I've just started thinking about working with colour and video. I've got DaVinci and have watched a couple of getting started tutorials & had a bit of a play. I'm hoping you all have some suggestions on what to learn first and/or good tutorials to get me started. I'm a total beginner and at this stage am hoping for some light editing - I'm not sure full on editing is my bag, but I want to learn a bit. This morning I had a play with the colour warp which seems more intuitive for me than the other options, but clearly I lack skill & finesse at this stage!
This is a quick before/after quick clip of a few seconds and I've put a four shot of screen captures in a comment below - which probably isn't very interesting :D

top two are in the video above; bottom two were little changes to see what happens. Only colour warp was used.

Hi Kristin,

It's difficult to give you here some advice on an encyclopedia like Davinci Resolve.

At the moment, I can't think of any specific color grading tutorials. I should recheck to see if I've saved anything in my YouTube links. Anyway, I don't remember seeing an underwater color grading video that fully satisfied me. They all end with mediocre results. And many of the ones for land footage aren't very useful because they start from situations completely different from ours, or, if you notice, the clips they start with are technically perfect, many times shot in raw. Not exactly common cases.

Anyway, let's say that, in general a sequence could be:

1. Color: If your footage is in Log or RAW, the first thing to do is convert it into your working color space (for example, Rec.709). This is essential for correctly viewing the colors and brightness on your monitor. Skip this one if you shoot in Rec.709

2. White Balance: Use the eyedropper or tools like the color wheels or the "Temp" and "Tint" options to remove any color casts and make the whites and grays truly neutral.

3. Exposure Correction: Adjust the image's brightness. Use the "Lift" (for shadows), "Gamma" (for midtones), and "Gain" (for highlights) controls to fix the general contrast and exposure.

4. Saturation and Contrast: Add or remove saturation and contrast to get a clean and defined image.

All of this is usually called "Primary Correction".

Once your clip looks balanced and technically correct, you can move on to the creative color grading phase. And that's a completely different story.

In the end you apply the final touches as noise reduction, sharpening or midtone sharpening etc..

The tool you used is very powerful and should be used sparingly. I almost wouldn't call it a primary correction tool, and in any case, I would use it for specific interventions on certain parts of the image after adjusting everything else. From what I can see, you're using it like a WB tool.

Do you shoot in Rec.709 or Log?

Do you use lights or natural ambient light?

AWB or MWB?

Davide has given you some good basic pointers to get started, while I'm no video shooter, I've picked up a few things, playing with a little footage. Firstly the amount of adjustment you can make tends to be more limited than what you might be used to on stills, depending on what codec you used. Second getting close on white balance out of camera is going to make your life easier, smaller shifts are easier to deal with and you are less likely to get "lost" along the way and end up with a messy looking clip.

@Davide DB thanks so much. TBH you pretty much lost me early though as I'm not even sure what a "primary correction tool" would be, assumed Davinci could do most things even if it's way more than I'll ever need. I don't even know what I'm shooting in - I put it in the housing and hit the button. I'm using the Insta360 Ace Pro 2. Most of what I've shot is just with the camera tho I have a Kraken video light that I've used a couple of times so far, too.

I suppose I have been thinking of it as an all over white balance. I figured selectively adjusting colour on certain elements in video is well beyond me, I've just been trying to make it not blue. Clearly, I need to try to find some good reading to help me get started not thinking video is the same as photo!

11 hours ago, Kristin said:

I need to try to find some good reading to help me get started not thinking video is the same as photo!

Well, they are cousin 😄

11 hours ago, Kristin said:

I don't even know what I'm shooting in - I put it in the housing and hit the button. I'm using the Insta360 Ace Pro 2. Most of what I've shot is just with the camera tho I have a Kraken video light that I've used a couple of times so far, too.

Chris said what I was about to tell you. That's why I asked my questions, and I didn't remember that you had bought an Insta Ace Pro 2.

Yes, unless you have professional/cinema cameras that shoot in RAW (and even there you have to make some distinctions), we have much, much less possibility for correction with video clips compared to photos. This is why you need to get good images to start with, so you have to do as little work as possible on them later.

