Shade grading is a vital step in creating skilled and cinematic FPV drone movies. Whereas LUTs might be handy, they don’t at all times produce the specified outcomes. On this tutorial, we’ll cowl the fundamentals it’s worthwhile to know for creating spectacular cinematic FPV movies, together with GoPro digital camera settings, colour correction and colour grading methods.
To get probably the most out of colour grading, begin by investing in a high-quality motion digital camera. GoPro, Insta360, and DJI are all wonderful manufacturers to contemplate: https://oscarliang.com/action-camera/
Selecting a Video Editor
On this colour grading information, we’ll be utilizing DaVinci Resolve as our video editor of selection. It’s free, highly effective, and has all of the options FPV pilots want for enhancing their footage. I extremely suggest it in case you are new to video enhancing.
For a tutorial on getting began with primary enhancing in DaVinci Resolve, try this text: https://oscarliang.com/how-to-use-davinci-resolve/
Optimizing GoPro Settings
To seize professional-quality footage, allow ProTune in your GoPro. This function permits guide changes for settings like shutter pace, white stability, flat colour profile, ISO, stabilization, and sharpness. Utilizing a flat colour profile helps retain particulars in shadows and highlights, providing extra flexibility for balancing colour and distinction throughout post-production.
For extra info on one of the best GoPro settings for cinematic FPV, learn this text: https://oscarliang.com/gopro-settings-fpv/
Optimizing DJI O3 Settings
In case you use the DJI O3 digital camera as a substitute of the GoPro for filming, listed here are my really helpful settings for finest video high quality: https://oscarliang.com/dji-o3-air-unit-fpv-goggles-2/#O3-Air-Unit-Digicam-Settings
Making use of Stabilization
Earlier than colour grading, ensure your footage has been stabilized first, it can make it way more nice to take a look at. For GoPro, my selection of stablization device is Reelsteady, however you may as well use Gyroflow, the result’s comparable so don’t stress your self with the selection. For DJI O3, and plenty of different motion cameras with built-in gyro, you may simply use Gyroflow.
Shade Correction
Shade correction goals to attain clear and pure colour illustration in your footage. It entails fixing publicity, white stability, and saturation. Video editors like DaVinci Resolve provide instruments resembling Waveform, RGB Scope, and Vectorscope that will help you right these parts.
Right here’s uncooked footage.
Regulate Publicity
The Waveform device (backside proper of the display screen) measures mild depth on a scale from 0 (pure black) to 1023 (pure white).
To regulate publicity, find a body in your video the place you’d take into account crucial second (what we name the hero shot), use this as your reference.
Discover the Three Shade Wheels in your video editor, which include Carry (adjusts shadows), Gamma (adjusts mid-tones), and Achieve (adjusts highlights).
Rotate the scroll wheel beneath “Carry” and “Achieve” (these are the darkish and vibrant components of your video), and align the black tones with 0 and the white tones with 1023 for optimum publicity. It’s okay to transcend the bounds (or inside) so long as you’re pleased with the way it appears.
Preserve monitoring the Waveform diagram as you play the video to keep away from overexposing or underexposing components of the footage.
Distinction
After setting the highlights and shadows, you may fine-tune the distinction by growing the Distinction worth (Cont).
Optionally you may as well barely decreasing the midtones utilizing the Gamma scroll wheel – the quantity of adjustment relies on your expertise and private style.
White Steadiness
To regulate white stability, there are 3 strategies (all situated on the high left): Auto Steadiness, Shade Picker and manually setting it.
You can provide Auto Steadiness a strive first as a result of it’s the simplest, nevertheless it’s additionally the least dependable and I usually don’t use it.
To make use of the colour picker device, it’s worthwhile to choose one thing white within the video as a reference. Once more, it’s a simple technique nevertheless it’s not at all times doable to seek out one thing white.
Alternatively, you may manually set the white stability by coming into “Temp” and “Tint” values. A trick I generally use is by trying on the RGB Scope (Parade) and align the crimson, inexperienced, and blue depth ranges. In case you scale back Temp, the entire scene will go blue, for those who improve Temp the entire scene will go crimson. Tint will make the picture look both extra inexperienced or pink.
Nonetheless, in our instance, I used to be filming throughout golden hours, so I intentionally made the footage look extra orange and heat by bumping up the temperature and tint. Auto Steadiness on this case would simply make the picture look a bit extra impartial by lowering temp, which wouldn’t work towards what I need to obtain right here.
