5 Things You may be Doing that are Ruining Your Grades | DaVinci Resolve Tutorial

[@theqazman]

Watch the FREE 1-hour Color Grading Workshop: waqasqazi.com/secrets-to-grading-like-a-pro

[@Cchogan]

As someone who is just learning this stuff (for pleasure not work) but coming from many years in recording studios, I really appreciate your approach of boiling it down to just what is needed and nothing more. That is how you work with sound design too. I was told a story years back of some sfx people that had to get the sound of a paper bag full of porridge hitting a wall. (Hey, some jobs are mad). They tried everything and nothing was working. Moved the mikes, changed gloopy substances, played with all kinds of material, and messed around half the day. Then someone said, "why don't we try actually putting some porridge in a paper bag and throw it against the wall in the corridor. So they did. Perfect. The simplest solution was the right one.

[@camcamwatt]

Right! I run a creative team of 10 + and my goodness so many creatives overcomplicate so much of the process for no need, or in the ego's pursuit of originality and it wastes so much time.

[@maxmakesfilms69]

Honestly, I'm learning more from your videos about colour grading than I have in my 3 years at University 😂 thank you!

[@rafaelnahafahik7781]

Were you going to a Uni for Colour Grading?

[@biswajit07]

​@@rafaelnahafahik7781 The California University for Grading and Color Science

[@ronischuetz]

by far the best color grading video for underwater video which i saw as of now, it is much appreciated. thank you

[@theqazman]

Appreciate the love, brother.

[@aerofart]

One way of looking at color grading is to see it as a two-adjustment process. One process involves moving all values towards a “true” starting point (correction). In this first part, the goal is to preserve the original relationships between all the initial values, and only shifting all those values as a group, towards a true center. Then part two is where developing the “look” comes into play, and that involves moving each of the values or groups/subsets of each of the values relative to one another, so that their original relative positions within the color gamut are modified, thus changing their original relation to one another. Same process applies to luminance relationships. First offset the whole group, then change specific areas to achieve the particular look.

[@TrailRaiders]

You are the best colorist I've seen on KZbin. Thank you for these tutorials. God bless you Waqas!

[@hendleyroadent2612]

This is the best colorist channel on the internet. Hands down.

[@theqazman]

Let's go! 💪🏾🔥

[@AdamLangdon]

The King! As always, easily explained, simple-smart choices. So glad to be a part of FCM!

[@theqazman]

LFG 🔥 #fcmfam 😀

[@eddieblanquiz2542]

Great vid! I would love to see a video on grading low light footage with various colors!!! Club/Bar/horror movie(Mandy, Color Out of Space, Bliss, Etc) scenes etc.

[@S.ARIF_2020]

NOOOO I've been converting my image right in the first node XD Thank god, I've watched your video...because I was steadily moving towards shooting a documentary. Didn't want that mistake to happen there XD Thanks a LOT for the awesome knowledge you provide!

[@stevestrasser6833]

Why would you set your output color space to "same as timeline" in the color management? So you output in Davinci Wide Gamut? This does not make any sense to me. That being said, I really like the idea of adjusting exposure in the hdr tools before working on the contrast. Great tip!

[@ectoproductions]

You can also click-n-drag Hue VS eye dropper to widen the range if needed.

[@supersecretmoves]

I would love to see a specialized video on skies 🙂 Skies are just a big part of outdoor videos, and they can go into so many directions when recording and when grading them.

[@theqazman]

Will do.

[@a.rec_film]

Amazing film. I am just a beginner in Davinci and I don't quite understand everything you're doing but your tutorials are very helpfull. keep dooing man. You're the BOSS

[@theqazman]

Appreciate the love. Will do.

[@FlyingOverTr0ut]

This is great. I've literally been taking notes on all this and learning so much.

[@BillyMinxFashion]

even on my weak computer the installation did not take much time, thank you very much

[@koushikbhattacharya832]

i have been learning from when u started this Chanel....on that time there was no information out there....thank u so much♥

[@theqazman]

Appreciate the love brother

[@JasonToddRoberts]

Thanks for the tip on converting with the last node! can't wait to try it.

[@TheIkeRai]

Glad you made this one. Also glad you made all the other videos, I have been learning a TON about thought process in grading. Thank you!

[@theqazman]

You're welcome bro. I gotchu.

[@jolanpery4780]

Thanks!! It’s very cool to have underwater shot

[@personaldronerepair6141]

Dude you rokk!! Good to see ya back!!

