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Video colour grading 
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Joined: Fri May 15, 2009 3:16 am
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I need to colour grade / white balance some UW video clips I shot on holiday. Does anyone have any recommendations of free or trial without limitation software for me to try? Ideally something that is very easy to learn as it is just for dabbling with at the moment.

TIA

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If one is diving so close to the limits that +/- 1% will make a difference then the error has already been made.


Wed Apr 16, 2014 10:07 am
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Which software are you editing in?

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Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:39 am
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Lightroom at the moment. I was under the impression that it could work with video, and have just discovered it does. The drawback however is that it is looking like I need to install the dastardly QuickTime. :evil:

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If one is diving so close to the limits that +/- 1% will make a difference then the error has already been made.


Fri Apr 18, 2014 4:18 am
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Now that I know what to do, comes the realisation that this 7yo laptop is woefully inadequate at anything that requires the slightest bit of electronic effort.

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If one is diving so close to the limits that +/- 1% will make a difference then the error has already been made.


Fri Apr 18, 2014 6:15 am
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Depends how much value you put on your time! :lol:
It's never occurred to me use LR in that way to be honest, but I'm interested so I'll have to have a play.
Have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDwodRpfytw - seems like you can take a single frame, make the adjustments to the colour you want, save it as a preset and apply it to the whole clip.
We used to do colour correction 7 yrs ago - it's just faster these days. ;)

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Sat Apr 19, 2014 1:32 pm
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I found a similar video from someone called Erin describing much the same process. I had a play and it all looks like it should work ok with single frames. However, trying to apply it on the fly to one of my clips is when the laptop turned all French and started waving the little white flag.

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If one is diving so close to the limits that +/- 1% will make a difference then the error has already been made.


Tue Apr 22, 2014 6:39 am
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You’ll all hate me for this - but I’ll mention here that Final Cut Pro X has some rather nice tools for colour grading and colour correction - that includes adjusting levels to ensure you don’t clip your blacks and whites. Obviously - colour correct first (that is, make sure your levels and whites are nicely balanced), then colour grade (adjust colours to taste).

The drawbacks are:

1 - You’ll need a Mac. You’ll also need to be aware that Apple decided that my 2006 MBP was no longer powerful enough to run FCPX, which is a bummer (so new Laptop is required for portable FCP larks), so software obsolescence for older machines is likely.

2 - You’ll need £200 - it’s an expensive bit of software, but nowhere near as expensive as FCP originally was (£900+). The FCPX price is around the same as you’d previously pay for Final Cut Express - which was a pretty decent bit of software for hobbyists.

If you have access to a Mac and want to try it out, there’s a download here:
http://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/

Anyway, some tutorials:
http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2011/ ... -in-fcp-x/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqbmT4Lx4uM

There’s loads about this, but since I discovered how to do all of this colour correction last year, I’ve found I can get a lot more out of the footage from my video camera, and even the GoPro seems to be massively improved.

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Tue Apr 22, 2014 11:22 am
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