Day 25 #28daysofQuickTips 2018 – A Bunch of Colorist Tips by Scott Simmons

I’ve learned a lot from the Twitter hashtag #ColoristTip. Here’s some of my favorites.

February 25, 2018

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The best QuickTips are ones that you learn something from. One of my favorites is the #Colorist Tip hashtag on Twitter. Usually these come to Twitter courtesy of Senior Colorist at Red Bull Media House Phil Strahl. His twitter feed is full of these things so give him a follow if you want to learn more about not just pushing Resolve’s buttons but how to improve your color grading overall. His tips are often tipping DaVinci Resolve but many of them are not.

Since I’m just lifting another’s hard work for this QuickTip I did ask Phil’s permission to use them. Thanks Phil.

Here are some of my favorites in no particular order:

Today’s #ColoristTip: Too many different colors make a shot look busy. Focus on 2 main colors and one accent, desaturate/hue-shift the others instead.

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) January 23, 2018

Follow-up to yesterday’s #ColoristTip: Crowd shots tend to have too many clashing hues in them. Here are some looks with two mains and one accent color. The last one is the mandatory (almost-)Orange & Real. 😉 pic.twitter.com/M8osE65tSM

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) January 24, 2018

"teal". Dammit!

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) January 24, 2018

Someday we’ll maybe that Twitter edit button.

Today’s #ColoristTip: Blue appears darker than equally saturated green or red. For a similar appearance, darken the other colors or desaturate and lift the blues. pic.twitter.com/6chwz6bVgE

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) February 19, 2018

Today’s #ColoristTip: Give clouds more depth by lowering their gamma but keeping the highlights level.

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) February 15, 2018

Today’s #ColoristTip: Movement, Contrast, Color, Resolution (in that order) is how we perceive changes in visual information.

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) February 14, 2018

Today’s #ColoristTip: When too much noise in a shot makes it hard to read the scopes, blur the whole image, color correct, and remove the blur when you’re done (or replace it with a noise reduction effect.) pic.twitter.com/wJNBj8Le60

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) January 31, 2018

Today’s #ColoristTip: Don’t default to maxing the signal’s full dynamic. Shots in fog or at dusk don’t necessarily have sharp highlights.

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) February 12, 2018

#ColorGrading is like playing Bejeweled: You keep matching colors on a timer, hoping for a chain-reaction where things just fall into place 😉 pic.twitter.com/U7gBUmdS9h

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) January 27, 2018

Today’s #ColoristTip: Check your work at thumbnail size. If you still can make out what’s important, you’re doing it right. Also, the shorter a shot is on screen, the stronger you should pump up its contrast for it to still read well.

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) February 8, 2018

Today’s #ColoristTip: MPEG/JPEG compression artifacts can be lessened by a bit of careful temporal noise reduction unless the shot is very static.

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) February 13, 2018

Today’s #ColoristTip: Mind that the daily lighting conditions outside your suite may influence your individual perception of color and brightness.

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) February 20, 2018

Today’s #ColoristTip: Keeping the flow in your work is essential. Try to minimize distractions, e.g. log off Twitter right after retweeting and liking this tweet. 😉

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) February 10, 2018

Today’s #ColoristTip: Identify and mind where a shot’s key light is coming from and don’t work against it.

— LUTwig van Gradehoven (Phil Strahl 🅲🆂🅸) (@PhilStrahl) February 6, 2018

Here’s a few other colorist tips from different folks on twitter though I have to admit I didn’t ask for their permission, I just saw some good ones when going through the #ColoristTip hashtag. Always be learning.

Day-for-night video breakdown by colorist Tobias Wiedmer. #lowepost #assimilatescratch #colorist #coloristtip https://t.co/CtnraatgFs

— Lowepost (@lowepostdotcom) January 20, 2018

#coloristtip know your deliverables and confirm them b4 sending out. Leaves a sour taste w/ clients coming back & asking for another output.

— Rob Bessette (@robsbessette) September 16, 2016

#coloristtip double check your keys in playback to make sure they're not noisy. Nothing cheapens your grade more.

— Rob Bessette (@robsbessette) November 12, 2015

Whenever round trip conforming speed ramps I always do at least 10s handles. It’s usually enough. #PostChat #ColoristTip

— Matt Christensen (@_mchristensen) October 9, 2015

Be careful of power windows on faces that move by windows. Watch to make sure the window doesn't blow out the background #coloristtip

— Rob Bessette (@robsbessette) May 28, 2015

Check to make sure your color choices are reinforcing spatial relationships by defocusing your eyes a little bit. #ColoristTip

— Jordan Boyd (@jordantboyd) May 15, 2013

#Resolve Editing Tip—Press V to automatically select the edit nearest the playhead, Shift-V to select the clip intersecting the playhead, Option-C to select the nearest Video cut only, and Shift-C to select the nearest Audio cut only, in preparation for nudging & trimming.

— Alexis Van Hurkman (@hurkman) February 6, 2018

#ColoristTip 1:
Order of Operations
1. Match shots within scenes
2. Create your look
3. Use windows 2 fix specific problems & distractions.

— Aaron Williams (@videoaaron) December 16, 2010

And finally:

Revamped #haircolor with #organic #allnutrient color. #ColoristTip #toddsterlingbrown #LA #colorspecialist #beautytip pic.twitter.com/CusS0GgdMs

— TSB (@ToddsterlingBRN) April 20, 2015

Yea baby!

Have your own editing and post-production related QuickTip for #28daysofQuickTips 2018 that you’d like to share? Know a killer Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer or DaVinci Resolve tip that no one else knows? Want to possibly win a prize? Then click over to the post announcing this year’s #28daysofQuickTips and find out how you can send in your own QuickTip.