What is color grading?
Color grading is the process of manipulating the color and contrast of images or video to achieve a stylistic look. It combines technical and creative skills and is important in achieving both tone and clarity in a footage.
What’s the difference between color grading and color correction?
Color grading and color correction shouldn’t be confused. To achieve professional, cinematic results it’s important to understand the distinction between the two. They’ll both play a role in your final grade.
Color correction is corrective. The aim being to achieve a naturalistic appearance to the footage (i.e. make it look how it did in real life).
Color grading is creative. The aim being to achieve a ‘look’ or ‘feel’ that reflects the tone of your footage, or use color to dramatic effect.
Color correction can in some ways be considered a part of the color grading process because it’s necessary to provide you with a ‘base’ to begin from when grading.
