All language subtitles for 20. Building a base Node Tree Color Tab Kolder Creative

Okay, so a no tree

is basically just a bunch of nodes
connected together in our node graph.

This is an example of a node tree.

This is a node tree and this is energy.

Now we can take some time

to put together a new node tree
for every single clip of your project,

especially when there could be hundreds
of separate clips

and you're building out pretty extensive
node trees for each one of those clips.

That's why it could be very helpful
to create a base node tree

or even several of these and save them
as stills in your power grids bin.

So you can always have access to them
and quickly apply any of these node

trees to any clip at any time
very quickly.

Now, when you make a base node tree
like this, you don't actually want to make

any color changes to any of the nodes
so that it's completely fresh.

You really just want
the node tree structure.

So instead of having to remake
the structure each time you just select

the node you want to make changes to
and go from there.

Now, what I want you to understand
is that it's not about the size of

your node tree. It's how you use it

now. But for real.

I see a lot of professional colorists
out there flexing their long, complicated

looking notches, but their final image
doesn't stand out or impress me at all,

and they just make
it seem more complicated

than it actually is
for those just starting out.

You really don't need a crazy
big node tree.

You can always start off small and then as
you do more and more coloring, you're

going to start to see all the options
you find yourself repeating consistently.

And then you can update your base
node tree structures as you need later on.

The good thing about reusing
the same node structure is

that you're going to start to develop
muscle memory as to where everything

is, and you'll be able to make changes
even quicker this way.

It's also good

when you're revisiting older projects
or do any kind of collaborative work.

If you settle on a base,
no tree structure,

then you'll know
where every individual node is

and you won't have to do any problem
solving to figure out what's what.

So I think that's enough of an intro.

Let's jump into Da Vinci.
I'll show you guys exactly how I do it.

All right.

So I'm going to show you guys a node

tree structure that I use pretty often
and has worked for my workflow.

It's definitely not too elaborate.

I would say it's a good node tree
structure to kind of start off with.

And then based on the type of color
grading that you're doing, the tasks

you find yourself repeating,
you can expand on this later on.

But I usually like to start
with noise reduction.

So the first node in my node
she structure, I'll rename it and ah,

and that node is just for any kind
of noise reduction that I want to do.

From there I'll add another node
and this node would be my color

space transform.

So I mean our call is 60 now.

Color space transform is an open effect.

So if you go to open effects,
I have it here under my favorites.

This this is basically a quick way
for us to take our image

from log to looking more like real life
in a quick way.

So in per color space,
I could change this to Sony,

Eskom at three Sunny because

that's what I shot on and then I'm going
to change it to rec 709.

That's kind of like a standard

and that allows me to kind of
get a usable image right away

without having to even play with
any of the curves or anything like that.

Also, keep in mind
you're only going to want to use

the color space transform node
when you're not already

using the color management tools
within the project settings.

So I'm going to close the open
effects here,

and then from there
I'm going to add another node

and this is going to be my primaries.

So you can just call it PR.

I or. Primaries.

And here I'll make changes
like my temperature tint.

So this is just the node used to kind of
make things actually feel natural.

So you're trying to make it feel like
how you actually saw it in real life.

In this case, I do feel like it was.

A bit warmer, a bit more towards the.

Pink. Side of things.

I'll turn that on and off.

It's subtle,
but it makes a big difference.

I probably want to increase
the overall exposure as well a little bit.

Now, after my primaries, what I'll do next
is add another node for the look

or the light. So I'll just call this light

and I'll grab
something from within the lights here.

I'll go through
and just kind of see what looks good.

In this case,
if feel like this would probably look nice

and usually when I apply lights,
what I'll do is bring the key output down

so it's not as intense,
especially with like the lights

that I have a kind of
just have like a bunch of random lights.

This is a lot.

But no, this is

we did a little collab with a bunch
of other filmmakers and we saw the bundle.

It was only available for a week,

but in here
there's like a ton of different lights.

Some of those LEDs have like color space
transform already baked into them

and things like that.

So a lot of the time I'll
just turn the opacity down on a light,

but I'll still be able
to reap the benefits of that light.

