what if I told you that there is a concept in color grading which allows you to color grade pretty much everything and that regardless of the software you're using yeah you heard that right the same principle applies for the Vinci Resolve Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro and everything else you might be using in this video I will show you exactly what this concept is and how it works in the application you're using before we get going and I can't stress this enough this is one of the or if not the most important concepts in color grading and if you watch this video from beginning to end I can save you months of trial and error i can promise you this because I see it all the time with my students almost all of them make mistakes related to this concept in one way or another let's start very simple what is 1 + 2 it is three right so let's put that down it's three okay and what is 2 + 1 so if we exchange those it's still three right if you want to impress your friends in mathematics this is called the commutative law it states that a + b is the same as b + a without knowing the name of this law or being aware of this law in the first place I noticed that many people think about the stuff they do with this law in mind let's make an example for instance you need to do the dishes and you need to take the trash out the result you want is a clean kitchen some might say it doesn't matter whether we take the trash out first and do the dishes last but let's be a little bit more strict here if we take the trash out first and do our dishes after that what do we do with our leftovers that we don't want to keep so we could say that this doesn't mean we have a clean kitchen as many of you are probably living with a partner you know here is room for debate for our example let's just say doing the dishes first and taking the trash out afterwards makes more sense if we want a truly clean kitchen because we don't want any leftovers hanging around therefore we need to do the dishes first and take the trash out after that in color grading it's the same thing some adjustments are interchangeable but the vast majority of adjustments is not interchangeable this is why the concept of order of operations is the backbone of every good color grading workflow because as we just learned doing the dishes first and taking the trash out in that order is the only way we can achieve a clean kitchen again the order is not interchangeable so we just learned that the order matters if we want to know in which order we need to put our adjustments we first need to know in which direction the video signal flows and this is true for every application whether it's Premiere Pro Final Cut Pro or D Vinci Resolve heck even in Photoshop or Affinity or imagine you want to apply one adjustment first and the other adjustment last to be sure that they are in the right order you need to know the direction the signal flows without knowing that you just can't know which one gets processed first it is really important you understand this because if the signal flows like this then this order is correct adjustment one on the left side and adjustment two on the right side because as you can see our signal flows from left to right this means the left side gets processed first and the right side gets processed last but in some applications the adjustments are stacked like this if the signal flows in this direction then everything would be all right but if the signal flows in the other direction we need to change the order as well i know this might sound super scary and complicated but trust me it's not it's super easy and you can test it yourself to show you that this truly matters everywhere let's start in Infinity Photo for the test you only need two adjustments for one we need an HSL adjustment and a curves adjustment i disabled both of them for now inside the HSL adjustment I want to reduce the saturation so our image gets black and white and remember we don't see anything because I just disabled these adjustments inside the curves adjustment layer I want to go in here and go to something like my blue curve and introduce a very strong blue color cast something like this which tools you use really doesn't matter what really matters is that we have one adjustment that turns the image black and white and another adjustment that applies a strong color cast let's enable both of these adjustments starting with the HSL adjustment that turns our image black and white next I'll enable the curves adjustment and you can see the result is a black and white image with a blue color cast this means the HSL adjustment gets processed first and the color curves adjustments get processed last since these adjustments are stacked like this we can conclude that the signal in Affinity Photo flows bottom up with the input at the bottom and the output at the top we can conclude this because we first have a black and white image and then a color cast let's get rid of my drawings what will happen if I switch the order around let's do this i drag the HSL adjustment and put it on top of the curves adjustment now you can see the resulting image is a black and white image and this makes total sense because again the signal flows bottom up this time the color curves adjustment gets processed first and the HSL adjustment gets processed last therefore we have a black and white image as a result but does that mean the curves adjustment does nothing i mean we still applied it to the image so let's toggle it on and off this is without the curves adjustment and this is with the curves adjustment you can clearly see the luminance changing again before and after but the only thing that matters for this test is whether or not we arrive at a black and white image and since we arrive at a black and white image we can conclude that the signal flows from the bottom to the top because the HSL adjustment gets processed last because we get a black and white image this applies to all video editing applications as well but all of them have slightly different ways to apply adjustments let's have a look at the major three final Cut Pro Dinci Resolve and Premiere Pro in Final Cut Pro I apply an instance of color wheels go in here and I kill all of the saturation which gives me a black and white image i go back out and call this deset next I pull up another instance of color wheels go in here and apply a very strong color cast so something like this i go out and call this color cast i disable this for now as well if I now enable both adjustments so the desaturation adjustment and the color cast you can see that the result is a black and white image with a strong color cast if we switch the order around so I will take my color cast and drag it on top of the desaturation adjustment you can see the final result is a black and white image this means adjustments at the top of the inspector get processed first and adjustments at the bottom of the inspector get processed last