Module 6 · Colour Grading & Personal Style
Goal: go beyond correction into intentional colour grading — use 3-way colour wheels (shadows/midtones/highlights), split-toning, and HSL to build a consistent visual style you can apply across a series of photos.
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How to use NotebookLM here
Click "Copy YouTube links" and open NotebookLM. Add a description of your favourite photographer's colour style (e.g. muted shadows, warm highlights) and ask how to recreate it with the tools covered here.
Questions to ask NotebookLM:
- "How do I add a warm/orange tint to highlights while keeping shadows cool using split-toning?"
- "What's the difference between split-toning and using the 3-way colour wheels?"
- "How do photographers develop a consistent look across a series of different shots?"
- Scan QR code with your phone camera
- Click "Copy YouTube links"
- Open NotebookLM → create notebook → add sources
- Wait ~30 sec and start asking
Recommended videos
Key concepts
- Colour grading vs correction: correction = fix problems (white balance, exposure). Grading = intentional colour choices that create a mood. Both use the same tools — the difference is intent. Don't grade until correction is done.
- 3-way colour wheels (Colour Grading panel): three wheels — Shadows, Midtones, Highlights. Drag the dot away from centre to push that tonal range toward a hue. Distance from centre = intensity. Complementary tones in shadows and highlights = cinematic look (e.g. teal shadows + orange highlights).
- Split-toning: simpler version of colour wheels — add one hue to shadows, another to highlights. Classic street look: cool shadows (blue/teal), warm highlights (orange/gold). Classic film look: fade the blacks and add warmth to shadows.
- Faded blacks: lift the black point on the tone curve (raise the bottom-left anchor point of the curve). Adds a matte/film look. Used in Classic Chrome and many film presets. Prevents the image from feeling too heavy and contrasty.
- Building a consistent style: decide 3–5 things that will always be true of your edits (e.g. "muted greens, warm highlights, lifted blacks, slightly desaturated"). Edit 10 photos this way. Save as a preset. Apply the preset as starting point to every new photo, then adjust.
- Presets in Photomator: save any set of adjustments as a custom preset. Apply to single photos or batch. Export presets to keep as backup. A good preset handles 80% of the edit — the remaining 20% is per-photo adjustment.
Self-check exercises
1. Describe the colour grading steps to achieve a warm golden-hour street look on a Barcelona photo taken in flat midday light.
Step-by-step:
- Basic panel: warm the Temperature slightly (+200–400K), pull Highlights down, lift Shadows slightly
- Tone curve: slight S-curve for contrast. Lift the shadow point slightly for a faded black (matte feel)
- Colour grading wheels: Highlights wheel → push toward orange/amber (right and slightly up on the colour wheel). Shadows wheel → push very slightly toward teal/blue. Midtones → leave neutral or push toward warm
- HSL: Orange Saturation +15 (warm tones), Yellow Hue slightly toward orange, Blue Saturation −10 (keep sky from competing)
- Result: skin and stone look warm and golden, shadows have a subtle cool counterpoint, the image feels like late afternoon even if it wasn't
2. You edit 10 Barcelona street photos and they all look different in colour tone. How do you approach building consistency across a series?
Process:
- Pick the best single photo from the series — one with good exposure and varied tones. Edit it until it looks exactly how you want the series to look.
- Save those settings as a preset: "Barcelona Street 2025"
- Apply the preset to all 10 photos
- Per-photo adjustment: only correct things that differ shot-to-shot — exposure, white balance fine-tuning, highlights recovery. Do NOT re-do the colour grading on each photo individually.
- View all 10 photos in the grid view. They should feel like one series. Outliers (too dark, wrong WB) need individual attention.
- Consistency doesn't mean identical — it means the same tonal feel, shadow colour, and saturation level throughout.
3. What is "faded blacks" and when would you use it vs keeping pure black in your shadows?
Faded blacks: lifting the bottom-left anchor point of the tone curve above zero — so the darkest shadows in the image are not pure black (0,0,0) but a dark grey (e.g. output value 15–25).
When to use:
When to use:
- Street, documentary, film look — gives a matte, analogue feel. Classic Chrome film simulation does this automatically.
- When the image has lots of deep shadows and you want it to feel light and airy rather than heavy
- Portrait work where you want a soft, non-dramatic mood
- High-contrast dramatic images — architecture, b&w — where pure blacks add impact and structure
- When you want the image to feel grounded and weighty (dark shadows anchor the viewer)
- Black and white photography where rich blacks are part of the aesthetic