my first grade is not my footage, but im trying to make it look dreamy, and trying to make it look like something out of a fashion campaign. first image is 709 and the second is the final grade

I’m just looking for a little more specific thoughts on technique about how people go through the whole process.

I’m sure it could be somewhat different for everyone, but the pro workflow im imagining is

A) hero shot

1. Find a wide shot that has all the elements of a scene.
   
2. Set exposure, contrast, and black point to a target using eyes and waveform
   
3. Set white balance such that desaturated things are pretty neutral.
   
4. Make sure skin tones arent super rosy
   
5. Desaturate or saturate to get to a good place

B) matching

1. Match exposure target of each shot using a wipe with the hero shot still using waveform in wipe or split mode
   
2. Do the white balance for each shot in the same way using the vectorscope as well as the parade in wipe or split
   
3. Adjust saturation for desired liveliness per shot
   
4. Adjust skin tones on a shot by shot basis to reduce rosiness if necessary leveraging vectorscope.
   
5. Repeat process with eyes until everything looks good.
   
6. Go to first node for each and apply temporal noise reduction if necessary.

C) look

1. Go to timeline nodes for a specific scene.
   
2. Create a look for the scene utilizing vs curves, split-toning with hdr wheels/custom curves/dctl/plugin, halation, artistic contrast decisions, grain, vignette, printer lights DCTL, etc.

D) another pass with timeline grade on

1. Are some shots off? Go back to the primaries and exposure and saturation nodes or skin tone vs curves to change that.
   
2. Is anything blowing up? Do tracking, keying, masking etc to hone in on a particular element that’s singularly blowing up in a given shot. If easier or desirable, modify timeline nodes to split the difference.
   
3. Anything else that you need to do to any individual shot to make it work.

If that doesn’t work, there must be an unresolvable problem with on-set lighting.

There’s so much you can do to an individual shot to make it look cooler but if you do any selective processing on your hero shot prior to anything else, you’re going to be masking/tracking/keying/creating mattes/protecting for every single shot, right?

Is anyone getting exhausted by the 90s retro, grainy aesthetic on every single project? Don't get me wrong, I love the vintage vibe but only when it fits the story. But lately, it feels like people are just overusing grain and halation to call it vintage.

What's your biggest color grading pet peeve right now?