Photographers need to stop color grading the wrong way | Adobe Lightroom

➡ Get my Color Grade Adobe Presets and LUTs: bit.ly/color-grade-yt
While color grading gets its roots in cinema, photographers can use this powerful and often misunderstood tool to add a beautiful look that accentuates the natural elements of the photo.
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Table of Contents:
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00:00 - Introduction
00:21 - Why color grading is misunderstood
00:38 - Color grading in cinema
01:41 - When you should apply color grading
03:30 - Understanding the color grade tools in Lightroom
04:08 - Applying a color grade to the shadows
08:17 - Applying a color grade to the midtones
08:53 - Applying a color grade to the highlights
09:24 - Using the Blending and Balance sliders
10:36 - Applying a global color grade
11:31 - The difference between color grading and HSL
13:37 - Check out my Color Grade Adobe Presets and LUTs
14:26: Adding a color grade to a photo
18:16 - Everything you need to know about the Tone Curve
➡ Understanding the Tone Curve in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop
• Understanding the Tone...

[@timelapsebylkunl72]

Thank you very much for the great tutorial.

[@brianmatiash]

You are welcome!

[@DickHoskins]

Excellent video. Now I see how all this really works. Thank you!

[@brianmatiash]

You’re most welcome!

[@ryanantonydixon]

Brilliant explanation, thanks.

[@lynfaulks4377]

Best explanation of colour grading I’ve seen - thank you so much for your great videos!

[@brianmatiash]

You’re most welcome!

[@johnteague2231]

I've watched several videos about color grading and nothing ever really clicked with me, especially when using the points on the color balls. Everything makes much more sense using the sliders. And your example of how you apply the color grading also provided me with a quick and easy method of using the sliders. Thanks!

[@brianmatiash]

I'm so glad the video helped, John!

[@DickHoskins]

Best video on color grading I have seen. Now I realize that other presenters do not really know what they are talking about. Thank you!

[@brianmatiash]

Thanks so much! I really appreciate it and I’m happy that you enjoyed the video.

[@TheMindfulDavid]

One of the best lessons on color grading. Thank you for making this video

[@19Photographer76]

Your not only someone that knows how to use the software but knows how to teach its use. Thanks Brian!

[@brianmatiash]

Thank you, Dave! I really appreciate the kind words!

[@larrymulmed2081]

Brian, glad your back with new videos after a long hiatus. Your teaching style is spot on, informative and not rushed. Thanks to you, my "wide angle mountains" are not stunted. Please keep the new videos coming.

[@brianmatiash]

I will definitely work on sharing new, helpful videos going forward, Larry. Thanks so much for the kind words!

[@bala1000mina]

I can't thank you enough Brian for the very helpful information that I learnt from your video on Color Grading and using HSL! God bless you and good luck with whatever you do in your life!

[@luxxdeluxer]

Super helpful, thank you!

[@nonexman]

Brilliant presentation. Absolutely spot-on for information and execution. I've learned more from this than from half a dozen other videos on the same subject. The one thing I would add is that you were struggling a bit to explain why changing the saturation didn't affect the Color Grading colors. The word(s) I think you were looking for was that Saturation/Luminance/Hue affects the image's colors, while Color Grading affects the added colors (that are not actually part of the actual images' colors). Again, brilliant job. Thank you.

[@fengfuxu4822]

great video. I did not know what HSL and color grading works differently until I watched this. thank you, Brian.

[@brianmatiash]

You’re very welcome!

[@chrishollingsworth7110]

Thanks! Definitely helped me understand and I'll go back and practice!

[@francoisroberge3117]

Thank you for the teaching. I did not know that the Hue Sat sliders were dissociated from the colors in Grading.

[@brianmatiash]

My pleasure! I was most excited to show the difference between HSL and Color Grading for that very reason. You’d think that adjusting an HSL slider would affect the color grade, but it doesn’t because it’s basically tone vs color. 👍🏼

[@attiksystem]

Wouaou, what an excellent explaination of color grading! Thanks!

[@JimEmbury]

Thank you. Well explained! Still crunching the sky masking you showed the world. That was brilliant!

[@KemFronabarger]

Thanks! I just tried using your technique to convert photo taken in midday to emulate a golden hour photo. I liked the results. Great video.

