Colour Grading for Editors & Clients

You know you’ve messed up your white balance when the Queen looks like she’s spent a weekend in Ibiza. That’s how I first discovered colour grading.

I wasn’t trying to be creative. I was trying to fix the camera’s auto white balance jumping around mid-shot. A cloud passed overhead. A white shirt drifted into frame. Suddenly your daylight turns to tungsten in the blink of an eye.

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From Chaos to Control

My first true grade was nearly 20 years ago. It was a music video at sixth form, drenched in red and black, where I threw every possible effect from After Effects and Premiere into the mix. It was… experimental. But I was hooked.

Since then, I’ve graded everything from branded social content to corporate explainers to footage for stock libraries. I’ve also worked extensively with Transport for London, where I graded projects like London’s River Bus promo. Yes, the sexy slow-mo sun-kissed waves one. It had to look luxurious and cinematic.

My Workflow: Practical, Fast, Flexible

Most of my grading happens in Premiere Pro, because I do most of the editing too. If the project isn’t picture-locked, sending it out to DaVinci Resolve is more hassle than it’s worth.

I mostly grade on an adjustment layer, which means I can toggle it on and off with one click. My pipeline looks something like this:

Colour correct during the offline edit. It has to look good enough to show a client.
Apply an S-curve. Bring out highlights and crush blacks slightly.
Find the subject. Accentuate what the eye should be drawn to.
Correct distractions. Hue shifts, saturation tweaks, and a vignette at the end.

If I’m mixing footage from different cameras, like an iPhone and an FS7, I neutralise everything to Rec.709 using LUTs or manual correction. Then I grade from there. Sometimes the difference in quality is too big, so you can only bring the lower-quality footage up a little. In those cases, I reduce the sharpness or dynamic range of the better camera slightly, just to make it feel more consistent.

Case Studies: When It All Goes Right (or Horribly Wrong)

The TfL River Bus Promo

We wanted the footage to feel premium. A hot summer’s day. Canary Wharf in the background. People drinking beer on the deck instead of sweating on the Jubilee line. The grade pulled out rich blues and warm tones to sell that idea of everyday luxury.

Salvaging a Student Project

A classmate once shot an entire doc handheld, while drunk, and with the viewfinder closed. It was so overexposed and crooked it looked like it had been filmed during an earthquake on Mars. I spent days fumbling around in FCP7, colour correcting it and desperately trying to salvage it by matching exposure, white balance, and skin tones.

It ended up ranking in the top three student projects that year. Trial by fire, but I learned loads. That project was part of why I was awarded Student of the Year.

The Window Interview Nightmare

A freelance camera op once shot an indoor interview with a bright window behind the subject. The poor guy looked like either an Oompa Loompa or a Na’vi, depending on which white balance you picked. I used secondary colour correction to treat the indoor and outdoor areas separately and saved the shot.

Clients vs Colourists: Let’s Talk Realism

Here’s the thing. Professional colourists want perfection. They’ll tell you to buy a calibrated reference monitor, view your footage in a dark room painted 18 percent grey, and spend thousands chasing accuracy.

Me? I’m in the 95 percent is good enough camp. Diminishing returns are real. Spending hours finessing something no one will notice just isn’t productive. Especially when 95 percent of my deliveries are viewed on compressed MP4s over WiFi.

What Grading Should Do

A good grade isn’t about filters or flashy looks. It’s about guiding the eye and setting a tone:

Draw attention to faces and story elements
Maintain brand colours (use the eyedropper for logos)
Highlight important details (like TfL’s red buses, so boost the red)
Fix skin tones to feel natural and relatable

If you’re grading for stock, keep it neutral. Boost the contrast just enough to pop, but don’t over-style. Let the buyer add their own flair.

Before and After: Let’s See the Difference

Here’s a simple example:

Before: Flat, greyish log footage. Washed out reds and dull skin tones.
After: Vibrant, stylised final image. Colours pop, and the money and branding read clearly.

Final Thoughts: Learn, Then Let Go

Every grade teaches you something new. Whether it’s saving a disaster or realising you’ve spent three hours tweaking a blue that no one else will notice, it’s all part of the craft.

My advice? Be efficient, be flexible, and don’t obsess. Know when to pass it to a specialist and when to crack on. Grading should serve the story, not the ego.

🎬 Want to see some of my grading in action? Watch my showreel

Being self-employed, we have to adapt or die. Good enough is often perfect.

Joe Savitch-Lee

Over 20 years in media, having worked on four continents and on countless projects both on location and in a suite. He has excelled in both building/maintaining editing systems and editing them.

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