Full transcript
0:00hi everyone in this video i want to show
0:02you the entire process of color
0:04correction and grading directly in
0:06blender some time ago i was working on
0:09the animation project and just because i
0:11didn't have after effects installed on
0:13my workstation i decided to do the
0:16entire process in blender and to my
0:19surprise it turned out to be much more
0:21efficient
0:23than importing the render frames to the
0:25external application and working in a
0:27different environment
0:28so
0:29i thought this will be very interesting
0:31lesson for you as well and now i want to
0:34share
0:35the process with you so let's get
0:37started
0:39let's start with completely
0:41clean blender layout go to the
0:43compositing
0:45turn the
0:46notes on and drag and drop our
0:50xr file so as you probably know from the
0:52previous course chapters i'm using the
0:55xr files because
0:57this allows me to store the exact render
1:00output
1:01in a single file for example if i was
1:03using the png or jpg files
1:05i would lose a lot of data and it would
1:09be really hard to work
1:11on the post-processing in blender on a
1:13file like this so try to always use xr
1:16files even if you have an animation i
1:19always save all of my frames into this
1:21file format i'm going to press shift a
1:24at the viewer node delete the render
1:27layers
1:29and connect it like that
1:31the composite node if you're not
1:33planning to render the animation frames
1:36from this setup in the compositing you
1:38can just delete it
1:40i'm gonna now press the n key
1:42hide the toolbar on the right
1:45go to the screen corner left click and
1:48drag
1:50to have another screen here and i'm
1:51gonna switch to the image editor so now
1:54in the image editor i'm going to click
1:56here and choose the viewer node
1:58so this way everything that it's
2:00plugging to the final to the selected
2:03viewer node will be visible here in the
2:05image editor i'm going to press the n
2:07key and select the scopes here
2:10so previously we've been only focusing
2:13on the histogram but today i want to
2:15tell you
2:16more about the waveform and a little bit
2:18about the vetroscope so you can
2:21click here
2:24drag down and have this better preview
2:27now with i'm going to start with the
2:29waveform so
2:31this image here
2:33gives us
2:34an information on the pixels
2:37on our rendering going from the left
2:40to right
2:41so
2:42all you see here
2:44is the representation of pixels in this
2:47side of the rendering when you go here
2:49it's this side of the rendering and so
2:51i'm gonna demonstrate it later
2:53with one of the notes
2:55but to start i'm gonna add
2:58color and color
3:00balance node
3:03and now i'm going to copy this node
3:07and just check
3:09sorry change the
3:11settings here
3:12so
3:13i'm always starting with those two nodes
3:17and now i'm gonna start editing the
3:19first note looking at the histogram to
3:22know what's happening
3:24so before we start we have to understand
3:27what those values mean in the color
3:30balance note and it's actually pretty
3:31easy to lift
3:33represents the bottom
3:35values of the waveform
3:37gain represents the upper
3:39values of the waveform and gamma
3:42are all the middle tones so as you can
3:44see looking at the image
3:46we
3:47lack of those brighter tones they are
3:50only visible here in the windows
3:52and if you would like to
3:54balance the the tones of the image it's
3:57nice to have this
3:58waveform spread acro across all the
4:01ranges it will of course vary between
4:03different images but here you can see
4:05it's everything is kind of stuck
4:08uh to the bottom so to fix that all you
4:11have to do is just move this one slider
4:14and you can see
4:16this whole tone range is now spreaded
4:19more evenly across the different tones
4:24now you have to be careful with using
4:27those settings because
4:29let's say i'm gonna slide
4:32those values down you can see we're
4:34getting this flat line here and if i
4:37hold the ctrl key and my left mouse
4:39button we can scale the waveform so you
4:42can see we are now getting this line
4:44here and that means all the dark tones
4:47aren't all those tones are now clamped
4:49to 100 darks so let's say here on the
4:53left part of the image
4:54it's probably this area
4:57like this here
5:00it's now 100
5:02black
5:03so in general you want to avoid those
5:05excess extensive clippings in your image
5:09and when using this slider is like too
5:12sensitive you can always go here and
5:15just type the values manually
5:18so i would say
5:19something like this is okay
5:22and if we still
5:24feel that the contrast is a little bit
5:27off in the image then all you have to do
5:29is use the gamma slider so
5:32we can do it like that
5:34and then move those
5:37values a little bit up so you can see
5:40just with those very very easy tweaks
5:46we are getting much more balanced image
5:50and it already looks like miles better
5:53than the default rendering
5:56let's now move to adjusting the colors
5:58so when we look at the image we can see
6:00there is a little bit too much red in
6:03the
6:04white color spectrum because we
6:06our intuition tells us the the ceiling
