Color Correction vs Color Grading: What’s the Difference?

When working in video production, you might hear the terms “color correction” and “color grading” tossed around. And though they’re sometimes used interchangeably, they are not, in fact, the same. Understanding the differences between color grading vs. color correction will help you create polished visual content. 

---

What Is Color Correction?

Color correction involves adjusting the saturation, brightness, and color of your content to make it look realistic and natural. Suppose that you’ve just shot a video, only to find that, in certain scenes, the colors look washed out or too dark due to variations in lighting conditions. Color correction helps you fix these issues and create a consistent look across every frame. 

Purpose of Color Correction

The main goal of color correction is to create a uniform appearance for your footage. The process focuses on correcting technical flaws to make it easier for viewers to see and understand your content. 

Best Practices for Color Correction

Here are some tips to make the color correction process efficient and impactful:

• Start With White Balance: Adjusting the white balance can remove unnatural tints from your footage. 
• Control Exposure: Brightening underexposed shots or toning down overly bright footage helps preserve details. 
• Balance Saturation: Correct saturation levels ensure that colors don’t appear too vivid or too muted. 
• Adjust Contrast: Enhance contrast for more definition between highlights and shadows.

Following these best practices can help you achieve a natural, polished look before applying more creative color changes. 

Shortcomings of Color Correction 

Keep in mind that you can only do so much color correction before your changes begin negatively impacting your video production. It’s important to start with high-quality footage and use color correction to put the finishing touches on your content. Color correction is all about balancing and fixing technical inconsistencies, which means it doesn’t add mood or style to your video — that’s where color grading comes in. 

What Is Color Grading?

Through color grading, you apply creative color changes to achieve a specific mood or tone, such as making a scene look warm and cozy or cool and mysterious. 

Purpose of Color Grading

The purpose of color grading is to enhance the emotional impact of a video or scene. Where color correction ensures technical accuracy, grading establishes the mood and atmosphere, helping guide viewers’ emotions and telling a story beyond just the actions that occur in the frame. 

Best Practices for Color Grading

Here are some tips that can help you simplify the color grading process:

• Use Look-Up Tables (LUTs): LUTs are preset color profiles that apply consistent tones across your footage and are a great starting point for grading. 
• Focus on Skin Tones: Make sure skin tones remain natural and appealing, even when applying color grading. 
• Adjust Shadows and Highlights: Play with shadows and highlights to enhance contrast and set the right mood. 
• Consider the Genre: Match your grading choices with the genre of your video.

Color grading takes practice, so don’t be afraid to experiment with different LUTs until you find the profiles that align with your chosen tone and style.   

Shortcomings of Color Grading

Color grading can bring a lot of depth to your video, but it’s also time-intensive and requires extensive knowledge of both color theory and color grading software solutions. Without careful adjustments, you may end up overgrading, which can make your video look excessively stylized. 

Summary of Key Differences

While color correction and color grading are both practices that are meant to improve the look of your video content, they play unique roles in the production process. The key differences of color correction vs. color grading are:  

Purpose and Function

You’ll typically perform color correction early in the editing process, and it should focus on fixing technical issues to ensure a balanced, natural look. That consistency in colors and lighting across scenes sets the stage for more advanced adjustments later in the editing process.

Color grading adds artistic style and mood. It can make your scenes appear warmer, cooler, darker, or brighter by the goal and tone of your content. You’ll usually perform color grading during post-production. 

Technical Adjustments

During color correction, you are going to adjust exposure, white balance, saturation, and contrast. Color grading, on the other hand, primarily uses LUTs and different color palettes to stylize your footage. While you don’t want your content to look unrealistic, it’s okay to apply your unique style to the video during grading. 

Impact on Storytelling

Color correction doesn’t contribute directly to your storytelling process, but it can make the content more enjoyable by eliminating distracting color errors. The opposite is true of color grading: it can magnify the emotions and tone of your scene. 

How QuickFrame Can Streamline Video Production

QuickFrame can be a valuable resource for handling both color correction and color grading. Our dynamic video production platform connects your brand with our community of makers who can tackle all your video needs, including color grading, correction, and post-production editing.

Don’t waste time learning complex software or scrambling to find talented color-grading pros. If you need to bring in some outside talent to optimize your color profile, turn to QuickFrame — our video makers can help make the assets you need at scale for your next video marketing campaign. 

Color Correction vs. Color Grading: Final Thoughts 

In closing, looking at color grading vs. color correction isn’t a matter of determining which process you should use. Both are crucial to delivering a well-rounded, visually engaging video. 

With that in mind, it’s vital to identify when to use each technique so your footage looks clean while exhibiting a stylistic polish that enhances your storytelling. Whether you’re looking to create high-quality social media content, a short film, or a commercial, color grading and color correction can help make your content more impactful.