Colour Grading in Your NLE

If you’re looking to get some quick colour correction done then often the fastest place to do that is right there on your timeline. Most of my colour correction and grading gets done inside FCP7 and if there’s time, I’ll round trip out to Resolve Lite. As most NLE colour correction tools are very similar, what you learn in one should be readily transferable to others.

FCPX Colour Correction

Oliver Peter’s Digital Films blog is a consistent source of excellent post production information and he’s served the post community well once again, with this outstanding free pack of 40 colour grading presets that you can download and swiftly add to your own footage. Check out Oliver’s blog to see where to install them and download them directly here.

Premiumbeat’s blog has a wealth of great post production info from Adobe Premiere, Avid and FCPX among other things. Their own great round up of 10 varied colour correction tutorials for FCPX is a great place to start for anyone new to grading. The tutorials cover everything from a tour of the interface, matching colors and creating specific looks.

Avid Media Composer Colour Correction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIb8QtZ0FfU

In this short tutorial from Lynda.com you get a quick walk through using the auto color correct features to get your shots corrected in a few clicks. In the following two-part tutorial Kevin P McAuliffe walks through how to perform basic colour correction in Media Composer and Symphony.

Colour Correction in Premiere Pro

If you’re finding your way around Adobe’s Premiere Pro then Andrew Davis’ introduction will walk you through the basics and then in the second tutorial take you through secondary corrections. Finally these two short tutorials from Weston Woodbury will help you perform skin tone matching and camera matching quickly and simply.