For many DIY filmmakers, coloring footage doesn't really go beyond the realm of punching up the contrast or the saturation when necessary. A professional coloring workflow, however, is actually a much more complicated, multi-faceted affair.

Little in this world gets us going like splitting hairs in the editing suite. Let's discuss the difference between color correction and color grading, two incredibly important phases in the post-production pipeline.

What Is Color Correction in Film?

A woman color grading some footage.
Image Credit: Erwin Verbruggen/Wikimedia Commons

While we live in an age well past the stringent guidelines of traditional broadcast television, we still have standards to adhere to as technicians in the field of video production and color correction.

Color correction is any adjustment made to one of these standards. These may include things like color space, or even simply the standard that most people would regard as "acceptable" in terms of watchability. That is, nothing is too dark or too bright to be recognized quickly.

An initial round of color correction can include any of the following tasks:

  • Achieving a certain standard of picture quality across the board.
  • Refining the exposure of a sequence.
  • Adjusting the white balance and color of a shot or a string of shots.
  • Improving the consistency between shots in a sequence.
  • Compensating for things like the sky, or a dark landscape.
  • Translating a project into a different color space or projection format.
  • Calibration across platforms or formats, if applicable.

Color correction can be thought of as all of the stuff that you need to accomplish—you're solving for X in a sense, and your objective will usually be self-evident from the outset. Color grading, on the other hand, is where you get to be a little more creative.

Related: How to Read Lumetri Scopes in Adobe Premiere Pro

What Is Color Grading in Film?

A top-of-the-line, industry-standard coloring bay.
Image Credit: ARRI AG/Wikimedia Commons

Once you've laid the groundwork for a legible image throughout the entirety of the project, you're ready to go back in and add a creative grade to each scene. What does this entail?

Our favorite looks are subtle, atmospheric, and cinematic, and different scenarios take on these characteristics through a number of different channels. Color, luminance, mattes, graduations, and more can all be used to make your film feel much closer to what the professionals put out.

There are so many ways to amp up the mood of any shot. A few examples:

  • Playing with the color in your highlights, mid-tones, and shadows.
  • Adjusting the overall palette of the image.
  • Applying a global filter, such as a sepia filter or a night filter.
  • Increasing the warmth or cooling an image down.
  • Matting out and over-saturating an object in-frame.
  • Using a creative LUT or color preset.

Anything that takes place after you've done your homework can be lumped into this category. Some color grading applications like DaVinci Resolve put a host of related tools at your disposal—advanced keying hierarchies, custom Node sequences, and a number of different graphs and scopes that you can use for the most precise grade possible.

The extent to which you grade your project will depend a lot on your working style and your aesthetic style. The perfectionists among us will likely enjoy this aspect of post-production more than anything that comes before.

Related: How to Use Nodes in DaVinci Resolve: Tutorial for Beginners

Color Grading and Color Correction: Two Sides of the Same Coin

No matter how far along in the pipeline you are, you can be sure that the work you're doing is work that'll need to get done eventually. We encourage you to not waste time mincing words. Instead, we invite you to get your hands dirty.

Adequate color correction is integral to a professional-looking project. Color grading is simply icing on top of the cake. Incorporating both practices into your editorial routine is the key to gorgeous and cinematic footage from front to back.