therefore we can conclude that the signal flows from top to bottom with the input at the top and the output at the bottom next let's get rid of my drawings and both of these adjustments you can also add adjustment layers or so-called adjustment clips so I go to edit and select add adjustment clip i will now duplicate this adjustment clip and call one desaturation so desert and the other one is the color cast okay with the names in place let's apply these adjustments so I select the desaturation adjustment layer go into my color inspector and pull the overall saturation next I go into my color cast adjustment layer into the color wheels and apply a strong color cast but as you can see nothing happens what happens if I disable the desaturation layer as you can see the strong color cast is here this means the desaturation layer gets processed last and if we switch the order around you can see the result is a black and white image with a strong color cast therefore we can conclude that in the timeline the signal flows bottom up with the input at the bottom and the output at the top this means lower adjustment layers get processed first and the topmost adjustment layers get processed last in the Vinci Resolve this is a little bit more intuitive thanks to its node structure for this example please ignore these nodes at the end because I still need to go from slog to rec 709 but you can safely ignore these nodes i now create two additional nodes so here's one node and here is another node with the first node selected I desaturate my entire image something like this with the second node selected I now apply a strong color cast and as you can see the result is a colored black and white image since we already know how this test works we don't need to switch the order around we have a colored black and white image and therefore the signal flows from left to right with the input on the left side and the output on the right side by the way the same is true for every individual node this is the input and this is the output in the Vinci Resolve there are no adjustment layers for color grading but there is something even better the timeline level node tree let's have a look before we go there let's delete our color cast node now to get to the timeline level node tree you can click this right dot up here this brings you to the timeline level node tree but you probably saw that the interface changed over here so with this drop-own menu you can also select either the clip or the timeline basically the timeline level node tree will affect all of the clips in your timeline now let's add a node i need to connect it to the input and I need to connect it to the output now with this node selected I apply a strong color cast and as you can see we have a black and white image with a strong color cast this means in the Venture Resolve the signal not only goes from left to right but it also goes from the clip level to the timeline level with the clip level being processed first and the timeline level being processed last last but not least let's talk about Premiere Pro with the clip in my timeline selected I apply an instance of lummetry i go into my basic corrections and kill all of the saturation so we have a black and white image next I go to this drop-own menu up here and select add lummetry color effect with the second instance of lummetry column I go into the color wheels and I will just apply a strong color cast something like this the resulting image is a black and white image with a strong color cast but in order to figure out the signal flow we need to have a look at the effects pane i go into my effects pane and have a look so let's disable both lummetric color effects the first one is the one that desaturated the image so I will rename this and call this desert the second instance of lummetry is the one that applies the color cast so let's rename this as well the resulting image we see is a black and white image with a strong color cast therefore we can say that the signal in the effects pane flows from top to bottom just as it did in Final Cut Pro the desaturation adjustment gets processed first and the color cast gets processed last we can double check this if I grab this instance of lummetric color and move it before the other instance of lummetric color and as you can see we now have a black and white image because now the color cast gets processed first and the desaturation gets processed last therefore we concluded that the signal indeed flows from top to bottom just as it did in Final Cut Pro adjustment layers in Premiere Pro behave exactly as they did in Final Cut Pro if you want to see the test please skip back to the section for Final Cut Pro but if you don't want to see the test again and you take my word for it let's imagine here's an adjustment layer and here is an adjustment layer the signal in the timeline flows bottom up this means adjustment layers at the bottom get processed first and adjustment layers at the top get processed last now that we got the basics down we need to talk about the most important implication of this concept if you're working with raw or log footage when do you transform your footage to rec 709 super important question because if you get that wrong you will throw all of your precious dynamic range out of the window you have probably been in this kind of situation you have your video which looks just fine as long as it's in its log state but then you apply your L to Rex 79 or your color space transformation to Rex 79 both of them just transform your footage from log to Rex 709 but what's that the entire video is blown out your next instinct might be to apply an instance of color wheels you grab your offset and try to lower the exposure and you do all kinds of funky stuff but the footage just doesn't work out this is the reason why so many people think LUTs are trash and then they avoid LUTs altogether but the devil is in the details let's imagine that my video signal on my desk flows from left to right this means the LUTs or the color space transformation gets processed first and only after that my color wheels adjustments are processed let's reset our color wheels adjustment now we need to change the all around so I will grab my L or my color space transformation and move this behind my color wheels adjustment everything still looks the same but look what happens if I turn the offset knob now isn't that something all of my precious dynamic range comes back this is a key insight but why does this happen in the first place the job of a color space transformation L or the color space transformation in D vinci resolve is to go from your recording color space to your display color space for example you want to go from your log footage to Rex 709 one important thing to note here is that your log footage is this big and Rex 709 is only this big this happens because your log or raw footage captures much more information than we can put in Rex 709 so the LUT's