How I Do Cinematic Color Grading in Shotcut the Easy and Lazy Way

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you my super easy and lazy way of color grading.

So stay tuned.

I'm just a normal person with no video editing background.

I wanted to start making YouTube videos and maybe cool transitions and effects.

I don't really plan on being a professional video editor, so I was looking for a free,

easy to learn video editing software.

Luckily, I stumbled on Shotcut, a free open source video editing program that

can do many of the tricks you can do on more enterprise video editors like Adobe Premiere

or DaVinci Resolve, but with a much simpler and leaner interface, thus dramatically shortening

the learning curve.

It just takes using your imagination.

So let's learn together.

Before we get started, I want to show you which version I'm using for this demo.

I am using Shotcut version 20.07.11.

In this demo, I'm going to show you my very simple color grade process.

Just so you know, I am not a professional colorist.

There are a multitude of ways to color correct and color grade.

I just don't want to spend a lot of time color grading, so I created this very basic,

simple process.

My number one tip before I get started is to do your color correction and color grading

last.

Make sure you've done everything you need to do with your edit, including cutting, transitions,

filters, everything.

Why?

Because to make your editing buttery smooth, you always want to work using proxy files.

If you don't know what that is, I'll link the tutorial right there on the top

right of the video and in the description.

The only problem with proxy editing is that it shrinks the video file and preview, giving

you inaccurate colors.

So it makes it really difficult to color correct because it's not even the right colors.

So once you're done with all your edits, you'd need to first uncheck use proxy

and second set preview scaling to none.

This will make your timeline play really slow depending on your computer.

Before I move on to the steps, if you could do me a huge favor and subscribe to my

channel.

Your subscription will go a long way to help me out in terms of knowing that I'm

reaching the right people and I'm helping my fellow Shotcut users.

So thank you for your subscription.

This is going to be a three step process.

Step one is setting your white balance.

Step two is fixing your exposure.

And last but not least, step three, color grading.

Okay, so let's pretend like this is your finished edit.

And in my current timeline, I dropped three different videos.

Two of them I downloaded online and one I recorded myself.

So here's the first video.

Pretty nice.

Here's the second video.

And this is the third video that I recorded myself.

So let's start with the first process.

So with the video selected, like I said, we're going to go to white balance.

I'm going to choose white balance in the filter section.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go over to this dropper section

and select this dropper.

And I'm going to find the most neutral color in this video.

Or the easiest is just find something that's supposed to be white like here.

Like this wave area here is supposed to be white.

So all I'm going to do is select that and get a sample of it.

And it didn't really make a difference.

So this tells me that the white balance is pretty much set in this particular video.

Now the next step is to set the exposure.

So before you do that, the most important thing is you need to load up two scopes.

So if you can go to view scopes

and choose video waveform, and that's what this thing is here.

That's the video waveform.

Once that is loaded, what you need to do is you need to go to filter.

And what we're going to look for is color grading.

So even though we're on the color grading filter,

we're actually not going to color grade yet.

What we're trying to do is we're trying to set the exposure.

If you don't know what these colors and what these levers are,

they basically represent the shadows, the mid tones, and the highlights.

And so the shadows are the darkest areas of your video.

And then the highlights are the brightest areas.

And then the mid tones, self-explanatory, it's like the middle colors or the middle darkness.

And so I'm going to show you what happens when I go into the shadows and I drop the shadow

all the way down.

So I'm just dragging the lever and I'm going to drop it all the way down.

And then if I go to the highlights, I'll show you what happens when I bring it all the way up.

And then when I drop it all the way down.

So I'm going to reset all these back to neutral.

What we're trying to do is we're looking at this video waveform scope here.

And you see this little area right here?

We want this to go all the way as close to zero,

the zero line here as possible without touching the zero line.

And so this area here represents the shadows.

And so I'm going to go over here to the shadow side and watch as I drop this lever down,

watch what happens here.

So I'm going to grab this lever, hold and click, and I'm going to drop it all the way down.

And what I'm trying to do is bring it all the way down

as close to zero as possible.

And so if you look at here, we're pretty much at two, which is pretty close.

But look what happened.

It darkened my video.

The one thing that I want to point out before I forget is

with color grading and color correcting, the order matters.

And so if you look at this filter box here, the color grading is below white balance.

As you remember, the first thing I did was white balance.

And the second step is color grading.

So what I need to do is I need to click that and drag it over

to make sure color grading is on top of white balance.

Now, right after that, what we did was we dropped the shadows all the way down.

And so let me toggle between the two just to show you what I did.

OK.

Right now it looks pretty bad because all I did was make an adjustment to the shadows.

Just like what we did is to bring this thing all the way down to the shadows.

What we want to do is we also want to bring

the topmost point of this graph all the way up as close to 100 as possible.

So to do that, I need to go to the highlights.

And I need to drag that up as close to right there to 100 as possible.

So that was the topmost point.

And we don't want to drag it even more because what's going to happen

is we're going to start clipping your highlights.

Still looks kind of odd based on what the original looks like.

So now it's really dark.

So now this area here, this middle area that's supposed to be a little bit lighter

is now too dark.

