This is what I came up with for the colour grade exercise using the three way colour corrector:
1) Colour scheme: green // Lighting: outdoor, natural
For the first test, I purely played around with the colour wheels for the shadows, mid tones and highlights. I tried two different tests, one using the master control, and one without so I could adjust the individual tones a bit.
This was the original image, shot on a DSLR:
This is a comparison of the shots with and without master control with a blue tint:
This is a comparison with a pink tint:
This is a comparison with a green tint:
Overall, obviously the master control provided a more consistent tonal palette, but generally created stronger effects. The colour change was particularly evident in the background, with the shadows. I generally prefer the ones without master control as they look more natural and subtle, although this could change if the clips were actually placed within a sequence for example if I were to want a highly stylised look. For the ones on the right without master control, I’ve only made slight adjustments and kept the general colour direction the same for each colour wheel, but a further exercise would be to experiment with having different tones for the different ranges, for example make all the shadows blue but make the highlights pink.
2) Colour scheme: cream/brown // Lighting: indoor, natural
For this one, I altered the colour wheels but also played around with saturation and input levels, effecting the exposure and contrast levels as well as the colours.
This was the original shot:
This was the shot with a yellow tint applied, the saturation lowered and the contrast lowered:
This was the shot with both the contrast and saturation increased:
This was the shot with a pink tint and the levels slightly lowered:
For this shot, I tried to make the colour grading create different moods with the change in colour temperature and hardness. I found that the middle frame looked too harsh, and preferred the softness of the other two frames. Also, I think the third slight red tint worked better than the yellow tint, making the shot look more dynamic as the yellow tint made the chair and floorboards in the background seem to blend together. Also, I think this colour grade suits the shot as it gives it a romanticised, nostalgic feel to the chair which I associate with comfort and home.
Having not had much experience colour grading before, the main purpose I had for it was to make my shots on the DSLR more vibrant and the colours stand out more, or slightly correct wrongly captured colours. However after this exercise I now have a better understanding of how powerful of a role colour grading can have in changing the original shot, including the mood and the dynamics of a frame.
