How can I achieve this look? (Color Grading)

semajha

Well-known member
I wanna go for something similar...

2n64wug.png

akfo6e.png

2a5hkw0.png

2ztav01.jpg
 
I am probably not the best person to reply, but it looks like it has been desaturated and a touch of sepia thrown in.
 
DOc is pretty much right on. What editing software are you using? Are you just coloring in final cut or do you have color, after effects etc?
 
I'm using FCP 7 and magic bullet... i've been sitting here tweaking for hours trying to get a look that's similar but I can't pull it off..

I've tried the whole sepia and decreasing the saturation but it just doesn't look right.
 
With some random footage I have, I went into FCP, with Magic Bullet, threw in Looks and choose Bleach By Pass. In BBP, I lowed the saturation and tweaked around in Curves (RGB). I then added Sepia from the FCP default filters, and played around with the Sepia amount (around 30 %) and the tint color which I softened up. I fiddled a little with contrast also. It is not the exact same look, but you can see where is it going. I think on of the essentials to the look in the OP is that it is pretty low contrast original image, and the gamma has been tweaked in post. Here are my results:

Original image:

Sequence1010039212.jpg


Tweaked image:

Sequence101004015.jpg
 
Nice!

Semajha, you will also note that the ambient light of your pics was slightly decreased and softened due to cloud cover. That is hard to do in post.

You can see how the pics David posted still seem "bright/stark" due to the direct sunlight, but the effect he put on it is really close to the one you are asking about. It's all about what you have to work with. Having a diffusely lit subject appears to have made a huge difference using this technique.

Just my .02.
 
Yeah, I think that the starting point for the OP pix, with the overcast day, is an essential to that look. The rest is desaturation, mild tinting, and gamma tweaking. The lighting in my shots is way over lit, compared to the OP, but what I watched as I made my changes was the two houses in the background in the middle of the frame.
 
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