How to Grade Under & Over Exposed Images

In this video, I share ways to handle over and underexposed images, discuss how to pay attention to creative intent over by-the-book exposure rules, and point out the different things I look at when assessing an improperly exposed image as a pro colorist.

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[MegaFrdom]

Cullen, I am very much a novice at color grading. My films are mostly drone travel videos for fun. But I want to make them look as professional as possible. For the last two months I have followed through your videos and adopted your technique and advice. For the first time my latest video actually looked like it should. Thank you so much for your time and effort in sharing your expertise.

[BezDDelnik]

I'm so thankful to you, Cullen Kelly, for breaking down complex concepts and making them so easily understandable. Your video lessons have been an invaluable resource to improve our color grading skills. Thank you so much for your constant help!

[kirankiranmishra]

beautiful, all my life I was lifting and dropping gain wheel to balance my expo, but learned today that offset can be smoother way to get the perfect balance between over & under expo. thank you can't wait for live session.

[JimRobinson-colors]

I think that communication between the Dp or the person's film you're grading on exposures is the one thing not mentioned here and in my opinion is the most important. The problems I see is that newer prosumer cameras are pushing the abilities of pushing ISO and being able to shoot in low light. But in reality the hollywood looks that they are trying to emulate - choose the ISO and Apertures for the look and expose with light, and not so much with camera. The underexposed in your video is an example that the DP might have wished that they had exposed and lit the peoples faces higher and then your recovery process would need to go into gear. But can't tell you how many times cinematographers want a silhouette, and add a recovery goes against the intent of the shot.
My advice to people shooting is to try to set your cameras to native ISO and light to the exposure. On the grading side, we can then set the exposure middle grey to what it should be and we should see exactly what the filmmaker intended. If the film maker can't get to exposure and bumps up middle grey - the communication that I mentioned would come into play.
In the grading process, Cullen you touched on it a little, the ratio between the darkest parts and the brightest parts are the on set problem that usually requires us squeezing the stop ratio and then grading it. If the brightest stop is 15 stops brighter than the stops in the shadows - something has to give. A process of putting an extreme toe and knee, to keep all the detail into a gamma curve is a solution, but is difficult to pull off without forcing a look onto the footage.

[mikeallenfpv]

1:12 is one of the many things you've said on your channel that instantly helped me clarify something that has clouded my mind for so long.

[stevesexton]

Cullen, thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge on color grading. It has been so informative and helpful to me. I have owned Davinci Resolve for about 3 years now but am just now diving into color management and it's such a drastic improvement. Straight out of the camera v-log color managed is pretty much spot on then add your look. It really has simplified the process of getting to a repetitive starting point.

[jamesc]

Excellent video. It's such a fundamentally important starting point that a colourist thinks like an artist first and a technician second. I remember shooting a car commercial back in the 90s and when I saw it on TV for the first time I was surprised to see a shot included that I'd just run off the end of the roll of film at completely the wrong exposure before changing mags on the camera. But it just worked and elevated the whole spot. If the colourist had tried to correct it (which would have been impossible anyway), the whole effect would have been lost.

[Fedor_Dokuchaev_Color]

You didn't touch upon the most obvious overexposure issue - clipped skintones. You even have them on the thumbnail!

Could you explore this subject a little more?

[thatcherfreeman]

Solid examples and I never thought of that Lum v Sat technique to smooth out the transition to clipped highlights.

Sometimes you want to bring down the exposure on your subject, but it brings down the pinned highlights too much. One trick I've used (and this really depends on your shot) is I'll luma key the pinned highlights and apply Gain to bring them back up to the desired brightness, to increase the dynamic range/contrast between the subject and the blown out highlights. A curves adjustment could do that too.

[abagatelle]

Great stuff, learnt lots! Thank you Cullen.

[themichaelgraeme]

"That's not really a problem until I make it a problem." 10:41

Fascinating. Really teaches you how to lean into the footage you have.

[maurice_morales]

Great insight here. Thank you for your time.

[sashazephiria]

A new video, yaaay ! Always excited to learn some new content :D

[kershii]

Recently found your channel. Absolutely top content! Subbed 🙌

[theimperfectadviser]

Nothing else would make the tutorial more beautiful & human, than the kid crying in the background! Amazing video, I see respect for the DP's original intentions! congrats

[sashazephiria]

I totally resonate with the conclusion, which is "let the image guide your exposure". :) There is just a spot/range where the image "feels" right, and it's often tied to the way it was shot. Another great video ! :)

[Metallicaman]

Hi ! Thanks for this very instructive video ! Im just wondering why did you put some Noise Reduction in a parralel node, although you said in an other video that it would bring some issue to the final image.
Thanks again !!

[ausdoug]

Very helpful. I learned a lot. Thank you

[franzmathauser]

I think this question fits in here as well.. I am shooting mostly 1 stop over with SWideGammutCine3.Slog3 (to be out of the noise floor) and grade within AWG/ArriLog3. What ist the best option to bring back down that 1 Stop? Should I do it before the CST-IN to AWG/ArriLog3 to have a better math into the Intermediate Space? Or should I forget about it an reduce exposure after the CST-IN and just do it in AWG/ArriLog3? Thank you so much...

[lithuanianirons]

Hey Cullen, I really love Your tutorials but I'm dealing with my Macbook Pro to get the proper colors and contrast when color manage the project. If I do a color space transform in every clip while set Rec709A in color management, everything works fine and the export matches the timeline look. But with the color management everything looks different on export. Could You please recommend how should I set my color management for Macbook Pro? Thanks in advance.