How To Color Grade
Mavic 3 Series Footage
The DJI Mavic 3 series, with its 10-bit color depth is perfect for when you really want your videos to take a leap.
For many, color correcting and color grading can seem intimidating at first, but it’s actually not all that complicated. So, no matter which drone from the Mavic 3 series you fly, follow these tips to get stunning colors in no time.
Let's color grade!
One way to get the absolute most out of your drone footage is to color grade it! With that in mind, we asked Stewart and Alina to give us some tips on how to get the most out of Mavic 3's 10-bit footage.
1 - Color correct before you color grade!
If you take only one thing away from this video, it is the following - color correct before you color grade. With color correction, we are talking about white balance adjustments, saturation adjustments, and contrast adjustments. That then gives us the baseline upon which we can build our grade.
2 - Basic corrections
First up, contrast as log footage can be so flat it's hard to see the differences. Using the waveform (100 is white, 0 is black), you want to stretch it out so that it's not all packed in the middle section (shades of grey).To do this, move your highlights up to almost 100, and the shadows down to 0 (give or take).
Once that's done, you can start to add saturation and sort the white balance.
3 - Use curves adjustments!
The great thing about curves is that it alters the contrast within the predefined range of black and white. There is no one-size-fits-all as it depends on your clip, but playing around with these is the base of the grade. Alternatively, you can also use the D-Log to Rec.709 LUT, but it's good practice to do it manually and build the footage exactly how you'd like it.
Alternatively
You can also use the D-Log to Rec.709 LUT, but it's good practice to do it manually and build the footage exactly how you'd like it.
4 - Color grading
Once you've color corrected, you have your starting point to grade and stylize your video. Color grading will depend on the look you’re aiming for, so feel free to explore the different options available to find a look that works for you on your footage.
This was just a very brief overview of the process. If you'd like to find out more about color grading, check out the in-depth video by Stewart and Alina here:
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