Grade

Temp · split tone

Color grading is the last pass on a film, where a colorist sets the mood shot by shot. Grade puts that suite's tools on your picture, from white balance and color wheels to one hue at a time and a handful of film prints.

The sample with the Teal & Orange preset. Drag to compare, or press Play with it to tune it live. Open as a shared look

What it's like

Sit in a dark grading suite with a trackball under each hand. Warm the light, crush the shadows, tint the highlights gold and the shadows teal, then pick out the one green that's bothering you and pull it toward blue. Grade is that desk, plus the darkroom tricks film people reach for: a bleach bypass, a cross-processed roll, a sepia or cyanotype print.

When to reach for it

Pulling layers and clips from different sources into one mood.
A finished film look on a flat picture. Start from Teal & Orange, Bleach Bypass or Faded Film.
Fixing one color without touching the rest. Selective moves a single hue.
Color that moves with the loop. Breathe, Hue drift and the pulse buttons animate the grade while the picture holds.

Controls

39 controls in 10 sections, in the order Tune shows them.

Balance

FaderTemperature -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Cooler toward blue, warmer toward amber, like white balance on the camera.
FaderTint -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Pushes the picture toward green or toward magenta.

Tone

FaderExposure -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Opens or stops down the whole picture, up to a stop and a half each way.
FaderContrast -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Flat to punchy. The picture stretches away from the Pivot.
KnobPivot 0 to 100 · rests at 50
The brightness that contrast turns around. Low keeps the shadows put, high keeps the brights put.
FaderHighlights -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Pulls bright areas back to recover detail, or pushes them brighter.
FaderShadows -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Crushes the dark areas down or opens them up.
KnobBlack lift 0 to 100 · rests at 0
Raises the blacks toward grey, for a faded, matte print.
KnobRolloff 0 to 100 · rests at 0
Gives the highlights a soft shoulder, so whites ease off instead of clipping.

Color

FaderSaturation -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Drains color toward grey or makes everything more vivid.
FaderVibrance -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Like saturation, but it works hardest on muted colors and leaves vivid ones alone.

Wheels

Hue faderShadow hue 0° to 360° · rests at 198°
The color the shadows lean toward.
KnobShadow tint 0 to 100 · rests at 0
How strongly the shadows take that color.
Hue faderMid hue 0° to 360° · rests at 108°
The color the midtones lean toward.
KnobMid tint 0 to 100 · rests at 0
How strongly the midtones take that color.
Hue faderHighlight hue 0° to 360° · rests at 36°
The color the highlights lean toward.
KnobHighlight tint 0 to 100 · rests at 0
How strongly the highlights take that color.
FaderBalance -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Slides the line between shadows and highlights, so one tint reaches further into the picture than the other.

Selective

Hue faderTarget 0° to 360° · rests at 29°
The hue you want to change on its own.
KnobRange 0 to 100 · rests at 30
How wide a slice of the wheel around Target gets moved. Greys are never touched.
FaderHue shift -120° to 120° · rests at 0°
Turns the target hue around the wheel, up to a third of the way.
FaderTarget sat -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Mutes the target hue or makes it more vivid.
FaderTarget light -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Darkens or lightens just the target hue.

Film

SelectCurve LinearFilm SSoft SCrushFadedLog
The tone curve. Film S is punchy, Soft S gentler, Crush sinks the blacks, Faded lifts the blacks and dims the whites, Log goes flat.
SelectPrint NoneWarm printCool printTeal & orangeSepiaCyanotypeB&W
A print look over the grade. Warm, cool, teal and orange, sepia, cyanotype blue or black and white.
KnobPrint amount 0 to 100 · rests at 70
How much of the print look goes on.
KnobBleach 0 to 100 · rests at 0
Skips the bleach, so silver stays in. Color drains and contrast climbs.
FaderCrossover -100 to +100 · rests at 0
Cross-processed color. Toward Red, the reds snap and the blues flatten. Toward Blue, the other way round.

Finish

KnobVignette 0 to 100 · rests at 0
Darkens the edges of the frame.
KnobVignette size 0 to 100 · rests at 50
How far the vignette reaches in. Low closes it down around the middle.

Motion

KnobBreathe 0 to 100 · rests at 0
Exposure swells and falls with the loop.
SelectRate 1×2×4×
How many breaths a loop. One, two or four.
KnobFlicker 0 to 100 · rests at 0
Exposure flickers at random, like an old projector lamp.
KnobHue drift Off to 3 turns per loop · rests at Off
Every hue turns around the wheel, one to three whole turns a loop, so it never jumps.

Buttons

Pulse buttonFlash Momentary · fires and falls back · can be recorded
Press it and the picture blows bright, then settles.
Pulse buttonDrain Momentary · fires and falls back · can be recorded
Press it and the color drains out, then comes back.
Pulse buttonHue kick Momentary · fires and falls back · can be recorded
Press it and every hue swings round the wheel, then swings back.

Output

Hero knobMix 0% to 100% · rests at 100%
The hero. How much of the grade you see over the original.
SelectView ResultSplitBefore
Result shows the grade. Split puts the original on the left half. Before shows the original alone.