My Final Cut Pro color grading masterclass will be dropping in a few weeks! So stoked to show it to you guys. Enter you email on my website to get notified once it's live! 👉🏼 www.dylanjohnmedia.com/courses
Thank you so much for making this video Dylan! 😍 It’s crazy how accurate you can be with Color Finale Pro. I got it through one of your videos a very long time ago but I never find the time to learn more about it. 🤦🏻♀️ I just use its basic tools. The auto white balance is very accurate but I’m missing out on the best features of the plugin! I don’t shoot in S-LOG3 yet though. But I’m getting the A7RV soon for my photography work so I’ll soon be able to do it, and experiment more with color grading. Thanks again! The result looks incredible! 😊
My pleasure, Laura! Thanks for the suggestion 👊🏼 And no worries! The basic tools can work just fine too. You're able to create some pretty color grades with them as well. I'm not sure if you're interested, but I'll be releasing a color grading masterclass for the FCP tools and Color Finale tools in the next few weeks. It should make you a pro in no time 😊 www.dylanjohnmedia.com/courses Thanks again for the suggestion and the support!
@@dylanjohndickerson Thank you Dylan! I’ve just subscribed to your newsletter to take a look at the course when you release it. 😊 I’m travelling full time soon so I’m hoping to level up my videos and your course will definitely be useful! Thanks again! ❤️
Love to hear that, brotha! It definitely is pricey. I've worked out a deal with them though so whoever takes my color grading masterclass gets 50% off the plugin. That does knock down the price, but you'd also be paying for my course, so perhaps it's close to the same 😅 At least you'd be learning a bunch.
Insane color session Dylan! You did change my mind completely from switching to davinci. Could you please show us a cinematic car color grade flow as well? Im dying to get good as I can at it!
Stoked to hear I had that big of an impact on you! Sure, but I don't have a ton of car footage haha. I can see if I can find some stock footage though.
Great Attempt and you got pretty close tried it in LR and it wasn’t easy. Quick question? Do you know how to get the horizon to work as as a shortcut from the drop down view. Seems to be impossible atm.
Hey Dylan! Thanks for making this video and all your tutorials for that matter! Question, in Color Finale, how did you get all the layer buttons visible along the top bar? Instead of only seeing 4 of them and then having a drop-down to see the others. I would love to be able to arrange them but I could settle for having all of them visible without a drop-down. Thanks!
@@dylanjohndickerson Hi Dylan, thanks for wanting to clarify. In the top bar of the Color Finale window that opens when you click on Edit Layers, next to the colored circles for 'Close, Minimize, and Maximize, are the icons for 'Insert Color Wheels, Insert Curves, Insert Six Vectors, Insert HSL Curves' but then you have all the other options available after those 4, such as: Shuffle, Filters, Camera Matrix, and Log Wheels. But I have a drop down arrow to reveal those other 4, whereas you have all of them along the top bar. In your old tutorial video "How to use COLOR FINALE 2 Pro | Complete Tutorial" you can see what I mean because you used to have the drop down arrow too. So I am just wondering how you got them out of the drop down and all along the top menu bar. Thank you for taking the time to reply and all the work you do!
Very interesting and thank you but this package is somewhat above my pay grade. Very clever though. I am doing my level best to stay away from subscription products (have given quite enough money to Adobe and others!!!). I recognise I could buy a licence but sadly, Boris products, whilst good, interesting and desirable are mostly out of my price range. Another great tutorial Dylan. Thank you. Scotland loves you!
No problem, Richard! I understand. I'll be creating a lot more color grading tutorials with the basic tools in the coming months as well as exclusively in my color grading masterclass that's coming out. Thanks for the love, Richard!
Hey man! That's going to be covered in my FCP/Color Finale 2 Pro masterclass but assume LOG is a generic LOG version. Don't use this. If you're not going to use ACES, which will help to make your shot look better out of the gate, although you'll be working in the ACES color space so it can be a little tricky, you should be using an input LUT from whatever camera manufacturer the footage was shot with.
The challenge is saving that as a reusable preset for other shots in your "film." For the shape masks, you'd need to track them if the subject is moving in other shots. Given possible lighting changes, the HSL masks may need to change as well. So a question is how would you save the "core" elements of that grade knowing you'd need to make changes or additions in other shots? Or perhaps you export it as a LUT that you can add to other shots and then make changes and additions subsequent to that?