[@theqazman]

Good to be back. 🙏🏾😀

[@PhilipBlank]

This was definitely a quick and valuable lesson! I've learned a lot more from this quickly than a whole culmination of videos that have a little of this and a little of that. Well done!

[@DylColeman]

It's amazing how much knowledge you are giving away for free on this channel, bro. Gems! Thank you so much 🙏🏾

[@theqazman]

You're welcome

[@sadoptimist8]

4 Videos/4 that i watched was rly helpful. And information You give, by that way, i understand better. I feel Your passion here, and im enjoying)

[@sadoptimist8]

Subscribe)

[@naviknanubhai4244]

Thank you Qazi, just the tutorial I needed as I’ve definitely made all these mistakes in the past!

[@theqazman]

Happy to help

[@jonathanblanckaert]

If you use hue vs hue with 8 bit or 10 bit footage you also get a lot of artifacting. But it is faster ofc...

[@MysterixInfinity]

Hey Qaz, I'm a freelance colorist getting clients for mostly short films, but recently I'm getting Kollywood works (Indian Cinema Industry) thanks to your free training, but one question is bothering me throughout my whole coloring process. That is, how is shot matching achieved between different scenes? Like say a bunch of shots was from outdoor and then a bunch of other shots are inside a garage, how do I know if they are on the same world? Like will I anchor to their contrast or saturation levels or their color palettes? Cuz obviously the palettes differ scene to scene, then how do I bring them all to a single world? \

[@logiknotlogic6586]

if theyre shot with the same camera and similar lighting style, then I dont see the problem in applying the same base grade for both

[@theqazman]

First off, congrats! Super happy for you. Secondly, looks like you need to invest in yourself and join my masterclass. Everything you're asking for is covered in my course and much more. Rn I have a special so check it out. Link is in the description of my latest video.

[@MysterixInfinity]

@@theqazman Hey sure Qazi, soon to join the FCM fam!

[@jeremypope-levison721]

You don't really want to match two different environments 1:1. You can apply a similar look, but matching outdoors to indoors is not going to work. You can create a base look DNA for the project, then grade the inside to match that look. If you watch a film like Joker, teal and orange is all throughout but different when you go to different environment.

[@NuvoVision]

Humbly back with another request:) can you please do a video about how to convert a lut property. I appreciate the benefit of the doubt...but the doubt would have been justified haha. thanks man!❤

[@ArcodGame]

18:43 Helpful?? Man! That was life saving

[@theqazman]

Let's go!

[@fox1574]

LOL at failing to making the key look bad with such great footage XD turns out, gear does matter sometimes :) I have a suggestion for a look recreation: "The Bear" (FX series, streaming on Hulu). It looks like it can be replicated using the Kodak 2383 as a basis, but I'd like to see how you'd go about it! Really like how punchy the look is, really fits the fast-pacing vibe of the show.

[@theqazman]

Hate when high end cameras make everything look so easy. Makes my job obsolete. 😂 I'll look into it. Thanks for the suggestion.

[@kkmjpkjbts751]

You are a life saver! Kudos to you! You rock!!

[@sajeedsarwarbd]

Welcome back!

[@Dive_Me_Crazy]

Thanks for this. Would love more on underwater colour grading. Especially gopro😎

[@dawoodal-kiyumi4467]

Thanks for the great tips! I have a question: how are we supposed to treat a footage that needs CG on another software? Lets say we shot an outdoor raw footage with a green screen behind the actors. Tell me if these steps are right: first we need to convert this footage to a format that's easier to work on a compositing software like Nuke or After Effects. We composite elements to look close to the colorspace used. Then we render this back in 32 bit to be colored on Resolve. Is this correct? If so, I'm not sure how to treat the footage in Resolve before exporting for compositing.

[@Issmirkaese]

You just colorgrade however you want the final image to look like. You render it out of Resolve and import it into nuke. There you composite, fit the blacklvls, make the contrast match etc. and then just render out of nuke. The Greenscreen keying is obviously not done on the graded footage. You just copy over the matte from the keyed raw footage, that you also importet into nuke. Thats it. You never reimport it into Resolve (except you edit in it), nor do any color adjustments after that. If you composite in AE i would not recommend to render out with filmgrain in Resolve, since the tools to match the Grain of the graded image with the composite is difficult. Nuke has a quite decent grain sampler. So for AE i would recommend to put the grain as a final step in AE, to tie in the composite better with the graded footage. Maybe theres grain sample plugins for ae, dunno. TLDR; First grade, then composite

[@Bibliothekaresse]

Long story short: use ACES. There's a great tutorial on adding VFX into Cinematic RAW+LOG Footage by InLightVFX. I'd recommend looking into that.

