Any recommendations to properly learn correction/grading?

[Gregormannschaft]

After years getting passable grading results I've decided I want to really invest a bit of time and money into learning how to properly correct and grade footage. Does anyone here have any recommendations for online resources or courses that have helped them? Most of the free tutorials I can find on YouTube really only start covering the basics and a lot have errors that even I can see are a bit amateur.

 

[HockeyFan12]

This book is very old and only covers the very very basics, but I believe it's the most well-established text on the subject, or was when I purchased it:

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Correction-Handbook-Professional-Techniques-ebook/dp/B004KKXNTQ

It's more a theoretical and aesthetic approach than a technical one. I should dig up my old copy.

I think on the technical side, the Ripple tutorial is well-regarded. 

[capitanazo]

48 minutes ago, HockeyFan12 said:

This book is very old and only covers the very very basics, but I believe it's the most well-established text on the subject, or was when I purchased it:

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Correction-Handbook-Professional-Techniques-ebook/dp/B004KKXNTQ

It's more a theoretical and aesthetic approach than a technical one. I should dig up my old copy.

I think on the technical side, the Ripple tutorial is well-regarded. 

that book is the best you can get, it have a lot of technical info about screen, rooms, color gamut, profiles, ambient, hardware and more to set up a pro color grading workspace and how to work with it.

the theorical info is really nice too, so for start in color is the best way to go.

but, this book is aimed for multiple software, that its not bad. but i suggest you to buy this book, and then get an online courses for your software from scratch.

if you go for davinci, check it out too for the manual, and certificed online training centers.

then, i suggest to visit the liftgamagrain forum, and facebook colorist group to get fast answers to your questions.

reverse eingenieer is a good practice if you want to training your eyes and skills.
 

Do color grading to random shots, and then save and look in weeks- months after to see how your color knowledge has been grown and your "clinical eye" start to get more 

precisian.

 

that are my advice to get into color grading, sorry for my english too, hope it was useful info for you.

[kye]

Have a search on LiftGammaGain.com where the professional colourists hang out - I've seen lots of threads where they give their training recommendations.

I'd suggest that you get a course that helps you with the part of grading that you aren't strong in.

ie:

• what the dials and knobs do (eg, how to make qualifiers, use tracking, etc)
• what the aesthetic implications are for the various effects (eg, warmer colours are happier, etc)
• what aesthetics do for story and perception (eg, when to pop the colours and when not to)

You need all of these to be a good colourist.  No point knowing exactly how to make footage look happy but doing it on horror films.

[Gregormannschaft]

On 10/26/2018 at 7:53 PM, HockeyFan12 said:

This book is very old and only covers the very very basics, but I believe it's the most well-established text on the subject, or was when I purchased it:

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Correction-Handbook-Professional-Techniques-ebook/dp/B004KKXNTQ

It's more a theoretical and aesthetic approach than a technical one. I should dig up my old copy.

I think on the technical side, the Ripple tutorial is well-regarded. 

Big thanks for this rec, I've gone ahead and bought the book as a paperback – I find the theoretical side of colour theory just as interesting as the technical side. Ripple was also the first course that I found on a cursory Google search and their free classes have been brilliant so paying for their full course sounds like a good place to get started.

@capitanazo (your English is great) @kye thanks for taking the time to post,  the LiftGamma forum recommendation looks great, too. No doubt I'll spend a long time lurking but that's often the best way to start learning.  

[Mmmbeats]

Which is the Ripple tutorial referred to?   Googling suggests a few different options.

[Trek of Joy]

I used this book and though a bit dated I’m terms of software, the concepts easily translated to FCPx’s newer color correction tools. Lots of fundamentals and more importantly the why in addition to the how. I haven’t seen a tutorial video that’s better than this book. I used the included source footage and downloaded lots of test footage, like the Blackmagic P4K stuff, for extra practice.

Good luck.

Chris

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Technique-Digital-Color-Correction-ebook/dp/B00B3SITHE/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541643928&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=color+correction+hullfish&dpPl=1&dpID=51I5US-LKLL&ref=plSrch