That's what a colorist does my friend. Also the shape mask was basically a vignette, so that's easy to dial back if you need to. You can just adjust the opacity on that for certain clips. And with possible lighting changes, usually the lighting is controlled, but for those are scenes where the lights really are changing colors, you'd have to dial back the grade and possibly not use qualifiers. Instead do what you can to make more gradual pushes with your tools. As far as a workflow for applying color grades to different scenes and shots in your film/video, that'll be covered in my color grading masterclass. Thanks for watching!
Hey buddy. Just finished your course and money well spent. I have gained a lot and super confident with color grading now. However Color Finale 2 pro as amazing as it is is driving me absolutely nuts. It to buggy on the masking and tracking. I’m using an M1 Max 16 “ and it just keeps stalling out. I’ve followed all the guidelines on Color Finales you tube tutorials and still buggy and stalls out. However FCP is no problem so gained a hell of a lot with that. You nailed it with the course and i would recommend to everyone. However I will persevere will Color finale but it could be finishing off my grading in davinci as the masking and tracking is smooth on davinci
Thanks so much, Davie! Very glad you enjoyed the course. It definitely is buggy with masking and tracking. I hoping an update will fix that. Thanks again for the kind words 🙏🏼 I put a ton of time into the course, so I'm very happy to hear that.
@@dylanjohndickerson seems the latest update has fixed the issues so good news. Just a question for you buddy what monitor did you actually purchase as you mentioned a couple options on your course? Thanks bro
Hey Dylan, on Color Finale 2 Pro when I try using the image analysis tool, I get this little yellow triangle telling me I have to have Color Finale 2 Pro selected in Inspector. I usually do have it selected, but it won't let me use image analysis. Any tips for working around this pesky warning? Thanks man :)
Hey Jared! Ya that happens sometimes. It's annoying. What I do is click off of the plugin and then click it again and that usually works. I actually talk about that in my Color Finale 2 Pro color grading masterclass. If you liked this tutorial, you should check out the course ✌🏼 www.fcpcolorgradingmasterclass.com
I hope I didn’t miss your discount for your Master Class tutorial along with your LUTs, etc. I saw the package for $100.00. Then I saw it for $120.00. As I mentioned the Color Finale developer gave me his $50.00 tutorial. I want to contribute to you for all the great FCPX tutorials you have developed & given for free. If I can get a link to pay the $100.00 for the master class, this would be great!
Im trying to color grade everything from now on in aces color science. Dylan i wanted to ask whats the difference between using conversion luts and start grading than using the aces option from the color finale? Lets say i want to grade a landscape this time or some car videos. Do i apply the same stuff as you do in the joker video? (Correction-masking-finalizing?)
It should be noted that the Joker look started from on how they light the scene. I forgot the exact light they used, but the colors of the light is closer to teal or cyan already when they shot it and also the contrast ratios. It should also be noted that the Joker was printed on Kodak 2383/3383
Hey Dylan, love a lot of your content, especially when it comes audio. As a colorist, that uses final cut & davinci, I wanted to share my thoughts because I think there is a faster workflow, that gets closer to the desired look and follows some best practices: - the balancing for a shot like this isn't really necessary. It's such a stylized shot that this mostly becomes unnecessary. - sometimes, it's better to have your look already in place and then build under that. In your case, I saw you playing with a lot of contrast, but really you need to match the 2 film stocks to get your FPE: Kodak Vision3 500T 5219, and Kodak Vision 2383. (I actually already made a FPE Rec709 lut specific to this for a client a while ago, and boy does it really help. I took a screenshot of your image, and then just threw that look on it, and it really helps it get much closer. It gives you more of the contrast from the reference shot, while muting things like the red in your shirt, but then giving the slightest green/yellow to really match. I wish I could share it here! Also, just to be clear, it's not as simple as just using a lut, and there are a lot of terrible luts out there. In situations like this you need FPE & this is how I do it in final cut.) Drop me a message and I can share it with you! - I know many people on YT and IG are keying skintones, but it makes colorists cringe. It's ok to key other parts of an image, but usually you adjust the shot so the skintones are exactly where you want them, and then adjust everything else around that. - I'd use my printer lights to adjust the yellow/green slightly and maybe bring your offset down. Aside from all that, I use Color Finale Pro, and REGRET that purchase. Final cut had an update shortly after I bought it, the plugin didn't work, customer support wasn't helpful and took them weeks to fix their plugin, and I wanted to return it, but they wouldn't let me. It has also taken them weeks to get a fix out after subsequent updates. It's clunky, slow, and I'm done with it. I actually prefer to use the native final cut color tools. They have decent tracking and masks. And I've been able to work just fine without it! While there may be some critiques, I hope it's constructive and helpful.