6:09the walls are white but in the actual
6:12image they are
6:13uh shifted towards the red so how can we
6:16fix fix this using the waveform well we
6:18have different options here
6:22normally i like starting with the parade
6:25and what it tells me what it shows me is
6:27sometimes that you have
6:29a definitely
6:31visible color offset let's say the image
6:33is very cold looks very cold
6:36if i for example do something like this
6:42we can see
6:45the red color channel is
6:49virtually
6:50not visible in the darker areas same
6:53with the blue whereas the green is over
6:55represented so we can use the parade
6:57view to quickly analyze the image and
7:00see how it looks like and what's really
7:01great with using the waveform
7:04is no matter
7:06what's the quality of your uh
7:09desktop monitor because on lower quality
7:12monitors
7:13by looking at the image you might not be
7:15aware if there is a color shift or
7:19or something wrong happening you your
7:21monitor might be set up in an incorrect
7:24way and you might look at the image and
7:26feel that it's looking nice but the
7:29other people who have different monitors
7:31they will
7:32see the color like shifted towards red
7:34green or blue so what's great about the
7:37waveform it always tells you the truth
7:40so how it is
7:42in reality and what you want to have in
7:44the parade view is the balanced
7:46uh
7:47look between all the channels so
7:49basically what we had at the beginning
7:51was a pretty good result i can just
7:54click on this color bar here and reset
7:57the settings here just keep the value as
7:59one and we'll have
8:01uh the starting point back again so
8:04the way it looks here in the parade
8:06editor in my opinion is is good i can
8:08look at the blue channel and see the
8:10bottom values so the
8:12lift values are kind of clamped
8:15but it doesn't bother me that much when
8:17i look at the image i can try
8:20playing around with this color wheel and
8:23trying to maybe adjust the bottom
8:26color values a little bit but not too
8:28much so if i move it towards the blue
8:30color
8:32then the blue channel will be untouched
8:34and the red and green will uh will be
8:37changed only so the color towards which
8:40you're moving will actually be unchanged
8:43it it might sound counter intuitive but
8:46it is how it works so
8:48just look at the waveform right now when
8:50i move
8:51the dot towards the blue color
8:53the blue channel is untouched and red
8:55and green are changing
8:58so essentially if i
9:00see there is a flat line here
9:03i can either try editing the blue
9:05channel or bringing those two channels
9:07down so they match this so to do this
9:10to to edit the read red and green at the
9:13same time all i have to do is just
9:15moving this dot towards the blue channel
9:19and
9:21yeah it's at this point it's pretty hard
9:23to tell
9:24if
9:25the changes are for better or for worse
9:28because there is also the rgb
9:31mode here
9:32and this is where i try to
9:35like work on the image the most
9:38so when we look at the rgb waveform we
9:40can see those different uh shades of rgb
9:44tones
9:45and we can also see those white spots so
9:48the white spots represent
9:50all the pixels which are
9:53completely desaturated
9:55since this is on the right side of the
9:57screen i'm guessing it's representing
9:59this part of the image
10:01and in general what i find
10:04looking the best
10:05when working on the post-production in
10:07blender
10:08is
10:09having the
10:11white and black
10:12areas desaturated so we are
10:15looking towards bringing those values
10:19into the
10:21white spectrum here in the waveform and
10:24all those values like this
10:27we just have to analyze them and see if
10:29the color
10:31channels are
10:32very much separated from each other and
10:35if we
10:36want to balance the image we just need
10:38to bring those colors closer together so
10:41sometimes it depends on the image if you
10:44bring those so you can see this red
10:46green and here the muddy blue line if we
10:49bring them next like to the same line
10:52perfectly align them then the pixels
10:56that are represented by those lines will
10:58be desaturated and that's also not what
11:00you're looking for like in every single
11:03scene for example here i don't think it
11:05will look good
11:06but now enough talking let's see how we
11:08can do this so since we can see those
11:11lines are here in the middle part of the
11:13waveform that means we can
11:16readjust them the best the easiest using
11:18the gamma wheel here
11:21i can see the red channel is up
11:24the blue channel channel is a little bit
11:26down and the green is here so
11:28maybe i will try to bring everything
11:31towards the green so as i mentioned
11:33before if i move
11:35the dot here towards the green color
11:38the green channel will be
11:41the least touched by my editing and the
11:44other channels
11:46will move so you can see the red channel
11:48kind of aligned with the green but the
11:50blue is still offset
11:54so i can just play around a little bit
11:56and i also need to look at the image
11:59itself
12:00because the wait form is a very helpful
12:03tool but it's still just a tool and you
