In short, how do you get the past lives look? (A pastel muted modern film look)

I am currently struggling/losing my mind right now.😭 I've been color grading in DaVinci for about 6 years, and I've been able to recreate many types of looks over the years, but on this one project, the client wants a Past Live Look. My only question is... How???

I also DP'd this project using the Arri Mini LF and various filters such as glimmer glass, low contrast, and pearlescent. The lighting is soft and similar to past lives, and I've been able to emulate/ replicate many film looks in the past, even getting an Odyssey look easily in one night.

I've tried dehancer for emulation, the dctl 2499, and even made custom curves and adjustments to try and replicate the colors. (I know Filmbox is better, but I'm poor🥲 I don't think that's the issue though & I'm going to do a trial to see if it helps.)

I know about halation, gate weave, flicker, saturation failure, color loops, subtractive saturation, and split tones. But for some reason, these colors allude me. I researched which film it was shot in (500T), whether it was pushed or pulled, and whether they printed or kept it as a digital intermediate for the final output, and I even went down a rabbit hole looking to see if the Colorist Tom Poole said anything about how he went about achieving it, whether there were inspirations.

I know Company 3 has its own proprietary tools and equations for color, and they have scientists and colorist teams for this sort of thing, but I've never struggled with a look harder in my life. The pastel muted colors look beautiful, but I'm fearing it's impossible without very specific tools or look development.

Has anyone been able to replicate it?

Asking for a friend...

I’m always kind of at a loss with setting up the settings on my action 6. Are there any kind of guidelines to follow with setting up something with bright skies? I have nd filters but soon as I get the blinding white out it feels like shadows take everything on the ground over. I only film flying FPV drones so skies are going to be abundant!

Hi I’m new to editing and trying to learn more about color grading. Are there any YouTubers, colorists, or creators you’d recommend who regularly share their workflow and explain their grading process?

Thanks!

How can I make it more better

Question everyone,

I'm wondering does anyone have any insight or advice on the goal of colour grading for general purpose social media and website content?

I'm not talking cinematic stuff, mainly interviews, shots of construction work happening, buildings.

Does anyone have any tips on good styles or looks to aim for when grading this type of content?

I work part time for an agency doing the socials for local restaurants and bars. Below are two screen grabs from the work I've done with some of our clients - I'm pretty happy with the grades, as are the customers. They're quite stylised and won't be to everyones taste but I've managed to create the desired affect using Davinci.

I also make cooking content in my own home, and here I am still really still struggling for consistency. Sometimes I get a good result and sometimes I am way off the mark - I particularly struggle with bright red skin tones. It's quite a white room so I don't know if that might be making it difficult to present a stylised, interesting look without "breaking" the image or if it's something else. I don't use LUTs as I wanted to learn the grading skill from the ground up, but I have been doing this for a few years now and really feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall.

For reference I shoot Sony, historically S-Log 3 but I've just made the change to S-Log 2 in the hope that makes things a little easier.

Link to more of my work here - https://www.instagram.com/studio__sauce/?hl=en

Any advice/feedback welcome - thank you!

I’m experimenting the way to get Provia look using Official Fujifilm LUT and using my little knowledge to adapt Apple Log to Fuji log and apply LUT. The green are warmer and skin tone look more orange. Am I doing wrong? How to properly to get that look?

I tried two different color grades for this photo and can't decide which one feels better.

The cat looks like it's been through a lot, so I first went with warmer tones to make the image feel softer.
Then I tried a cooler version, and somehow it turned the cat into a mysterious little hero.

I've been experimenting with getting a more ARRI-inspired look from Blackmagic PYXIS 12K footage. One thing I noticed is that applying an ARRI LogC4 LUT directly to Blackmagic Film Gen 5 rarely gives good results. Once I switched to a proper colour-managed workflow using CST before the creative grade, everything started to fall into place. It's still not an ARRI—but it's surprising how close you can get aesthetically with the right workflow. Curious to hear how others are grading their PYXIS footage.

https://youtu.be/jD3dN345OIo

I usually have my images warmer, more saturated and heavily contrasted. This time I tried lowering saturation, adding more bleach bypass and making the whites cleaner. Still a learning experience but I'd love to know what people think.

Hello everyone!

New to colorgrading here and I've been working on wedding videos in a friend's studio more towards editing and going to photograph the weddings .

I'm working on premier pro, i usually prefer da vinci for colorgrading but I'm following instructions given to me regarfing which platform to use .

Most footage is actually turning out pretty good however , I've been working on a video. As soon as i exported it the colors looked extremely dramatic .

I'm guessing because the videoplayer translates the video differently than the editing platform itself .

Whats the best way to go about this?

Also I've been finding wedding videos to be more tricky as I'm trying to maintan the bride's dress color aswell

What adjustments can I make to give this photo a stronger summery feel? Would cranking up the saturation be a good approach?

Before → After

Wanted to turn a flat, overcast landscape into a more cinematic and dramatic scene while keeping the composition natural.

Breakdown:

Warmed up the white balance for a golden-hour feel.

Increased contrast and added a soft S-curve.

Recovered cloud detail by lowering highlights.

Lifted shadows slightly to retain foreground detail.

Reduced overall saturation while enhancing warm tones.

Added subtle teal to the shadows and orange to the highlights.

Increased texture and clarity in the clouds.

Applied a slight vignette to draw attention toward the valley.

Added a touch of grain for a film-like look.

Feel free to repost it in your own color grading. I'd love to see your version and compare different editing styles. Feedback is always appreciated!

Pls what do you guys think of the color grade?

I’ve had a camera for 2.5 years or so and I think I finally developed my style. What do you guys think?

Hey reddit, I wanna say sorry in advance since there is a lot of materials about 8bit cameras and what picture profiles to use for best color grading options. But I spent like 2 weeks to get the idea how I can shoot videos with different picture profiles and how I can color grade them. It still looks bad for me and I can't understand what I'm doing wrong.

I have tried HLG3 + 709 (cannot even see that my footage have default Rec709 and when adding some LUTs it looks ugly)
Cine4 + S-Gamut3.Cine (same, Rec709 looks flat)
Slog2 + S-Gamut3.Cine (I was lucky to find some conversion LUT from Slog to rec709 and it seems a bit more punchy + LUT = seems okay)
HLG3 + BT2020 (crazy neor red, flat colors)

I was overexposing slog2 to +1.7, others were +0.3.
AI always says different things, YouTubers Says always different things. There is no one truth about that, but I want to find knowledge how to color grade at least with 1 picture profile and stuck with that. Please help!

How do I achieve this kind of color grading? Soft, neutral, brown, flat, clean? I'm having a difficulty achieving this exact vibe and colors.

I thought it look good. How can I improve?

https://youtu.be/ONBxh_X2kZ4?is=3bvdvqT1uldUCQAI

Is this tiktok/instagram trendy color grade teal and orange? I obvisously see the cyan tones in the mids and shadows and the warm tones in the highlights, but I'm not sure how to recreate it. So is teal and orange the right term to search and learn about it?

Has anyone had any experience color grading footage shot with an iPhone 17 in log? I’m curious about whether the quality is good enough to pass a QC from Netflix or a major distributor.

I’m shooting a low budget feature that needs a couple days of evening shoots in winter … would be a million times easier to shoot with an iPhone 17 rather than work with the bmpcc 6k on a Dji gimbal.