Hey Joey! Thanks so much, man 🙏🏼 And thanks for the CC! -That may be true because of how stylized of a grade it is, but it's a good practice to get into, especially for those starting out, and one that I wanted to teach. As my mentor who color grades fairly big budget films says, 'a pro balances their shots first before they go in and create a look'. -No doubt you can get closer to the look faster with some LUTs. I probably could've hopped into Dehancer and used one of their Kodak film stocks, but that wouldn't have been as much fun. -I'm a professional colorist as well and have friends that would say the opposite. While I agree with you that it's much better to make more gradual pushes to your shot and not have to go in and use qualifiers if you don't have to, certain looks are going to require it. There's no way I could've achieved this look without protecting my skin from the teal adjustment by keying it. Aside from lighting the shot differently of course. The main reason for that key was the background adjustment anyways. Fair enough! My plugin still works after the update, but it's definitely still buggy. I agree with you there. It's certainly the best thing that FCP has though. Thanks for the CC, Joey 🤙🏼
@@dylanjohndickerson To continue a healthy debate. I wasn't saying just throw a LUT on the footage to get your look. With shows & movies they usually have show looks and a colorist's typical workflow is apply the show look and grading underneath that. Otherwise, you make all these adjustments, and then apply your show look and have to go back and readjust. It's great that you use dehancer, but it surprised me that you did all these adjustments with it like bloom, but you didn't apply the 2 critical film stocks. That's the special ingredient that would get your image way closer to the actual Joker look. If you had applied those first, the contrast and colors would've been much easier to dial in. -There are a lot of tutorials where people show how to color grade, but they are doing just 1 shot. When I'm grading many scenes and hundreds of shots, it's about working efficiently to get those deliverables out quickly. So having all these different keys and what not just slow that whole process down. They won't translate well over from shot to shot and have to be rekeyed, or what have you. - Give the film stocks a shot! You'll find your vectorscope gets much closer to the reference. I'd kill the bloom, and lower your offset a tad and I think you'll find it gets you dangerously close.
My Final Cut Pro color grading masterclass will be dropping in a few weeks! So stoked to show it to you guys. Enter you email on my website to get notified once it's live!
👉🏼 www.dylanjohnmedia.com/courses
Is it native or Color finale?
@@turbostunt321 It will be both 🤙🏼
@@dylanjohndickerson Mean
the best color grading lesson on youtube. thanks. i will try few times to memory everything
Damn! Thanks so much 😊
Thank you so much for making this video Dylan! 😍 It’s crazy how accurate you can be with Color Finale Pro. I got it through one of your videos a very long time ago but I never find the time to learn more about it. 🤦🏻♀️ I just use its basic tools. The auto white balance is very accurate but I’m missing out on the best features of the plugin!
I don’t shoot in S-LOG3 yet though. But I’m getting the A7RV soon for my photography work so I’ll soon be able to do it, and experiment more with color grading.
Thanks again! The result looks incredible! 😊
My pleasure, Laura! Thanks for the suggestion 👊🏼 And no worries! The basic tools can work just fine too. You're able to create some pretty color grades with them as well. I'm not sure if you're interested, but I'll be releasing a color grading masterclass for the FCP tools and Color Finale tools in the next few weeks. It should make you a pro in no time 😊
www.dylanjohnmedia.com/courses
Thanks again for the suggestion and the support!
@@dylanjohndickerson Thank you Dylan! I’ve just subscribed to your newsletter to take a look at the course when you release it. 😊 I’m travelling full time soon so I’m hoping to level up my videos and your course will definitely be useful! Thanks again! ❤️
Awesome tutorial!