12:05always need to pay attention to the
12:07final look of the image
12:10i'm gonna just play around with it a
12:12little
12:13and see what's the result as i mentioned
12:15we don't have to bring those lines
12:19together because then the image will get
12:21desaturated here what we want is to
12:23decrease the distance between the lines
12:26so the co there is not not that much of
12:29a red color visible here now i think we
12:31are
12:32actually getting there
12:34if i just move it too far here we will
12:38get too much of the green tint so i will
12:40try to look for something
12:42in the middle
12:48and i'm actually pretty happy with this
12:51result
12:52i can use also this second
12:55graph to adjust the colors so
12:58when i have the lift gum again selected
13:01here
13:02those three color wheels are editing the
13:06certain areas of the
13:08waveform when i use the offset power
13:11slope
13:12um
13:13honestly i never use the offset i just
13:15used i i essentially only use the slope
13:17one so the slope it applies
13:20the color
13:21correction to the whole
13:24waveform not to a certain
13:26color spectrum so for example if i
13:28increase the brightness of the image you
13:30can see
13:32the
13:32upper values stay exactly as they are as
13:36they were the bottom stay exactly as
13:38they were and i'm able to move
13:41um
13:42the color spectrum between the upper and
13:45bottom values so so you can use this
13:48slider after you set up the tones here
13:50you could use this slider to increase
13:52the general brightness or you know
13:54darkness of the image
13:56as well as the colors so you can see
13:58here
13:59still the blue channel is a little bit
14:01off so let's try to move
14:03this knob
14:04to towards the blue
14:06maybe it will help maybe not
14:11but i think in general
14:13the image looks now much better it's a
14:15little bit too cold still but when we
14:18compare it to the original result and
14:20what we have right now i think it's
14:23yeah it looks definitely better
14:26so now one thing that's definitely off
14:29the natural look is the green color as
14:32you can see the the vegetation it looks
14:34unnatural and artificial but we can only
14:37edit the green colors using
14:40one more note
14:41and that's
14:42the hue correct note which is very handy
14:45uh but you have to use it carefully so
14:48i uh within this note you have h as v
14:52value so we can
14:54change the value of each color
14:56saturation and hue
14:58what i'm trying to limit myself when
15:00working with this note is just the hue
15:02settings
15:03because
15:04when i always try to work around the
15:07values or saturation i get some strange
15:10artifacts so i don't know if it's me
15:12doing something wrong or it's maybe
15:14blender not being perfect this
15:17note system is pretty old to be honest
15:20um so yeah just be careful when using
15:22saturation and value
15:24and i usually just stick to the hues so
15:26anyway
15:28when you get when you look at the hue
15:29correct note you can see we have
15:31different color spectrums so when i
15:34click on this dot and just move it down
15:37you can see the green values in my image
15:40are changed so it's
15:41obviously too much
15:43and i just want to bring those green
15:46colors
15:47more towards yellow so when when you
15:50move down you're bringing colors towards
15:52yellow when you move up it's towards the
15:54the blue the color colors
15:57so yeah all you have to do is just move
16:00down a little bit
16:02and i'm also not happy with the way
16:05the wood looks i think it's a little bit
16:07too yellow so again we can
16:11just move this
16:12point a little bit down or up i guess
16:15down
16:16is better
16:18and maybe try readjust this tone
16:24so also
16:26when you're working in blender
16:27compositor you can have as many viewer
16:30notes as you want so if you want to
16:31compare before and after
16:34just plug in just copy the viewer node
16:36and plug it in one step before you're
16:38applying anything to your image
16:41and then just by clicking between the
16:43two nodes you can compare the results
16:46so i think it looks pretty
16:49i mean the greens look much better right
16:51now the wood
16:52um honestly
16:55it really also depends on the mood
16:57sometimes you you're just you just think
17:00it looks good
17:01the other day you don't think that way
17:04but i think in general the image looks
17:06definitely way better
17:08to what we had
17:10at the very beginning now with the hue
17:14changes applied to my image i can always
17:17go back here and try to readjust
17:20something so now even with the
17:23waveform hidden i can look at the image
17:25and think okay um
17:27do i like it or not i think the shadows
17:30still are a little bit too cold when i
17:33look at the black areas
17:35um
17:36here
17:37or here or at the glass here
17:40i feel it's a little bit too cold
17:42so we can
17:44play around within the lift values here
17:47and and
17:49maybe try to bring a little bit of the
17:51red tint back
17:54if it doesn't work you can always
17:58play around with the gamma which is the
18:01midtones
18:06i don't think we have to
18:08touch any of the highlights you can
18:10always just try doing it