So now I need to go over to the mid tones

and bring it up a little bit just to kind of brighten it up.

And I think that's about right.

And so once again, let me toggle on and off.

So this was the original and this is the new.

And so all we did was made it a little punchier.

And so that's it.

That's your that's your color balance.

Last but not least, now we need to go into the color grading.

And in order to do that, what I typically do is I go into the filters

and I load another color grading filter, bring that all the way to the top

and do my color changes in this color grading filter.

And so what's going to help me in this instance

is the Video Vector scope, which is represented by this here.

Let me make it a little bigger if it's possible.

Let me go over here.

Okay.

What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to make this white blob in the middle

as small as possible, because if it leans toward this area here,

which you can see is yellow, that means there's more yellow than not.

If it leans toward this red here, that means there's a little bit more red,

a little bit more purple, a little bit more blue, cyan, green.

But you know what, this blob actually is pretty small.

So that means that it's pretty balanced.

So for the most part, I'm not really going to make any changes,

but I'm just going to show you what it does when I do.

So for example, if I go into the shadow area here

and I drag this middle dot toward the orange section, that's what happens.

And so once you set your exposure and you start color grading,

this is when artists tend to add their particular look.

So really, this is sufficient as it is.

And you can actually export this video looking like this.

But if you want to add a particular style or a particular look,

you then move your colors around.

So here it's kind of a little sepia.

Let's play around with this color here.

That's not looking too good.

But again, you kind of get the understanding of what this color part does.

With this particular video, you don't really need to do much.

So I'm actually going to set everything back to neutral.

But if you happen to record or you happen to upload a particular type of look,

this is when you make those changes.

But if you tend to do the same changes

for color grading every single time you color correct and your color grade,

you're better off just slapping a LUT on top of it,

which is what actually I do once I balance everything.

I've actually created my own LUT.

And one of those LUTs is actually the typical orange and teal look that you see

with a lot of cinematic videos.

And so the way I do that is clicking this plus button, typing in LUT.

And then I'm going to load up one of the LUTs that I created.

And this one is called Orange Teal Bluer.

Click Open.

I also want to make sure that that's the top most,

because again, the order matters.

So I don't really think you made that big of a difference.

There's a slight difference.

It kind of this kind of top area here, it turned the pink more orange.

But really, there really isn't that big of a difference.

And that's because this this video itself,

this video clip that I downloaded already has somewhat of an orange and teal look.

And so pretty much that's what I do with regards to color grading.

So let's move on to the second video.

So once again, that's what the video looks like.

So I'm going to select the video.

And once again, the first step is setting your white balance.

So I'm going to type white.

And again, I'm going to find an area here that's supposed to be either a neutral color or white.

And thankfully, there happens to be this little wave here that just came into the video.

And so I'm going to select the white most area or what I believe

should be the white most area.

And again, very, very slight, very, very subtle change.

But all it's doing is creating the correct white balance.

And so for the most part, I mean, you can still tweak it a little bit.

But you know, I'm not I'm not too picky when it comes to that.

So for the most part, I think it's white balance.

But again, when you look here, there's actually a slider here.

So if you want to make this thing look a little bit warmer,

you can actually drag the slider to the left.

If you want to make it a little cooler, you can drag it to the right.

And you can play around with it depending on the type of look that you're looking for.

Again, I'm just going to go ahead and go back to the dropper.

I'm going to go back and select an area that I believe should be white.

Here, let me select another one here.

Maybe this little point here should be white.

And once again, it's white balance.

So again, the next step is I'm going to click

color grading.

So I'm going to load color grading.

And I'm going to drag it on top of white balance,

because once again, the order matters.

But in this step, again, I am not trying to color grade.

What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to set the exposure.

So when I look at the shadows, it's still a long way from zero.

So once again, I'm going to go over here to the shadows.

And I'm going to drop it all the way down until it gets pretty close to zero right there.

And then this area here, which is the highlights,

I'm going to drag it all the way up here.

So it's close to 100.

And once again, that's represented by this handle.

So let's drag it all the way up.

Nope, I started clipping it.

So let me bring it back down a little bit.

Right there.

Okay, so I'm going to toggle what it used to look like.

So it used to look like that.

Now it looks like that, which is pretty.

I think it's a lot puncher looking like this.

Now, I don't know if we really need to make any adjustments to the mid tones,

but let's just bring it up and let's bring it down to see if it changes it.

I think for the most part, the original setting was pretty balanced.

So right there again,

that's what the video looked like without the color grading setting.

And that's what it looks like without the white balance.

So let's bring it back.

So now we have another clip that is somewhat neutrally exposed

and then has the correct white balance.

And when we look at the Video Vector scope, once again, the blob isn't that big.

You want to start worrying about this blob when it gets close to this first tick here.

So there's like this little tick right there and that little tick right there.

Once it starts getting, once it starts touching that,

that's when you start worrying.

But for the most part, anywhere around this middle part, you're okay.

Last but not least, we're going to load another

instead of color grading now, I'm just going to go ahead and slap my LUT.

Let's drag this above color grading.

Let's open. Once again, I chose the Orange Teal Bluer.

Didn't really make that big of a difference.