Thank you! 🙏🏼
Color finale pro is a powerful tool man.
That it is!
insane!! 🔥🔥
this is just nxt level! 😐
Thanks a ton, Manny!
wow this is great greetings from mexico🇲🇽
Thank you very much! Greetings from Indonesia 🤙🏼
Thanks Dylan! Your teaching style is the BEST dawg. Learned so much!
That really makes me happy to hear 🙏🏼 Thanks so much for the support!
That's sick! Looks exactly like the joker grade. Insane! Amazing job Dylan, I love these step-by-step color grades!
Thanks brotha! Glad you liked it 👊🏼
Dylan that was super inspiring. I learnt a lot. I wish I could justify the cost of color finale, it's so so nice and intuitive~
Love to hear that, brotha! It definitely is pricey. I've worked out a deal with them though so whoever takes my color grading masterclass gets 50% off the plugin. That does knock down the price, but you'd also be paying for my course, so perhaps it's close to the same 😅 At least you'd be learning a bunch.
Random was hoping you would do a new Color finale pro tutorial. Recently brought soooooo good
I got you 👊🏼
awesome bro
Thanks ✌️
Absolutely loving your videos! 🙌🎥 Learning so much from your content. Thank you immensely!
Stoked to hear that! 😄 Thanks for the support and letting me know you're enjoying my stuff!
Insane color session Dylan! You did change my mind completely from switching to davinci.
Could you please show us a cinematic car color grade flow as well? Im dying to get good as I can at it!
Stoked to hear I had that big of an impact on you! Sure, but I don't have a ton of car footage haha. I can see if I can find some stock footage though.
FCP 💪 Thanks Dylan
You're welcome! Thanks for watching 👊🏼
Great Attempt and you got pretty close tried it in LR and it wasn’t easy. Quick question? Do you know how to get the horizon to work as as a shortcut from the drop down view.
Seems to be impossible atm.
Thanks so much! I don't actually. As far as I know, there's no way to because there's no shortcut to have it pop up.
@@dylanjohndickerson Thanks for the reply
Thanks man
No problem! Thanks for watching and commenting 👊🏼
I’m finally studying some of this great color finale tutorial. My question do you have a tutorial using the video x-rite target with color Finale?
I don't actually, but I plan to get one soon and add it to the course.
Hey Dylan! Thanks for making this video and all your tutorials for that matter! Question, in Color Finale, how did you get all the layer buttons visible along the top bar? Instead of only seeing 4 of them and then having a drop-down to see the others. I would love to be able to arrange them but I could settle for having all of them visible without a drop-down. Thanks!
Thanks for the support, Dustin! I'm not quite sure I follow. what top bar?
@@dylanjohndickerson Hi Dylan, thanks for wanting to clarify. In the top bar of the Color Finale window that opens when you click on Edit Layers, next to the colored circles for 'Close, Minimize, and Maximize, are the icons for 'Insert Color Wheels, Insert Curves, Insert Six Vectors, Insert HSL Curves' but then you have all the other options available after those 4, such as: Shuffle, Filters, Camera Matrix, and Log Wheels. But I have a drop down arrow to reveal those other 4, whereas you have all of them along the top bar. In your old tutorial video "How to use COLOR FINALE 2 Pro | Complete Tutorial" you can see what I mean because you used to have the drop down arrow too. So I am just wondering how you got them out of the drop down and all along the top menu bar. Thank you for taking the time to reply and all the work you do!
@@dustinlloyd2723 Ahhh I see. That was with the new update I believe! Have you updated CF2 Pro? Thanks for the support, brotha 👊🏼
Thanks for that 🙏
Pls do a tutorial for color grading like wes anderson !!!!
Great call! Thanks for the idea.
Very interesting and thank you but this package is somewhat above my pay grade. Very clever though. I am doing my level best to stay away from subscription products (have given quite enough money to Adobe and others!!!). I recognise I could buy a licence but sadly, Boris products, whilst good, interesting and desirable are mostly out of my price range. Another great tutorial Dylan. Thank you. Scotland loves you!
No problem, Richard! I understand. I'll be creating a lot more color grading tutorials with the basic tools in the coming months as well as exclusively in my color grading masterclass that's coming out. Thanks for the love, Richard!