[@dawoodal-kiyumi4467]

​@@Issmirkaese Thank you Lucas for the tips. Your workflow makes sense as a way to take full adventage of the raw footage for the color grading. But if a green screen is covering most of the shot with no background yet, wouldn't that be harder for the colorist to do a proper job? Also, what if the director changed his mind and wanted to change the colors of a specific scene after the compositing? Wouldn't that mean compositing work will have to be modified again? That's why I'm trying to find a better workflow.

[@dawoodal-kiyumi4467]

@@Bibliothekaresse Thank you very much! Definitely, will look into it. :)

[@dawoodal-kiyumi4467]

@@Bibliothekaresse I just saw the tutorials. Thank you very much! That's exactly what I was looking for! :D

[@mcewan-media]

Was just listening to your podcast on my evening walks :)

[@theqazman]

Let's go! My man. 😀

[@kirbypfilms1]

Good Morning Qazi

[@RLTPhoto]

I wish I could watch Monday but I have a day job... Thanks for the info! always learning!

[@anton_sokolov]

Outstanding skills! Thank you for teaching and sharing your knowledge! As a diver I’m really impressed with this tutorial!

[@theqazman]

Thank you.

[@oliver.creative]

Is there a general rule of thumb or law for when the deepest blacks in the image meets the 'black bars'. Like, how visible does the border have to be (if any) or is it just preference?

[@Karuthompson]

Good question

[@blackbird8837]

the general rule of thumb is: does it look good? Does it work with the genre / the story you're trying to tell? That would, above anything, be the question I'd ask myself during the grading process.

[@theqazman]

That depends on the format you're working with. I'll be going in depth on that in my live training next week. Make sure to sign up.

[@neaumusic]

I think it depends on your camera, I only really go down a stop or two at most, using a variation of the log to hlg lut (I know it looks natural as opposed to making even linear adjustments, definitely better than a random gamma curve), and yea in a PQ timeline theres a huge difference between 0 and 10 nits so I think “it looks good” is the final rule

[@sezayozturk6528]

I dont understand No3. Should I balance the image before using the color space transform, cineon film log ?

[@KiaOrion]

killer. really a testament to focus on the fundamentals

[@theqazman]

💯 bro

[@AllThingsFilm1]

You always provide new techniques and tips in every new video. Thanks so much for valuable walkthroughs.

[@theqazman]

Of course. 😀

[@timsolomon2840]

Thank you so much! Beatiful!

[@evanderhollyfield7104]

Woooow nice tutorial,I didn't know that someone can use offset and on HDR someone can use global worth watching,see you on the webinar

[@theqazman]

😀

[@jonathanweberde]

If you do your conversion at the beginning of your node tree, you are not working in that color space from there on. It is true that you use the converted color values, but you are still in a 32bit float environment and in DaVinci Resolve Wide Gamut color space. It is true, however, that conversion only makes sense at the end of the node tree nonetheless.

[@theqazman]

So what I said. 😀 Over explanation often times cause confusion and isn't necessary.

[@jonathanweberde]

@@theqazman Then I got you wrong on this, very well possible... I do agree in parts that it is important to not make things appear too complicated, but false information to simplify stuff is what made my learning journey longer and hardert than it actually needed to be...

[@2000SIX]

Would love to see a video on how you color correct different scenes in the same video with vastly different lighting styles so they look like they came from the same video

[@theqazman]

In my free training. Link in the description.

[@paolodetailing]

Ciao I'm Paolo from North East of Italy. Can u tell me how house the Auto Evo II Pro Out in Color Space Transform effect? I set my projects cloro since like you. Thankyou for all. Ciao

[@MarselT75]

Hi Master, i like the Power window technique you used. advice, more faces in motion, I want to balance the skin of the face/hands .. in that case qualify and Power windows? thank you 🙏🏼

[@DavidZalka]

Best channel if we are talking about learning color grading in Davinci! So clear explanation through real world examples. Thanks Qazi ! :)

[@theqazman]

You're welcome.

[@sashazephiria3869]

Always happy to see one of your videos pop into my feed :D it's been a while indeed ! :D

[@theqazman]

Always happy to your comment. 😀

[@AyushSharmaa]

Great tutorial as always!! Can't wait to see you at the webinar 😁

[@theqazman]

It'll be 🔥

[@PistonUniverse]

Sir big fan of you and the way you teach, sir can you make a tutorial on how to colour grade a video for supercar meet-up type of ?

