Color grading in Adobe Premiere involves manipulating the colors of your footage to achieve a specific look and feel. Here's a step-by-step guide to get you started:
1. Create an Adjustment Layer:
- This is the recommended method for non-destructive color grading, allowing you to apply changes to multiple clips simultaneously.
- Go to your Project Panel.
- Right-click in the panel and select
New Item > Adjustment Layer. - A window will pop up asking about the settings for the layer. These should automatically match your sequence settings, so typically, you can just click
OK.
2. Place the Adjustment Layer on the Timeline:
- Drag the newly created Adjustment Layer from the Project Panel onto the timeline.
- Position it above the video clips you want to color grade.
- Extend the Adjustment Layer's duration to cover the entire sequence or the specific sections you want to affect.
3. Access the Lumetri Color Panel:
- Select the Adjustment Layer on the timeline.
- Go to
Window > Lumetri Colorto open the Lumetri Color panel. This is your main workspace for color grading within Premiere Pro.
4. Use the Lumetri Color Panel Tools:
The Lumetri Color panel is organized into sections, each focusing on different aspects of color grading:
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Basic Correction: Adjust exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, temperature, and tint to achieve a balanced image. Use the White Balance selector (eyedropper tool) to quickly neutralize color casts by clicking on a neutral area in your footage.
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Creative: Apply looks (presets) for a quick starting point. Adjust vibrance and saturation to enhance or reduce color intensity. Sharpen or blur the image.
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Curves: Fine-tune individual color channels (red, green, blue) using curves for precise control over shadows, midtones, and highlights. RGB Curves allow for adjustments to overall luminance. Hue vs. Sat, Hue vs. Hue, and Luma vs. Sat curves are also powerful tools.
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Color Wheels & Match: Adjust shadows, midtones, and highlights using color wheels. Apply a three-way color correction. Use the comparison view to easily match colors between different shots.
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HSL Secondary: Select specific colors using hue, saturation, and luminance ranges and then apply targeted color corrections. This is useful for isolating and adjusting specific elements in your video, like the color of a shirt or the sky.
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Vignette: Add a darkening or lightening effect around the edges of your frame.
5. Iterative Adjustments:
- Color grading is an iterative process. Make small adjustments and review the results.
- Use the "Before/After" comparison view in the Program Monitor to see the impact of your changes. (Click the small toggle icon.)
- Consider using scopes (Waveform, Vectorscope, Histogram) for technical accuracy and to avoid clipping highlights or crushing shadows. To access these, go to
Window > Lumetri Scopes.
6. Copy and Paste Color Grades:
- Once you've achieved a look you like, you can easily copy and paste it to other clips or Adjustment Layers.
- Select the clip or Adjustment Layer with the color grade you want to copy.
- Right-click and select
Copy. - Select the clip(s) or Adjustment Layer(s) you want to apply the grade to.
- Right-click and select
Paste Attributes. In the dialogue box, make sure "Lumetri Color" is checked, and clickOK.
Example Workflow:
- Basic Correction: Start by adjusting the exposure and contrast to achieve a good overall balance.
- White Balance: Correct any color casts by using the White Balance selector.
- Creative Look: Apply a look or LUT as a starting point.
- Curves: Fine-tune the colors using the Curves panel to achieve your desired aesthetic.
- HSL Secondary: Isolate and adjust specific colors.
- Vignette: Add a subtle vignette to draw the viewer's eye to the center of the frame.
Remember to save your projects frequently and experiment with different techniques to develop your own color grading style.