So I'm liking the way
that this is looking.

Now after the node,
what I'll do is create another node

and I'll hit option P
to make a parallel mixture node.

And now these nodes here are basically
for me

to focus on individual colors.

So in this case I'd be down to focus on
like the sunset tones

over here in the candles.

So that's one color I'd like
to mess around with and adjust the colors.

So I'll go in here, grab the qualifier

and select this tone shift
H to see what I'm selecting.

That looks pretty good.

I'll go down here, grab this tool to add

some more colors here.

That looks pretty good to me

and shift H so I could see what I'm doing
and I'll go in

and make the adjustments that I want
to the individual colors of my image here.

So maybe I'll brighten things up.

Can't do it too much.

We, you can see where
we're getting a bit of separation there.

I think that that also might be.

Um. I can probably fix. Out the blue
radius.

Yeah, pretty much.

Looks a bit better, but still, that that
separation there is a little bit intense.

So I'll bring that back down a little bit.

But I do like it a bit brighter.

Minor adjustment there.

I'll probably bring up the temperature,
make it feel even warmer.

I'd say it looks pretty good.

Turn that on and off.

It doesn't seem like a lot, but a little
goes a long way when it comes to color.

Calibrating the middle node here I'm.

I want to focus on
like the blue colors on the screen here.

So I'll go over to my qualifier,
select the.

Blue here.

And if you like that
blue might be a bit too saturated.

So bring that saturation down.

That looks good to me.

And then this bottom
one could be whatever.

So maybe I can grab like that
faint grayish blue tone in the sky here

and try to maybe raise that up,

make it a bit brighter,

cause that just gives me a wider range.

There will want to blur

that.

That's brightness up a bit.

Maybe.

I don't want this edge to be too evident
here.

Let's see what happens
if we make. It a bit more yellow,

give it even more, a bit more tint there

it's faint.

And I can see this line here
that doesn't look too good.

So I'll go back into here.

Maybe we can blur that even. More

and I'll turn that on and off.

It's minimal, but it goes a long way.

I, I'm really liking the way
that this image is looking now.

Now, depending on the situation,
sometimes you might want this to be

a layer mixer node
instead of a parallel mixer.

So based on your situation,
feel free to just right click.

You can morph this into either or.

So you know, if we're dealing
with a situation where you need to layer

things instead of mixed them together,
just switched over to a layer mixer.

And now the thing is with this,
you can name these individually,

so you can like have these set up
for certain colors so I can go up

here, call this like reds, this
middle one, call it blues,

last one, call it cyan or whatever
you want.

And that way, you know,
if you have these set up like this,

then you won't even have to, like,
think about what color goes

where you kind of
just know what colors you should add.

And I know some colorists
will make an individual node here

for every color range.

So if we go up here to our menu,
we go to color.

We can see
we have some presets for vectors.

So we got green, yellow, red,
magenta, blue, cyan.

So you can make one for each
one of these individually.

So if I was to do that,
I would just like this bottom node here.

Option P to add another note here,

go up here to Color Presets
and so select another one.

So like magenta.

And just by selecting it,
we can see that it's made a selection.

But because there is no magenta here,
if I hit shift H you can see there's

a tiny bit of magenta.

I could rename this, call it magenta.

And that way because we've selected
a preset and we've applied it to this

whenever we select.

Does it matter what clip we've applied
this base node tree to?

If we just select this magenta node, it's
going to select all of the magenta

within our image.

Does it matter what clip you're using?
So that's cool.

It's like a quick way for you
to just select a node

and then start to focus on that individual
color spectrum.

So after I've done this stuff here,
what I like to do

is select my parallel or layer
mixture over here.

Here option S and now
I'm going to focus on the skin tones.

Now, in this case,
I would say that the skin tones look good,

and if we check our vector scope here,
we can see that

these skin tone colors within our image
are on the skin tone line here.

If you're not seeing this line, head
over to this button right here

and just make sure show
skin tone indicator is turned on.

And this is a skin tone indicator
basically shows us where our skin tones

should fall under in order
for them to look natural.