[@brianmatiash]

Sweet! That’s one of my favorite uses of color grading. Just a touch goes a long way to enhance those golden hues. I also love it for those moody forest shots. Enjoy!

[@ppBizU]

This is an excelent video about color grading! Glad I've got a recommendation to watch you.

[@jvusa]

Excellent video, You have explained very well, Thank you so much

[@brianmatiash]

You’re welcome!

[@itspeache]

Amazing

[@brettaxel2870]

This was an amazing tutorial and explanation! I’ve struggled as a new photographer/editor to understand what any of this does and means and this totally clicked and made so much more sense the way you taught it! Thank you much! I’m going to save this video for future reference when editing 😅

[@michealpociecha8351]

So glade you’ve explained this so well. Finally getting the hang of this. Thanks a bunch.

[@brianmatiash]

Glad it was helpful!

[@wismokey]

It's good to see you back posting videos. This is the best explanation of LR Color Gradng that I have seen.

[@brianmatiash]

Thanks for that, Paul!

[@JeanLucWolff]

Excellent presentation. I agree with all of the comments below. I just wanted to know why an ajustment with the temp of the WB to the cold is not the way to go instead of, for example, adding cold tones to the shadows and balancing to the left and blending to the right in order to apply a global color grade, or to apply directly a global color grade. Where am I wrong ?

[@PaulBeiser]

Brian, this is by far the best video on color grading and the use of that panel in LR, thanks! Finally I understand how to use it appropriately, as well as the major difference with the HSL panel. Awesome! 👏

[@brianmatiash]

Woohoo! I’m so glad the video was helpful, Paul. Thank you!

[@michaelmckeag960]

Wow! First truly informative tutorial on color grading I’ve encountered (and associated topics), eager now to launch LrC to experiment and practice.

[@brianmatiash]

Excellent! It’s an often overlooked panel that has so much creative potential. Enjoy!

[@stteo8506]

thank you very much for the tutorial - i now, have the proper understanding of what color grading is. A question - how is 'color grading' compared to 'gradient map' and when to use one or the other ?

[@TheSmartWoodshop]

Brain, this was helpful. I don't think I have ever used color grading on my photos. I couldn't see it in the video, but I will give it a test run. Would you use this in a composite when you are trying to blend multiple photos?

[@brianmatiash]

Good question, Ron. I mostly work with single photos (with the exception of tone mapping, pano stitching, and focus stacking) and will add a color grade towards the end of the workflow. If I were to composite several photos, I’d do that first and color grade at the end, as well, to ensure that all of the blended elements are cohesive.

[@yourvitamin9474]

Fantastic! Can I edit this technique to beauty portraits?

[@philipculbertson55]

I understand color grading on color photos but I shoot a lot of black and white. You can get a sepia or cyan monochrome look by tweaking the CG after the conversion to BW but I wonder about the role of color grading in a BW photo BEFORE you convert to BW. I just ignore CG if I plan to convert to BW unless I need sepia or cyanotype tint to the final BW. Have you experimented with using or not using CG for an image before conversion to BW? I have not but I am interested to know if I should CG BW images prior to conversion?

[@Steve_I_See]

Thanks for a very informative video, Brian. I was intrigued by your discussion of the difference between the HSL slider and color grading. If, in your example, the underlying image remains black and white, where exactly does the blue that we have added to the shadows via color grading “live”?

[@brianmatiash]

My pleasure, Steve. The HSL vs color grading example was my favorite part of the video because it is such an impactful way to illustrate how these two panels operate and why they shouldn't be thought of as similar actions. For a B/W photo, the blue tint would apply to the shadows just like it did with the B/W gradient that I used in the video. Depending on the actual blue hue and saturation value, it'd begin to take on a cyanotype look. In other words, you'd not actually adding blue to the image. Instead, you're adding a blue hue to the shadow region. A subtle, but vastly important, distinction to understand.

[@Steve_I_See]

I would have assumed that the B component in actual pixels was being modified as part of the color grading. Perhaps I’m incorrect on that point. I need to experiment with a few actual photos to understand the distinction in more detail.

[@brianmatiash]

Definitely. Let me know what you find out.

[@brianmatiash]

*Do you apply color grading to your photos? Or do you prefer a different method?*