[@JasonZurowski]

I have fireworks that show a lot of smoke (from the previous fireworks). Is there a good way to remove (or lessen the visibility) of the smoke)?

[@Seanlikeseen]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us! I have a BMPC 6K pro but don’t see that’s in the CST drop-down menu. What should I use instead?

[@GeorgeSBlonsky]

Thanks so much Qazi ! So appreciate you sharing your knowledge like this..! 🙏

[@kelvinfunkner]

Already signed up for Monday, and I would LOVE it if you could explain the "why" behind each of the HSL panels...they seem so confusing to me...hue vs hue? hue vs sat? what does that even mean lol...sounds like a boxing match and one of them comes out the winner hahaha......anyway...I'm just a new subscriber to your channel and so far I'm loving it!!!! See you on Monday :-)

[@karliemorris7318]

Thank you quazi, I’m still learning about CST and getting the best transform I can with my BMPCc6k footage , also getting the best export , I’d love if you can use one of my clips as an example Because I’m not sure if it’s my recording process or in Davinci Thanks a lot sir

[@flipnap2112]

if youre new to it, best bet is to stick with color managed in SDR. Its really a miracle to have the capability to let resolve manage everything if youre staying in a rec709 for final. of course once you start exploring and getting brave CST are great but even to this day I can get lost from time to time. Obviously the "film look" LUTS in resolve are based on "cineon" gamma and you need to use it if youre gonna use them. Just trying to save you the headache of dealing with CST nodes if youre just getting used to your BMPCC. setting your project to managed for SD rec709 give you a great place to start.. a good frame of reference for what everything does in resolve color page

[@karliemorris7318]

@@flipnap2112 thanks

[@adamkoepke1366]

I purchased your master class last year and have gone through it. It's absolutely amazing, but I'm still having trouble figuring out when I should use parallel nodes over layer nodes and vice versa.

[@theqazman]

Watch the sub module where I breakdown different types of nodes.

[@sarcasticfpv]

One quick question/request could you make a colorgrading video with drone footage or even better fpv drone footage? You have changing areas in the view all the time so its difficult to work with gradient stuff if the drone doesnt only go forwards and the horizon stays pretty much the same. If you dont have footage I could even provide since I am fairly new to a bmpcc4k I am in the process of learning how to colorgrade it. My most recent clip is a really good example how not to do it :) because I used a wrong transformation lut to rec709 and other than that havent applied pretty much anything else to the image since I am lacking the knowledge

[@brandonross1202]

any tips on color grading iphone footage?

[@skevenshow]

Thank you very much😇 I love your videos, they help me so much in my work!

[@theqazman]

You're so welcome!

[@mingruihe5452]

I still don't understand the third step, can you give me the answer, lut is placed in front of the cst node or behind?

[@armando.visuals]

Can you recommend any great LUT pack? I already have PHANTOM Luts for SLOG3 Cine. But one that is good for also HLG or all well around. Do you have a pack?

[@JoseSpenaN]

Super helpful amazing and see you on Monday! THANK YOU.

[@theqazman]

LFG 💪🏾

[@ArcanePath360]

I wish there was a way to see the meta data shot from my R7, which shows the colour space I used without having to guess if I used 2020 or 709 for instance. I'm also struggling to make sense of HDR PQ and how to output a file that Windows can play back as a HDR movie.

[@ATLJB86]

Thanks Waqas!

[@davidpringuer]

Surely your CST node at the end of the chain is wrong!? You are using a timeline of DWG, not Red. Can you clarify? Thanks!

[@SaimantickBhadrasam]

How do you feather out the mask drawn by the pen tool? It was not clear in the video.

[@DavidHorizonFilms]

Amazing info. Learn something new everyday

[@theqazman]

Of course. 😀

[@BlackburnZ_INDIA]

Amazing tutorial as usual ❤️🔥

[@entredeuxbouchees]

Can't wait for Monday, just got Resolve and I am ready to get away from Premiere!

[@theqazman]

LFG 🔥

[@osbaldoalvarez6695]

Any chance you can do a video working with insta360 rs footage? Cheers!

[@samuelmoser]

So do I understand this right? If I want to use a LUT then I should first color correct and then bring the LUT in. So I am replacing my grading process with the LUT? And thanks for the great tutorial as always. This tutorial helps me a lot.

[@theqazman]

Yep and you're welcome.

[@nebiisklar832]

Can you provide us with the video you used so we can work with it?

[@MyJeanf]

Thanks bro. Excellent video as always 🙂

[@foxhouse_tips]

How to show the scopes in separate window?

