Cinematic Color Grading in DaVinci Resolve 18

Cinematic color grading doesn’t have to be difficult and time-consuming. This is probably the easiest and fastest way to grade your footage and it also works in the free version of DaVinci Resolve 18. It’ll literally take you 5 minutes to get great results. An easy cinematic color grading tutorial suitable for beginners!

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Cinematic color grading in DaVinci Resolve 18.

So, how to get it done in 3 steps:

STEP 1

First you need to bring your footage into the Rec.709 color space. You could do that manually but by far the easiest way is to use a color space transform. Create a new node and drop a Color Space Transform onto that node. Set the input color space and gamma to what you use on your camera. I usually shoot in S-Log 3 (Gamma) and SGamut3.Cine (Color Space). Your footage now has contrast and saturation. It’s ready for color grading.

If you want to make adjustments to exposure, shadows, highlights, white balance, … do that BEFORE the Color Space Transform. Add as many nodes as you want before the CST. This way, you won’t lose any color information.

STEP 2

Next we have to bring the footage into the Cineon Film Log gamma. Super easy. Add another node after the Color Space Transform and set the gamma to Cineon Film Log. Your footage will look flat and desaturated again.

DaVinci Resolve 18 Cinematic Color Grading

STEP 3

Now the magic. DaVinci Resolve 18 has built-in film look LUTs that actually look great and professional. Go to the LUTs panel and look for the Film Looks folder. Add another node and apply one of the Rec.709 film look LUTs. There are six different ones to choose from. 3 Kodak and 3 Fujifilm. Once the LUT is applied you can of course still make adjustments before the color space transform.

And that’s how you make cinematic color grading in DaVinci Resolve fast and easy with professional looking results. Hope you liked it. Thanks for watching/reading.