Saturation
For saturation adjustment, you should use the Vectorscope, which measures colour info. As you improve saturation (Sat), the Vectorscope traces will develop. Keep away from exceeding the restrict, and purpose for a pure look. In my expertise, a saturation degree of round 60 to 65 usually works properly for many of my GoPro and O3 footage recorded with a flat colour profile.
I usually have “Shade Increase” set to 10 to make the colours pop a bit extra.
Sharpness
In case you recorded your GoPro movies with low sharpness, you may want to extend it throughout post-production. Values round 0.47 or 0.48 normally yield passable outcomes, with decrease values leading to sharper footage.
After Shade correction, the footage appears like this now.
Shade Grading
Shade grading is a artistic course of that enhances the environment and emotion of your video. Through the use of the Three Shade Wheels and Curves, you may create distinctive tones for shadows, mid-tones, and highlights and modify saturation, depth, and colour in particular areas.
To start colour grading, add one other node by right-clicking on the prevailing node, deciding on Add Node, and selecting Add Serial.
Three Shade Wheels
One straightforward technique for colour grading is utilizing the Three Shade Wheels. As talked about earlier, every wheel corresponds to a particular tone: shadows, mid-tones, and highlights. For every tone, you may modify the depth and colour. Combining reverse colours in shadows and mid-tones can create a extra attention-grabbing look.
Curves
My favorite option to colour grade is through the use of the curves. Curves provide a robust option to create distinctive appears by focusing on single colour ranges and adjusting saturation, depth, and colour.
These are the three primary Curves I usually use:
- Hue vs Sat: Change the saturation of particular colour areas (e.g., improve the sky’s saturation by deciding on cyan/blue, or modify the saturation of bushes by deciding on yellow/inexperienced). To change saturation, drag the curve up or down.
- Hue vs Hue: Alter particular colours, to make that colour look extra inexperienced or purple.
- Hue vs Lum: Regulate the brightness of particular colour areas to additional improve your footage.
As an example, you should use Curves to make inexperienced leaves look extra vivid, or to take away colour tones that you simply don’t like such because the crimson in brick partitions. Be artistic and experiment with totally different settings – there’s no proper or mistaken strategy, because it in the end comes down to non-public style. Benefit from the technique of discovering what works finest in your FPV drone movies, and create your personal distinctive type!
After colour grading, the footage appears like this:
LUTs
LUTs, or Look-Up Tables, can be utilized along with colour grading. Your footage could already look nice after colour grading, however utilizing extra LUTs may also help spice issues up much more. It’s as much as you whether or not you need to additional improve your footage with LUTs to create a particular look.
First, guarantee correct colour correction earlier than making use of LUTs as an overlay layer (or extra serial node in Davinci Resolve), and modify the opacity to mix with the footage by going to to “Key” part, and decreasing the “Achieve” worth. It’s merely a matter of selecting your favourite LUT and clicking to use, so we gained’t go into element right here.
For DJI O3 digital camera, I discover the built-in LUT in Davinci Resolve referred to as “DJI Phantom4 DLOG2Rec709” a fairly good selection. Actually I feel most individuals could be joyful to simply apply this LUT with out extra colour grading.
Including Grain
We need to keep away from digital noisy grain by decreasing ISO, however some grain is definitely pleasing to take a look at. We will add such grain in our video by going to “Settings”, “Movie Grain”, “35mm 400T”, and modify grain measurement to your liking. The distinction could be delicate however it may well make your video look extra like an expert movie.
Upscaling For Youtube
Lastly, in case your precedence is picture high quality, it’s best to undoubtedly render your video in 4K, even when it was recorded in a decrease decision. That’s as a result of Youtube retains larger bitrate with larger decision/body charge movies. Typically I render my footage in 4K (3840×2160), 65Mbps bitrate.
See this text for extra details about upscaling: https://oscarliang.com/upload-dji-fpv-footage-youtube/
Conclusion
Shade grading is a vital facet of making beautiful {and professional} cinematic FPV movies. By correctly correcting colours and using colour grading methods, you may considerably improve the visuals of your FPV footage. No matter your flying talent ranges, understanding and making use of these ideas will elevate the standard of your movies and enable you to stand out on this planet of FPV filmmaking. So, go forward and experiment with varied colour grading methods and LUTs to find your distinctive type and create breathtaking FPV drone movies.
Edit Historical past
- Might 2023 – Tutorial created.
- Apr 2024 – Up to date.