I’m about 20-25% of the way through the color grading for Episode II. After getting a lot of negative feedback over the green tint I applied to Episode I v2, I’ve decided to remove the blue tint I was applying over Episode II and go for a more desaturated look instead. I intend to apply this new color grade to Episode I in the future as well.
The more technical explanation: I’m starting with increasing the yellows, cyans, and magentas, and reducing the reds, blues, and greens in the hue vs. sat curves. I’m then reducing the black areas to 0 in the lum vs. sat curves. I follow this up by adjusting the custom RGB curves, but only to reduce clipping rather than to adjust it to however I want. I’m then finishing it off by reducing the dynamic range of the blue color channel. That is, lowering the brightest blues and raising the darkest blues.
The less technical explanation: I’m going for an even more film-like appearance by saturating yellow, cyan and magenta hues while removing luminance from the black areas. Then, I’m topping it off by lowering the contrast of the blue channel while increasing the contrast of the red and green channel, giving the film a more yellowish glow. On occasion, I’m making a few adjustments here and there to ensure that the whites and blacks stay within the constraints of HD.
Click on the expand tab for samples of the color grading I’ve done for Episode II so far.
