Glossary · video-editing
What is Colour grading?
Colour grading is adjusting the colour and brightness of footage after shooting, both to fix problems and to set a consistent look. It has two halves. Correction neutralises a colour cast, fixes exposure and matches shots from different cameras so a cut does not flash between blue and orange. Grading proper then pushes the image towards a deliberate mood. Consistency is the part viewers actually register — nobody notices a good grade, but everyone notices when one shot is yellow and the next is grey inside the same conversation.
What does Colour grading mean for a business in Pakistan?
Two local conditions cause most of the work. Winter haze over Islamabad flattens contrast and adds a grey-blue cast, which needs contrast restored and a touch of warmth. Indoor shots under mixed tube lights and warm LEDs turn green, which is a white balance fix rather than a creative one. Setting white balance correctly in camera saves an hour per video, and nobody ever does it, so the fix lands in the edit.
A worked example
A wedding highlight cut mixes DSLR footage shot indoors with phone footage shot outdoors: the DSLR clips read green at around 4300K, the phone clips blue at around 6800K. Matching both to a neutral point, then applying the same warm grade to all 42 clips, means the cut between them stops being visible. Roughly 25 minutes of work for the whole film.
Terms that go with this one
These come up in the same conversations and are worth reading together.
- LUTLUTA LUT, or lookup table, is a small file that maps every input colour to an output colour — effectively a preset for a grade. Two kinds exist, and…
- B-rollb-rollB-roll is the supporting footage cut over your main shot — hands working, the shop front, a close-up of the product, someone walking through a door.…
- Frame rateframe rate / fpsFrame rate is how many still images make up each second of video, written as fps. Twenty-four gives the slightly soft, filmic motion of cinema; 25…
- BitratebitrateBitrate is how much data the video uses per second, measured in megabits per second, and it decides how much detail survives compression. Too low and…
- Aspect ratioaspect ratioAspect ratio is the shape of the frame, written as width to height. Three matter now: 16:9 for landscape YouTube and Facebook video, 9:16 for the…
Colour grading — quick answers
What does Colour grading mean?
Colour grading is adjusting the colour and brightness of footage after shooting, both to fix problems and to set a consistent look. It has two halves.
Colour grading ko Urdu mein kya kehte hain?
کلر گریڈنگ — though in practice almost everyone in Pakistan says "colour grading / grading". Two local conditions cause most of the work.
Why does Colour grading matter for a business in Pakistan?
Two local conditions cause most of the work. Winter haze over Islamabad flattens contrast and adds a grey-blue cast, which needs contrast restored and a touch of warmth. Indoor shots under mixed tube lights and warm LEDs turn green, which is a white balance fix rather than a creative one. Setting white balance correctly in camera saves an hour per video, and nobody ever does it, so the fix lands in the edit.
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