And right now
it looks like we're pretty good.

But if I wanted to make additional changes
to just the skin tones

and you already know what I would do,
you zoom in on this guy, use a qualifier,

make a selection of your skin tones,
try to isolate them the best you can.

Right?

You don't want to be affecting
other things because we've kind of already

adjusted all the other colors
in the way that we want.

I don't really want to be making
any more changes there,

and this is a decent selection,

but obviously we are going
to have to create a window as well.

But before we make a window, let's just
play with these parameters here to kind of

adjust our selection a bit better.

I really just want to focus
on these skin tones

and try to eliminate everything else.

So what I'll do is enable

the polygon window tool here
and I'll draw two

windows, one around my face over here

and neck.

That would be good to have.

So I'll go down to my window
here, enable another curve window here.

And draw one around this arm here.

Oops,

Draw.

And now that I have those,
I'll go over here

to my tracker and I will track forwards
and track backwards on each one of these.

Cool.

So I spent a bit of time
just isolating these skin tones.

Obviously, the more time you spend on
this, the better it's going to look.

But this is really just, for example sake,
and this is the node

that I use to isolate skin tones
and just make sure that they look good.

So in this case, I do think that we can
brighten up those skin tones a tad bit.

Not too much.

I don't want to be able
to see the edge of my window.

It wasn't perfect, you know, I didn't
spend too much time so it extends out.

And also.

We want to blur that.

Soften it a bit more to.

But yeah, so, you know,

if you need to make any changes
to like the temperature of your skin,

just making it look more realistic,
you could do that here too.

I think the skin tone actually looks fine.

I was happy to just like raise
the exposure a little bit here.

Maybe bring.

Up a bit of the shadows, too.

And I grabbed the face.

There we go.

We want to make sure that we are.

Softening that edge
so we don't see the edge.

And yeah, so that looks pretty good to me.

And this was a situation where I had to do
minimal work on the skin tones

because they just looked good.

But in a lot of situations
I do put a lot of time into just making

sure that the skin tones are perfect
because that's what really sells.

The look, in my opinion, is like

you could do like bold
looks and experiment and make things look,

you know, very blue
or very orange or like,

you know, experiment
with like more intense color grades.

That's totally fine.

But if the if the skin tones
are off on a person and things don't feel

right personally, I'm not I'm not really
a fan of a lot of grades like that.

I want to make sure the skin tones
are looking good

and then you can go crazy
with everything else however you want.

Now, after skin tones,
I like to add my open effects

so anything like a glow or grain.

I personally don't really use glow
that often.

I know a lot of people are into it.

Lots of people like a bit of that glow.

So go ahead. Added on there.

There's also a new thing called collation.

That stuff looks pretty cool
too, so we can go over here,

we can

add something like collation
if we want to.

So this is reserved
for any of our open effects.

Right? So let's zoom. In.

Take a look at this, turn.

It on and off, see what it's doing.

So I could bring the normalization
down a bit and we can see what it's doing

to the computer there.

It almost gives it like a bit of a vintage
vibe, looks cool.

And then if I want to add things
like Green, I can do that as well.

Or we could see that the node graph,
we're starting

to be limited on space here, so

I'm going to grab everything.

And bring it up here.

I could just bring this down here.

So this is the first open effect
so we can rename this one.

We can call it elation.

And like, you know,

these nodes are going to be reserved for
the ones that use the most.

So when I use even
more than collation is green,

so we can add film grain,

that's one of the resolve effects here
and we can play around with that.

So make it however you want,

play around there.

And I know because of compression
to be able to see the change here

through Vimeo or YouTube
is going to be really difficult.

So you guys probably won't even see that
and that's pretty much it.

So this is my base node tree,
kind of just like a fairly simple one,

but it's got everything that you need
for like a base foundation.

I know a lot of other people,
they like to add

even more,
so they'll add a whole another row.

Maybe like after this first

parallel mixer node,
they'll add another node,

make that a parallel mixture node

starting to look crazy now.

Sorry about that.

So they'll yeah, they'll add
like another parallel mixture here

and you know, they'll make windows here
so you can make windows gradients.

