What Does Color Grading Mean?

Color grading is the process of improving the appearance of an image for presentation in different environments on different devices. Various attributes of an image such as contrast, color, saturation, detail, black level, and white point may be enhanced whether for motion pictures, videos, or still images.

What exactly is color grading?

Color grading is the post-production process by which a colorist stylizes the color scheme of footage by “painting” on top of what they've established through color correction. ... Colorists use color grading to adjust contrast, color balance, white balance, black level, saturation, and luminance.

Is color grading necessary?

Color grading is absolutely a vital step in the process of achieving everything you could want to do with your footage. Even if you don't want to become a colorist yourself, learning the basics of color grading will make you a more informed client when hiring a colorist in the future to do a grade on your footage.