[@v2mofficial521]

U just the best at wheat u do sir 🙌🙌🙌much appreciated

[@theqazman]

Ty 😀

[@TheDanich78]

Awesome !!! Thank you so much !!!

[@kozprod7537]

@Qazi - Man justluvu ! Where would u put the sat node if u would need one ? At the balance node with the offset (2) ? Or after the EXP (3) node or maybe after thet at the HSL curves stage (4). I like to take down the Temp a little bit on the OUTSIDE node (5) and warm the INSIDE to make it pop.

[@Niklasbrock]

Massively helpful! Thank you

[@doodylima5712]

So helpful!

[@CryWolfFilms]

even easier. just adjust your tint and it would be very similar to this.

[@rayyan495]

Can you give the link of this video so that i can practise color grading

[@migel4065]

Much appreciate the practical content

[@theqazman]

You know it.

[@parrotlife3135]

if we make a video with a phone than what input color space should we use?

[@Sappydance]

Hello Qazi, i have shot a footage indoor. there were a lot of warm lights, and when I went and convert it to rec709 the whole footage turned reddish orange. how do I fix this issue?? i shoot a lot of interior and many of them are designed with warm lights.

[@mcewan-media]

Very helpful, thanks!

[@dreamburst410]

Pls last webinar link

[@saturn_fpv]

How do you do the last shot where you can see the grades added step by step?

[@matthewdrew9539]

love this info thank you!!

[@theqazman]

You're welcome

[@ayman3fuad]

I would love if you could make a tutorial showing the best way/workflow for Sony A7SIII users that want to shoot Prores Raw but want to edit using DR17. What should we do? I was thinking in converting Prores raw into prores 444 to retain the 12 bits and edit/grade in DR17. If that should be what we do, how much tweak should we do to the Prores raw before converting it to Prores 444? I truly appreciate any help on this as I haven’t found any guidance for this. Thanks.

[@shebbe5510]

You don't have to tweak anything unless you totally messed up your whitebalance because jumping from tugsten to daylight balanced is quite inaccurate and annoying to do in post. Anything else can just be corrected with grading provided you export to ProRes4444 in some form of widegamut log encoding. SG3.cine/SLog3 makes most sense.

[@khalafilyas2367]

Hello qazi. i recently watched "Decision to leave" movie and its colorgrading is insaane. could you do a review or a breakdown why it looks so appealing or maybe a look recreation

[@theqazman]

I'll check it out

[@pistacchio7954]

Hi Qaz, can you do a breakdown for KLEO? It's a really cool show on Netflix

[@theqazman]

I'll check it out.

[@leebrandt8597]

But why not use a color managed timeline?

[@nestorpool]

Qazi, extremely thank you for this amazing video, would you be able to work with some Nikon Raw Footage? (I can provide some of them if you like too)... Thanks again for the tips. I can't wait for the 22.

[@theqazman]

Email me or send it to me thru IG dm.

[@tomaskonvicka4135]

General advice for all. See how different people do the same thing.

[@tixarrstudio]

I work with R3D on Davinci 18 in a max out customized pc. For some reasons, DV keeps crushing while colorgrading especially with NR, not mush of effects in fusion. A 5 mins music video sequence, the colorgrading is not a happy experience. Would you please give me clues why would that happened? Thank you sir!

[@curtdp]

I know that i must hit the like button when I'm watching Waqas Qazi's video. It's no brainer. Thank you.

[@theqazman]

My man. ♥️

[@juancarlos_mt]

Thank you! 😃

[@ksohail241]

hi qazi, In your masterclass most of the time you taught to use conversion before working on grade but in recent videos you are using conversion at the end node. Can you please explain why and which one to follow. ( I'm currently following your typical node tree structure i.e. NR > Primary > Conversion Lut or cst > Vignette and so on ...)

[@gwade404]

Agree. Pretty much everything in this video as described ‘what not to do’ I learned from his previous videos and masterclass.

[@MountUpMedia]

The conversion lut comes at the end of your pipeline.

[@theqazman]

Process evolves as new version of Resolve become available. Also, my process has evolved and will continue to evolve. Everything in the masterclass is an excellent guide for anyone to get going but it's the weekly competitions and sub modules that'll help you stay up to date.

[@ksohail241]

@@MountUpMedia Then how can we pull a good key without proper separation and contrast

[@MountUpMedia]

@@ksohail241 pulling keys should be an absolute LAST resort. Think global changes that will affect multiple shots rather than focusing on 1. My focus when I’m balancing a shot is to white balance to where I have the skin in the proper places and once it is, I get my color to where I have some nice separation.