18:14actually it looks pretty cool
18:17so yeah
18:18as you can see the the way the waveform
18:22is as i mentioned it's just a tool that
18:24really helps you understand what's
18:26happening within the image it's
18:28a great tool definitely when you want to
18:31set up the tone balance in in your image
18:34so the bright dark points and the
18:36contrast but as for the colors again
18:39i always try to look at the parade view
18:41first
18:42just to be sure there is no like a huge
18:45color offset anywhere here i can
18:47actually see there is
18:48some blue offset down but when i look at
18:51the image i don't feel it's
18:53something bad necessarily and then
18:56within the rgb
18:58when i look at the color lines i see
19:00there is a lot of distance between them
19:02i try try to bring them together also
19:05one more thing if i look at the waveform
19:07and i see there are no white areas like
19:10this ones here
19:12then that means you definitely have to
19:14work on your image that that means you
19:16definitely have to readjust those white
19:19areas at least so they do not bear any
19:22of the color tint unless that's you
19:24that's the effect you're looking for
19:26for example you want to apply a sepia
19:29photo filter or something similar on
19:32your image then yeah that's
19:35explainable but
19:37in a regular use
19:38always try to look for at least some
19:41areas of your image to be completely
19:44desaturated especially in the
19:46highlights
19:48before we end this video i still want to
19:50explain two things so some people like
19:53to adjust the colors within the image
19:55using the vector scope the vector scope
19:58essentially tells us
20:00uh gives us the saturation values in the
20:03image so
20:04theoretically the more
20:06those black points are around the image
20:09center
20:10the more
20:12balanced
20:13is the saturation within the image but i
20:15personally do not always find this work
20:18correctly
20:19so
20:20to readjust the vector scope i suggest
20:24using those two color wheels within the
20:26power and slope so as you can see when i
20:30move this point the vector scope
20:32spectrum also shifts
20:35so sometimes you might
20:37you might try different approach
20:39uh to the color to to balance balancing
20:42the image
20:43uh then i did you might try to bring the
20:45saturations
20:47to the middle here within the vector
20:49scope and then
20:51start working on the waveform so for
20:54example when i do this you can see we
20:56get a very strange
20:58uh color behavior here within the mid
21:02range
21:03and then you might use those
21:05uh
21:06the gamma node for example
21:09and the others to to to bring it back
21:12together but as you can see right now we
21:13have this
21:15clean white line here and the image
21:18gets kind of muddy so
21:21um yeah again you always have to look at
21:24the final image in the end this is these
21:26are just the tools that are here to help
21:29you analyze and understand what's
21:31happening
21:32and i want to close by showing you a
21:34method of analyzing a certain part of
21:37the image so for example we want to see
21:40the waveform values of this ceiling area
21:44so
21:44to do that i need to add the
21:48box mask node
21:52and
21:53if i just drop it here
21:56you can see we are getting this white
21:59box visible i'm able to move it using
22:02the values
22:03here so let's let's change its size to
22:07something like this
22:09and now let's move it
22:12towards the ceiling
22:16and by the way we're gonna use the same
22:17setup
22:18in the second part of the video to
22:20create the vignetting effect directly in
22:22blender so
22:24what i have to do now is to add the
22:28color mix node
22:34change it to multiply
22:38where is it here
22:41yeah and
22:43also i'm gonna add the
22:45rgb curves here and darken
22:51the external parts of the image
22:55so yeah we do something like this
22:59and now here in the waveform you can see
23:01we only get this
23:03little part visible and it's this exact
23:05square if we
23:07move it left and right
23:10you can see
23:11it's also updated here within the
23:14waveform
23:16so again we can now we can see the exact
23:18distances between the colors
23:21within this area of the image
23:24so if we think well the blues
23:27need to be closer to the red and green
23:30channels we can go back here
23:34and readjust whatever we
23:37want right
23:38so now we get much cleaner preview of
23:40what's happening but again in the end
23:42you will still have to
23:44work on the
23:45full image just to see
23:47if
23:48everything is you know proportional in
23:51terms of colors
23:54so yeah i'm gonna leave it here
23:56and
23:58catch up with you in the second part of
24:00the video where we are gonna add the
24:03just the visual effects such as
24:05vignetting glare and distortion
24:08thank you guys for watching this video
24:10is part of my interior visualization
24:12course in blender which you can watch
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24:16details and link to the full playlist
24:18can be found in the video description if
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24:34thanks for watching and i see you soon