Color Correction Look Book: Creative Grading Techniques for Film and Video

The digital colorist’s job is no longer to simply balance, fix, and optimize. Today’s filmmakers often want to recreate the idiosyncrasies of older recording methods, or are looking for something completely new, to differentiate the look of a given project. Furthermore, end-to-end digital shooting, postproduction, and distribution means that stylizations and effects once created by the film lab are no longer photochemically available. The color grading suite has become the lab, and these sorts of stylizations are now part of the colorist’s job description.
In this follow-up volume to the bestseller Color Correction Handbook, Alexis Van Hurkman walks you through twenty-one categories of creative grading techniques, designed to give you an arsenal of stylizations you can pull out of your hat when the client asks for something special, unexpected, and unique. Each chapter presents an in-depth examination and step-by-step, cross-platform breakdown of stylistic techniques used in music videos, commercial spots, and cinema. These customizable techniques can be mixed and matched for your own unique effects and include:

• bleach bypass looks
• cross-processing simulation
• day-for-night treatments
• emulating film stocks
• flat looks
• glows, blooms, and gauze looks
• grain, noise, and texture
• greenscreen compositing workflows
• lens flaring and veiling glare
• light leaks and color bleeds
• monitor and screen glow
• monochrome looks
• sharpening
• tints and color washes
• undertones
• vibrance and targeted saturation
• and many more!

 

Alexis Van Hurkman is a writer, director, and colorist based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He has written widely on the topic of color correction, including Color Correction Handbook; Adobe SpeedGrade Classroom in a Book; Autodesk Smoke Essentials; and Apple Pro Training Series titles The Encyclopedia of Color Correction, Advanced Color Correction and Effects in Final Cut Pro, and Final Cut Pro X Advanced Editing. Alexis has also written software documentation, including the DaVinci Resolve Manual and the Apple Color User Manual. As a working colorist, Alexis grades a wide variety of commercial and independent projects for broadcast, narrative and documentary features and shorts, spots, and experimental subjects. You can learn more about Alexis at http://vanhurkman.com/ or follow him on Twitter at @hurkman.