So some people like to make a gradient
for the sky

and kind of

just have that ready there to go
whenever you want.

So we can rename this one Sky
and we can call this next one bottom half.

So flip it.

And this is

just another way for you
to very quickly make specific changes.

So if I wanted to make a change to
just the sky, I have this gradient here.

I don't have to remake it.

I could literally just go into my curves

here, bring up the sky
and make it even brighter very quickly.

And like that's the thing.

You want to optimize your node tree
to suit your style of work

and down here
we could just call this bottom

and maybe we can darken that to.

Over here, make things a bit darker.

If, if we wanted to.

In this case, I probably wouldn't
really do that. The sky.

Maybe we can make it
even more like warm or something,

get experimental with it

and you know, minus these three here,

this is kind of like the base node tree
I set up for myself.

And depending on the project,
like sometimes you'll be like,

Oh, I'm going to be doing a lot of

sky changes, you know, or changing,
just changing the exposure of the sky

or making the left side of my image
darker, the right side brighter.

Then you might want to add
another one of those parallel

sets where there's windows on each one
that will affect a different part

of your image.

And that way you don't have to keep
remaking them for every single node tree,

they're just there
and then you just change

the ones that you need to change
when you actually need to change them.

So now that we've developed our base
node tree structure,

we're going to want to add it
as a still into our power grids.

But the issue right now
is that there's actual changes

being made to each one of these nodes.

And obviously
we're not going to want to apply

these changes to random clips
that we apply this base node tree, too.

So what I can do in this situation
is just go up here to color,

go to reset grades and keep nodes.

So it's going to reset all the grades,
but it's going to keep the nodes.

Okay, So we've reset our base
node tree here so there's no effects

or changes being made
to any of these individual nodes,

but we're going want to keep some.

So for example, the color space transform,

we're not going to want to have to reapply
this effect to our base node tree

every single time that we apply this base
node tree to any of our clips.

So let's apply
that color space transform. So

so that one can stay.

Primaries will leave this one blank,
that will leave this one blank as well.

And for the Reds blues sans magenta
as we can do what we spoke

about before so we can apply those presets
to each one of these.

So all you got to do is go up to Color
Presets and then we can apply one of these

to each one of these
if you choose to do so.

A lot of the time
I don't even use the presets.

I'll just go to the node
that has the color I want to change

and then just use the qualifier
to select that color range.

And then from there, you know the effects
at the end here, like collation,

also we've got to rename this one.

So this from skin tones,

collation, let's add

a collation there and just leave it on.

And same with the green.

So we'll leave film grain on this last
one here as well.

And by default what I'll do
is just turn those off so command,

I'll leave those off.

And that way when we apply this base
node treats to any other clip

by default
the collation in green will be turned off.

And that way

all we have to do is just enable them
if we want to use them for specific clips.

So this is the base node tree here.

So all we want to do is open up
our gallery over here.

Let's go into power grids
and let's right click on this grab.

Still, it's going to be added
to our power grids over here.

And all we want to do at
this point is to name it.

So we can call this one base
node tree one.

Now we can see that I already have
another base node tree saved over here.

And here's the thing.

If you're using
a bunch of different cameras,

then you might want to create a base
node tree

for each one of those individual cameras.

So for example, in this one,
I could change the color space, transform

to the one that I use all the time.

So that's Sony. So

as Log

Gamma three City and change the output
color space to rec seven or nine.

And then that way if I save this now,

I could save this one
and it's custom to Sony

so I could say Sony base node tree
and that way whenever

I have Sony footage, I could just apply
this Sony base node tree to those.

And then that way it will automatically
convert that Sony log footage to rec 709

So there you go.

Everything you need to know about base
node trees.

Now, honestly,
if you're just starting off,

don't really worry about this too much.

This is something that you should do
later on.

Once you've actually developed
a bit more of a workflow, you understand

what nodes it is that you use the most
and what kind of base node tree would work

best for you.

So that's it for this video
I hope you guys enjoyed.

I hope you learn something new
and I'll catch you in the next one.