What's the difference between ASSUME LOG & ACES? Is there more of a benefit when using ACES?
Hey man! That's going to be covered in my FCP/Color Finale 2 Pro masterclass but assume LOG is a generic LOG version. Don't use this. If you're not going to use ACES, which will help to make your shot look better out of the gate, although you'll be working in the ACES color space so it can be a little tricky, you should be using an input LUT from whatever camera manufacturer the footage was shot with.
Isn't blurring the color mask in Color Finale Pro 2 the same thing as softening the color mask in Final Cut Pro?
In the 3D one? Nope. All that's doing is gradually selecting more hues. Not blurring the selection.
The challenge is saving that as a reusable preset for other shots in your "film." For the shape masks, you'd need to track them if the subject is moving in other shots. Given possible lighting changes, the HSL masks may need to change as well.
So a question is how would you save the "core" elements of that grade knowing you'd need to make changes or additions in other shots?
Or perhaps you export it as a LUT that you can add to other shots and then make changes and additions subsequent to that?
That's what a colorist does my friend. Also the shape mask was basically a vignette, so that's easy to dial back if you need to. You can just adjust the opacity on that for certain clips. And with possible lighting changes, usually the lighting is controlled, but for those are scenes where the lights really are changing colors, you'd have to dial back the grade and possibly not use qualifiers. Instead do what you can to make more gradual pushes with your tools. As far as a workflow for applying color grades to different scenes and shots in your film/video, that'll be covered in my color grading masterclass. Thanks for watching!
Hey buddy. Just finished your course and money well spent. I have gained a lot and super confident with color grading now. However Color Finale 2 pro as amazing as it is is driving me absolutely nuts. It to buggy on the masking and tracking. I’m using an M1 Max 16 “ and it just keeps stalling out. I’ve followed all the guidelines on Color Finales you tube tutorials and still buggy and stalls out. However FCP is no problem so gained a hell of a lot with that. You nailed it with the course and i would recommend to everyone. However I will persevere will Color finale but it could be finishing off my grading in davinci as the masking and tracking is smooth on davinci
Thanks so much, Davie! Very glad you enjoyed the course. It definitely is buggy with masking and tracking. I hoping an update will fix that. Thanks again for the kind words 🙏🏼 I put a ton of time into the course, so I'm very happy to hear that.
@@dylanjohndickerson seems the latest update has fixed the issues so good news. Just a question for you buddy what monitor did you actually purchase as you mentioned a couple options on your course? Thanks bro
Hey Dylan, on Color Finale 2 Pro when I try using the image analysis tool, I get this little yellow triangle telling me I have to have Color Finale 2 Pro selected in Inspector. I usually do have it selected, but it won't let me use image analysis. Any tips for working around this pesky warning?
Thanks man :)
Hey Jared! Ya that happens sometimes. It's annoying. What I do is click off of the plugin and then click it again and that usually works. I actually talk about that in my Color Finale 2 Pro color grading masterclass. If you liked this tutorial, you should check out the course ✌🏼
www.fcpcolorgradingmasterclass.com
@@dylanjohndickerson I plan on scooping that soon. thanks brother
No problem brochacho. I'll be releasing a promo video for it on my channel in 12 hours or so@@timmerjared
I hope I didn’t miss your discount for your Master Class tutorial along with your LUTs, etc. I saw the package for $100.00. Then I saw it for $120.00. As I mentioned the Color Finale developer gave me his $50.00 tutorial. I want to contribute to you for all the great FCPX tutorials you have developed & given for free. If I can get a link to pay the $100.00 for the master class, this would be great!
You didn't miss the discount! It's still 65% off. It's always been $119 though. Thanks so much for the support, dude 👊🏼
Discount code doesnt work... Any Help?
I just checked and it does work. Not sure what you're typing in.
It's DYLANJ20
@@dylanjohndickerson doesn’t work on the bundles… FML
Im trying to color grade everything from now on in aces color science. Dylan i wanted to ask whats the difference between using conversion luts and start grading than using the aces option from the color finale? Lets say i want to grade a landscape this time or some car videos. Do i apply the same stuff as you do in the joker video? (Correction-masking-finalizing?)