There is a subtle change.

Let me load another LUT so you can see what another color treatment would make it look like.

So let's load one.

Let's load a sepia.

So that's what a sepia LUT looks like.

And so if you're color grading to make it look sepia,

that's what it's going to look like.

Let me load another one. Let's call this one copper.

This one, again, a very, very subtle change only because this video is actually

well balanced. It's already, it was already well

exposed and it was already, you already had the right white balance.

So for the most part, it's very, very subtle, but it does make a difference.

So again, let's bring it back to my ideal look, which is the orange teal color.

So just this is the orange teal color.

So once again,

so this is the first one.

This is the second one.

Now I'm going to try to color grade the third one,

which is going to be the hardest one because this one is totally different from the other two.

The other two were professionally taken.

This one was taken using my GoPro and this is one that I took myself.

And so this one is going to need a lot more work.

And so once again, with the clip selected, we're going to choose white balance.

And I'm going to try to select what I believe should be white.

Let's go click this thing here.

And didn't really do anything.

Let me go further down the clip and I'm going to show you guys a little hack

whenever I record my own video.

If you ever notice any of my fishing videos, you're going to notice that there's a white piece of paper

on the back of my little sling bag here.

And I tend to have something white on me or something that's supposed to be a neutral color

knowing that in the future, I'm going to white balance against it.

So knowing that I was going to go through this process, I have a legend.

I have a white piece of paper right there that I can choose

that will tell me this is supposed to be white.

And so me having this white piece of paper there is deliberate.

And so look how dramatic the change was.

So originally it was it was really, really cold and it was actually a super sunny day.

So even though this thing looks weird, this is actually more accurate.

This was like right at noon.

And so made a huge difference.

And this is why I always have something white on my person like I'm wearing a white shirt,

white hat or I put I put a little white sticker or white piece of paper on the back of my bag.

And so let's select it again and look at the difference.

So that's the first step.

Now the second step again is exposure using the color grading filter.

So I'm going to go in the color grading filter.

I'm going to set my scope to video waveform.

And this thing looks totally different.

It's actually a lot better exposed than the other two videos.

But it just looks a little odd only because it was so sunny and it was so hot.

So once again, I want this area here to get as close to zero as possible.

So this is represented by the shadows.

So I'm going to drag the shadow all the way down.

It's going to make my video a little muddy.

I'm going to drag this thing all the way up

as close to 100 as I can.

Now the big change here, and this is when it actually matters,

when it didn't matter with the other two clips,

is the mid tones.

So now I can raise my mid tones a little bit to kind of brighten the area

and make myself pop a little bit.

So this was what it looked like originally.

And now I'm going to drag it a little bit more.

And again, this is, there's not a right or wrong answer here.

So this is really subjective.

And so it's based on what you believe

should be the optimal mid tone color or mid tone exposure.

And so I think that's about right.

I should have had this color grading on top of white balance.

So once again, that might have affected the color a little bit.

So let me play around with

the mid tones.

And so four after

again, very subtle changes,

but all it did was it made it a little bit more contrasty.

So last but not least,

and this in this particular video,

this is when the LUT is going to make a dramatic difference

versus the other two videos.

So rather than loading color grading

to manually mess around with the colors,

I'm just going to slap my LUT that I created.

So again, you look for the LUT filter.

And again, if you remember,

the LUT that I use is called Orange Teal Bluer.

Boom, huge difference.

I'm going to drag that on top.

So this is what the image

or what the video looked like before.

And this is what it looks like with the LUT.

And this is what a lot of videographers typically

like in terms of their look,

which is it makes the skin tone

pop a little bit more and makes it

it makes it a little bit more orange.

And it makes kind of water or anything else

make a look a little bit bluer

and it mutes all the other colors.

So this is kind of the

one of the typical cinematic looks.

And so that's it.

That's that's pretty much how I do my color grading.

So once again, just to summarize,

you start with white balance,

then you go with your exposure.

And then last but not least,

you go with your color grading.

Now you're probably saying to yourself,

wait a minute, that's not how you color graded.

That's not how you color correct.

Well, I'm not saying that this is the de facto way of color grading.

All I'm saying is this is the lazy way of color grading.

The way I do it.

So if you have another method,

I'd love to hear it.

I'd love to see it.

Just comment on the comment section.

But if you're lazy like me,

this is a really quick way of color grading your your videos.

Speaking of lazy,

like I said,

I've already created a bunch of LUTs.

So if you happen to want a copy of my LUTs

without you having to create one for yourself,

just go ahead and subscribe to my channel first.

Then make a comment on the comment section saying,

I want your LUTs.

And if you do,

I'm going to go ahead and reach out to you

and I'm going to send you a copy of my LUTs.

And that's it.

Pretty easy.

Anyway,

so I hope my lazy way of color correcting and color grading

helps you out.

At least gives you a little bit more confidence

and gives you a little bit more understanding

of how to color correct and how to balance everything,

the exposure to white balance and everything.

So I appreciate you guys sticking along

because I know this is a longer tutorial than I usually do.

So once again,

thank you for watching the video.

Thank you for subscribing.

And I'll talk to you later.