Colour Grading for Beginners: A Simple Step-by-Step Guide

Colour has a big effect on how a video feels. The same scene can look warm and hopeful, or cold and tense, depending on how its colours are adjusted. Colour grading is the craft of shaping that look, and it is a skill every video editor and filmmaker can learn step by step.

This beginner’s guide explains what colour grading is, how it differs from colour correction, the basic tools you will use and a simple workflow you can practise on your own footage.

What is colour grading?

Colour grading is the process of adjusting the colours, contrast and brightness of video to create a particular mood or style. It is usually done after editing, once the order of shots is locked. Films, ads, music videos and even social media reels use grading to look polished and consistent.

Colour correction vs colour grading

These two terms are often used together, but they are different steps.

Colour correction

Correction fixes problems so your footage looks natural and consistent. It includes setting the right exposure, fixing white balance so whites look white, and matching shots from different cameras or times of day.

Colour grading

Grading is creative. Once the footage is corrected, you push it towards a look, such as warm golden tones for a wedding film, cool blue tones for a thriller, or soft, faded colours for a nostalgic story.

Always correct first, then grade. A creative look built on badly exposed footage is hard to control.

Basic tools you will use

Scopes

Scopes are graphs that show the brightness and colour in your image more accurately than your eyes can on a screen. The waveform shows brightness from dark to bright, the vectorscope shows colour saturation and hue, and the parade shows red, green and blue channels side by side. Learning to read them is one of the most useful habits in grading.

Lift, gamma and gain

These controls, often shown as colour wheels, adjust the shadows (lift), midtones (gamma) and highlights (gain). You can make each area brighter or darker, or tint it with a colour.

Curves

Curves let you make precise changes to brightness and individual colours. A gentle S-shaped curve is a common way to add contrast.

Saturation and hue

Saturation controls how strong colours are. Hue shifts one colour towards another. Many editors also use tools that target a single colour, such as making a sky bluer without changing skin tones.

LUTs

A LUT, or look-up table, is a preset that converts colours in a set way. Some LUTs convert flat camera profiles into normal-looking footage, while others apply a creative look. LUTs are a helpful starting point, but you usually need to adjust the result.

Software for colour grading

DaVinci Resolve is widely used for grading and has a capable no-cost version, which makes it popular with beginners. Our guide to DaVinci Resolve for beginners walks through the interface. Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro and many mobile editing apps also include colour tools, so you can practise with what you already have.

A simple colour grading workflow

1. Organise your timeline. Finish the edit first, so you only grade the shots you will use.
2. Balance exposure. Use the waveform to make sure shadows are not crushed to pure black and highlights are not clipped to pure white unless you want that.
3. Fix white balance. Adjust temperature and tint until neutral objects, such as a white wall or grey road, look neutral.
4. Match your shots. Make shots in the same scene look consistent, so the viewer does not notice a jump in colour between cuts.
5. Create your look. Add contrast with curves, tint shadows and highlights, and adjust saturation to suit the mood.
6. Protect skin tones. Check that faces look natural. On the vectorscope, skin tones of all complexions usually sit near the same line, often called the skin tone line.
7. Review on more than one screen. Check your grade on a phone and a laptop, since most viewers will watch on those.
8. Export and compare. Watch the exported file to make sure the colours look the way you intended.

Common beginner mistakes

• Pushing saturation too far, which makes footage look artificial.
• Grading before correcting exposure and white balance.
• Applying a LUT and leaving it unchanged.
• Making skin tones look orange, green or grey.
• Changing the look from shot to shot without a reason.
• Grading on a very bright or very dim screen without checking scopes.

Tips for better grades

Shoot well in the first place, because good lighting and correct exposure make grading much easier. Read our guide to video lighting for beginners for help. Collect stills from films you like and study their colours. Create a few looks of your own and save them as presets. Most importantly, keep the look in service of the story, not just a trend.

Practice exercises

• Film the same scene in daylight and indoor light, then match the two shots.
• Grade one clip in three different moods: warm, cool and neutral.
• Take a short travel or family video and give it a consistent look from start to finish.

Colour grading as a career skill

Good colourists and editors who can grade are in demand for films, ads, wedding videos, YouTube channels and brand content. Even if you do not become a full-time colourist, grading makes your editing work more professional and helps your showreel stand out.

Learn video skills with Karuna Media

Karuna Media, run by Puppets Picture Education Trust (PPET) in Noida, offers the 12-month Karuna Media Master Program for women from underprivileged homes. Students learn filmmaking, editing, colour, storytelling and AI tools through hands-on projects, with job placement support. If you are ready to learn, apply to the program. To help more women build media careers, you can support our work with a donation.