Color Grading Breakdown

   

Ungraded image:

     This are the nodes I used, as you can see I labeled them one by one so that I wouldn't forget the process that I've done. 

A.) This is the ungraded footage of the project. The full picture of the before image is the one you see at the top of this entry. As you can see, it's flat, too bright and less contrast and saturation.

B.) The first thing I usually do when grading is to balance the image. I adjusted the contrast and curves until I get the right amount of whites and blacks. 

C.) I increased the amount of saturation a little bit to give it life to it and to the elements of the scene.

D.) I isolated the sky using the qualifier so that I could change the colors without affecting the other parts of the image. make sure that when you use the qualifier, the parts that you want to select are the only ones you want to edit. Sometimes, it affects other parts with the same color value. I also used power windows so I can focus on the sky only.

E.) LTSH means Lift, Temp, Shadows and Highlights. I used Lift to darken it a little bit and to make it a little blue. I dragged the Temperature (new feature of DR 12.5) to a cool blue so it can mixed with the sky and I used Shadows  to give depth, especially to the darker parts/areas, and I lessen the amount for Highlights.

F.) By using the Hue vs Sat, I selected the skin using the color picker and dragged the color down to decrease the amount of colors on the skin because it looks strong and very saturated.

G.) TSATC means Tint, Saturation and Contrast. I added a little green Tint (also new feature) and increased the Saturation of the over all image, but not too much. Then increased the amount of Contrast to strengthen the blacks.

H.) And lastly, since the location is at the beach with a bright sun, I decided to dragged the gain to yellow to give it a warmer look. YT means yellow tint.