifted the skin, and reduce the effect on the faces with a person mask.
4. Save the grade you like as a preset and apply it to three more photos from the same day; correct each one first, then check the consistency by putting all four side by side.

Check yourself

• Can you tell color correction from color grading by their targets?
• Were you able to deliberately give separate colors to the shadows and highlights with split toning or color wheels?
• After color grading, did you enlarge each face and test the skin's color through the eyes of someone who knows that person?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What is the basic difference between color correction and color grading?

• A) Color correction is done only on black-and-white photos
• B) Color grading is done only in video
• C) The two are the same thing
• D) Correction's target is accuracy, grading's target is a deliberate color mood

2. Why should color correction be done before starting color grading?

• A) To reduce the file size
• B) To prevent a new color being added on top of an existing color cast
• C) To be able to use presets
• D) To raise saturation

3. What is one of the reasons giving the shadows a cool color and the highlights a warm one is often preferred?

• A) These two colors sitting opposite each other on the color wheel and strengthening each other
• B) Its being the only right color grade
• C) Its making white balance unnecessary
• D) Its reducing noise

4. The shadow side of a dark-skinned person has slipped to a greenish gray with the blue-green color given to the shadows. Which is the most fitting correction?

• A) Lowering the saturation of the whole photo
• B) Strengthening the shadow color even more
• C) Selecting the face with a person mask and reducing the color grade's effect in this area
• D) Shifting the white balance toward blue

Answers

1. D — Correction aims at a measurable right answer, grading at expression.
2. B — Without a neutral starting point, the added color mixes with the existing cast and can't be controlled.
3. A — Complementary colors build contrast; warm highlights also keep skin natural.
4. C — The mask pulls the face out of the grade; the courtyard's mood stays, the skin doesn't shift.

Summary card

• Color correction first, then color grading.
• Split toning gives separate colors to shadow and light, color wheels to shadow, midtone and light.
• Cool shadows and warm highlights are an option, not the only right one.
• Presets and lookup tables make a series consistent; correct each photo first.
• Skin tones sit in different tonal regions; protect faces with a mask and check by enlarging.

Bridge to the next lesson

Alongside the color cover, the band also wanted black-and-white photos for the album's inside pages. When the drummer converted a color frame directly to black and white, the result came out flat and lifeless: the red bricks and the blue sky had turned the same gray, the faces had merged with the background. Just as they managed colors separately in color grading, in black and white too they needed to be able to decide which gray each color would turn into. How do you make a good black-and-white photo? The next lesson tells about building strong black-and-white photos by controlling the gray tones with the color channels.