It should be noted that the Joker look started from on how they light the scene. I forgot the exact light they used, but the colors of the light is closer to teal or cyan already when they shot it and also the contrast ratios. It should also be noted that the Joker was printed on Kodak 2383/3383
Of course! Lighting is so important 🙌🏼
Hey Dylan, love a lot of your content, especially when it comes audio.
As a colorist, that uses final cut & davinci, I wanted to share my thoughts because I think there is a faster workflow, that gets closer to the desired look and follows some best practices:
- the balancing for a shot like this isn't really necessary. It's such a stylized shot that this mostly becomes unnecessary.
- sometimes, it's better to have your look already in place and then build under that. In your case, I saw you playing with a lot of contrast, but really you need to match the 2 film stocks to get your FPE: Kodak Vision3 500T 5219, and Kodak Vision 2383.
(I actually already made a FPE Rec709 lut specific to this for a client a while ago, and boy does it really help. I took a screenshot of your image, and then just threw that look on it, and it really helps it get much closer. It gives you more of the contrast from the reference shot, while muting things like the red in your shirt, but then giving the slightest green/yellow to really match. I wish I could share it here! Also, just to be clear, it's not as simple as just using a lut, and there are a lot of terrible luts out there. In situations like this you need FPE & this is how I do it in final cut.) Drop me a message and I can share it with you!
- I know many people on YT and IG are keying skintones, but it makes colorists cringe. It's ok to key other parts of an image, but usually you adjust the shot so the skintones are exactly where you want them, and then adjust everything else around that.
- I'd use my printer lights to adjust the yellow/green slightly and maybe bring your offset down.
Aside from all that, I use Color Finale Pro, and REGRET that purchase. Final cut had an update shortly after I bought it, the plugin didn't work, customer support wasn't helpful and took them weeks to fix their plugin, and I wanted to return it, but they wouldn't let me. It has also taken them weeks to get a fix out after subsequent updates. It's clunky, slow, and I'm done with it.
I actually prefer to use the native final cut color tools. They have decent tracking and masks. And I've been able to work just fine without it!
While there may be some critiques, I hope it's constructive and helpful.
Hey Joey! Thanks so much, man 🙏🏼 And thanks for the CC!
-That may be true because of how stylized of a grade it is, but it's a good practice to get into, especially for those starting out, and one that I wanted to teach. As my mentor who color grades fairly big budget films says, 'a pro balances their shots first before they go in and create a look'.
-No doubt you can get closer to the look faster with some LUTs. I probably could've hopped into Dehancer and used one of their Kodak film stocks, but that wouldn't have been as much fun.
-I'm a professional colorist as well and have friends that would say the opposite. While I agree with you that it's much better to make more gradual pushes to your shot and not have to go in and use qualifiers if you don't have to, certain looks are going to require it. There's no way I could've achieved this look without protecting my skin from the teal adjustment by keying it. Aside from lighting the shot differently of course. The main reason for that key was the background adjustment anyways.
Fair enough! My plugin still works after the update, but it's definitely still buggy. I agree with you there. It's certainly the best thing that FCP has though.
Thanks for the CC, Joey 🤙🏼
@@dylanjohndickerson To continue a healthy debate. I wasn't saying just throw a LUT on the footage to get your look. With shows & movies they usually have show looks and a colorist's typical workflow is apply the show look and grading underneath that. Otherwise, you make all these adjustments, and then apply your show look and have to go back and readjust. It's great that you use dehancer, but it surprised me that you did all these adjustments with it like bloom, but you didn't apply the 2 critical film stocks. That's the special ingredient that would get your image way closer to the actual Joker look. If you had applied those first, the contrast and colors would've been much easier to dial in.
-There are a lot of tutorials where people show how to color grade, but they are doing just 1 shot. When I'm grading many scenes and hundreds of shots, it's about working efficiently to get those deliverables out quickly. So having all these different keys and what not just slow that whole process down. They won't translate well over from shot to shot and have to be rekeyed, or what have you.
- Give the film stocks a shot! You'll find your vectorscope gets much closer to the reference. I'd kill the bloom, and lower your offset a tad and I think you'll find it gets you dangerously close.
@@JoeyDunn Totally fair, Joey! I'll check out some film stocks. Enjoy your weekend 👊🏼