To get this, you have two paths, which are also a bit like two philosophies (Blue pill vs Red pill) 😁

• Optimize the camera settings to get images that are as close as possible to the desired final result so that once you download them, you can proceed with the desired editing and not much else. We could call this approach SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera), and it's definitely the most popular trend on YouTube because it's the reason why so many people get into underwater photography and video with action cameras and their smartphones: film > edit > post or even film > post.
  

• Optimize the camera settings to get an image that is as neutral as possible because you plan a workflow to correct the clips in post-production. Since, as I said before, your options for editing are limited (respect to photography), You try to have a starting image that makes the next work easier. This is the classic way of working at all levels: from simple enthusiasts to blue-chip productions.

Who is right? Probably no one!

I prefer the second option, but I'm trying to hide that and be as impartial as possible in this explanation 😇

Really, it all depends on the results you want to get and the priorities and skills you have. If the goal is to come back from your dive, lie on a sun lounger, and immediately post your underwater adventures to your friends, that is, film > post, it's natural to follow the first path. But you have to be realistic about the level of results you can get.

Many of us see beautiful Reels posted on social networks and are convinced that all you need to do is buy the same gear, dive in, and get those results. What's that meme series called? "Instagram vs. Reality"?

When we're disappointed, we keep chasing the SOOC unicorn and run after the latest gadget model with that new feature they are missing. This is also a game played by manufacturers who release new models every year, like fashion collections.

Be careful, I'm not saying that what we see is fake. It's just that many of those fantastic videos we see, are made in more than ideal conditions by people who very often do it for a living. Meanwhile, we use our GoPro for that "one week of vacation" in the Maldives where the water was green!

I also want to add that in both paths, the people who get great results are those who know their camera settings very well and know all the fundamentals of photography perfectly. This is the only way to make the best use of the features and also the limits of these little beasts. Instead of chasing the latest gadget, we should often stop and study the basics of photography and color.

11 hours ago, Kristin said:

TBH you pretty much lost me early though as I'm not even sure what a "primary correction tool" would be, assumed Davinci could do most things even if it's way more than I'll ever need.

Think of dividing the work on color into two big categories. One category is where you make your clip look normal, which means you correct obvious mistakes: it's too dark/light or has too much of one color. This is basically what you did. You had those greenish fish and you brought them back to a color that seems balanced and real to you.

After you do this, the second category (which is completely optional) gives your clips a more personal look. After all, within certain limits, the perception of color is basically subjective. Another analogy on secondary correction (aka grading) is what most people do with their phones posting on IG: they apply filters.

Regardless of the product, I find this simple explanation very good:

Color Correction vs. Color Grading | What's the Difference

Discover the distinctions between color correction vs. color grading. Learn how each process enhances your footage. Get to know expert tips and techniques for achieving the perfect visual balance.

12 hours ago, Kristin said:

@Davide DB thanks so much. TBH you pretty much lost me early though as I'm not even sure what a "primary correction tool" would be, assumed Davinci could do most things even if it's way more than I'll ever need. I don't even know what I'm shooting in - I put it in the housing and hit the button. I'm using the Insta360 Ace Pro 2. Most of what I've shot is just with the camera tho I have a Kraken video light that I've used a couple of times so far, too.

I suppose I have been thinking of it as an all over white balance. I figured selectively adjusting colour on certain elements in video is well beyond me, I've just been trying to make it not blue. Clearly, I need to try to find some good reading to help me get started not thinking video is the same as photo!

@bghazzal has a great tutorial on the site here: https://waterpixels.net/articles/articles_technique/afterhours-magic-ambient-light-video-workflow-for-action-cameras-r161/

This is a great piece on getting better control of your color balance versus having the camera figure out everything, which often fails to capture things we envision. If you’re happy with the automation, maybe that’s the way to go. I think the frame in the lower left looks best to my eye.

To sum up the tutorial: shoot in log or a “flat” mode. Use good quality filters to get back the range of color you would have shooting in bright sunlight above water. And understand this will not make video that looks good straight out of camera ready for social media.