There is a reason we don’t see the world in black and white!
Emotions, scenery, angle, or time frame play a vital role in every photograph, but colors bring life to them. Colors in photographs have the power to make the image look more vibrant and attractive. Often every photo that are used for promotional activities goes through post-production or photo enhancement services.
Color is often used by photographers or movie directors to showcase a certain style or ambiance. To make the viewing experience better and appealing, photographers and editors use color grading or color correction based on the requirements.
Today, in this post, you’ll learn the key differences or comparisons between color correction and color grading in photo editing.
What is Color Correction?
Basically, color correction is a photo improvement process that involves making alterations to an image in order to remedy its flaws. The white and black levels, contrast, exposure, and white balance are all modified in color correction. The color correction process involves adjusting contrast, noise, ISO white balance, and exposure for photos.
The basic issue is that our eye corrects the color of object/image that we perceive immediately. Under a lamp, a piece of paper seems as white as it does outside in the sun. The two lighting conditions, however, are vastly different. When a camera clicks photographs of the same sheet of paper under the same conditions, inner light is most likely orange, and the outside light is most likely blue.
What is Color Grading?
Color grading is the process of taking what you’ve done with color correction to the next level. Color grading improves your tale by adjusting colors to produce a new tone or mood or a certain style to communicate the story in photos.
The process of boosting an image’s color, saturation, black level, white point, and contrast is known as color grading. Photographers use it to create specific moods in their photographs during photo editing.
How do Color Correction and Color Grading Differ from each other?
Color correction is the process of correcting colors to make them more accurate representations of reality, whereas color grading is the process of modifying colors to meet aesthetic preferences.
Consider color correction an important step in the post-production process, where colors are adjusted to better reflect the captured real-life color. Meanwhile, how much or how little color grading is used in production is a choice that will differ from one photo to the next.
Reason to use Color Correction
Color correction is a simple technique to elevate your picture above many other amateur efforts, and smoothing out faults between cuts improves the visual flow of the project.
For example, suppose a shot’s white balance is off. In that case, the color scheme shifts dramatically between two shots in the same sequence, or objects don’t match their true hues; professionals just giving a glance will notice and consider it an oversight or missed opportunity.
The color correction allows you to rectify color, exposure, and white balance problems caused during filming to a limited extent.
Reason to use Color Grading
You should always grade and review your images or videos if you want to be considered a professional videographer or photo editor to get that cinematic appearance.
The more experience you put into the process, the better the results you’ll get overtime, as is the case with practically every area of filmmaking or photoshooting. Every project is a new learning experience and an opportunity to acquire new skills!
Color grading allows you to express your visual imagination. It can be used to provide dimensional depth, bring photos to life, and highlight important elements. Its color grade greatly influences the ambiance of a film.
How to Color Correct and Color Grade the Images?
Before starting the editing process, you should have a good sense of how to edit photo object color schemes and the type of ‘cinematic aesthetic’ you want to achieve. This will help everyone strive toward a consistent visual style.
It’s useful for the production designer to keep track of the colors you want to see in the backdrop, and it’s critical for the director of photography to understand how you want to use the material afterward.
If you’re using Adobe Premiere or After Effects to edit, the Lumetri Color effect is a wonderful (and somewhat stable) place to start. If you don’t want to spend the money on Adobe, DaVinci Resolve has a fantastic free version of their software that can be used for basic editing as well.
Ways to Enhance Your Skills at Color Correction and Color Grading
It takes an immense amount of time and practice to have a good grip on color correction and grading, just like it takes practice to get good at anything else.
Every assignment or personal project is a new chance to learn something new. But, even before you begin your color job, take some time to think about color!
Take a look at some of your favorite photos and understand the color composition used. Do they appear to be the same as you remembered? What kind of color grading creativity do you admire the most? What kind of colorwork (if any) turns you off an image?
Take a look at some stills from those flicks that have been taken out of context. Then return to your work and examine the colors and how you’ve depicted them.
Conclusion
Now that you know what color correction and color grading are, it’s time to put your hands on by trying them both. Initially, you will face difficulty getting the preferred output, but as mentioned, with practice and consistency, you’ll get through it.
However, we recommend not spending much time on this if your core business is not into photography. Getting in touch with a professional photo editing services provider would be a better option in such cases. As they already have a team of skilled photo editors who can quickly do the job of color correction or grading with quality results.