job is to map a specific input to a specific output however there are two things we need to know about LUTs and color space transformations thing number one is in order to achieve a specific output which is Rex 709 they require a specific input this means your log footage must be exposed in a certain way you have probably heard terms like middle gray or 18% gray somewhere this is a tool to judge exposure i don't want to go into detail on this because the only thing you need to know is that the lot expects a certain level of exposure from your footage and turns that properly into Rex 709 to make this a little bit more simple in order for the color space transformation lot or the color space transformation in Dinci Resolve to work your footage needs to have a certain level of exposure this means middle gray during a recording needs to have a certain level and then the LS or the color space transformation does all of its funky math and at the end you will have a properly exposed Rex 709 image however if your footage is overexposed then you won't get a proper Rex 709 image the second thing we need to know about LUTs and color space transformations is that they cut off any information that goes outside of their range so for example you have a little bit of wiggle room with your exposure so you can expose a little bit too high or a little bit too low and it will still get translated properly but once you go outside of these bounds everything will be cut off here and here this means the lot basically cuts off any information that it can't process are you ready for the full circle moment we are almost there let's say my footage is overexposed as it just was in the example before if you now apply your color wheels to your rec 79 image and try to push that around there is nothing to be gained because the information was already lost however if we move our color wheels adjustment before the L we are able to change the footage before the L this means we can give the L or your color space transformation the correct input so if I lower the offset for example I can make the footage fall into the correct input bounds and once we have our exposure in check everything works out and we get a proper RECX 709 image as you can see lots are not bad there are just too many people out there who don't know the importance of a proper order of operations now it's time to apply what we learned to our video editing applications starting with Final Cut Pro I go into my effects and apply a custom L effect now I go into the inspector and choose the correct L for this scene this shot was shot on an FX3 using SLOG 3 gamut 3.cini so I go into slo 3 slog 3 s gamut 3.cini and as you can see the entire image is blown out if I now apply an instance of color wheels and I try my best to recover that you can see it doesn't work out there won't come anything back let's reset this if I go back to the video inspector we need to remember that the signal flows from top to bottom this means in order to affect the video before the L we need to drag our color wheels adjustment above the lot and this means the color wheels adjustment gets processed first and the L gets processed last now if I go into my color wheels and just lower the offset you can see how everything works out nicely even the blue sky is coming back here let's get rid of both of these adjustments and have a look at the adjustment layers so I go into edit and add an adjustment clip i drag this on top of my clip like so and now I will duplicate this again now I will apply the L to the bottommost adjustment layer and the color wheels adjustments to the topmost adjustment layer something like this and now I also need to choose the correct L so I go into my cam directs Sony SLO 3 and go to SLO 3M3.in X79 as you can see the image is still the same is still as blown out as before and if I go to my other adjustment layer to pull that back you can see nothing works again because remember in the timeline the signal flows from bottom to top this means we actually need to switch the order around if I now go into the adjustment layer that carries my color adjustments and I will pull down the offset you can see how everything comes back nicely in Premiere Pro the same thing applies if I go into the metric color into the basic section and apply a lot here i will browse this and choose the correct lot for this scene you can see that everything is gone and if I try to lower my exposure nothing will come back remember in Final Cut Pro we were able to see the blue sky but again this is a matter of order of operations so let's reset the exposure adjustment and go into my effects pane i will select this instance of lummetric color and rename it let's call it L now I go into this drop-own menu and add another lummetry color effect as you can see Premiere Pro added it automatically to the bottom here but the same thing happens if I try to adjust my exposure nothing will come back so let's reset this and take this instance of Lummetry and put it before the L because remember in Premiere Pro the video signal flows from top to bottom as well just as it did in Final Cut Pro with the correct instance of Lummetry selected so make sure you select the correct instance of Lummetry in this drop-own menu if I now lower the exposure you can see the blue sky is coming back in general I would recommend working with two instances of Lummetry one for the L that goes at the bottom and one for your adjustments that goes at the top because again we want Premiere to process our adjustments first and only then it should process the L alternatively let's get rid of both of these adjustments you can also use an adjustment layer and stretch it over your footage then select the adjustment layer go into lummetry and select the correct lot with the correct L selected you can now go into your clip and just grade as you would because remember the signal in the timeline flows bottom up this means the lummetry color adjustment from the clip gets processed first and only then the lummetry adjustment on the adjustment layer gets processed and this is the correct order of operations we want to have inside Dinci Resolve let's use a color space transformation i apply the color space transformation to this node and select the correct inputs and outputs so this is Sony Sgamut 3.cine and SLO 3 and we want to go to Rex 709 with a gamma of gamma 2.4 let's change the node label and call it CST i add another node and this time we want to adjust the exposure but if I go to my offset you can see we are out of luck again nothing will come back this is because we have the wrong order of operations i break up the connections and switch the order around so let's put the color space transformation over here and our exposure adjustment over here i will connect that and our exposure adjustment with the color space transformation and then from the color space transformation to the output now we have the correct order of operations because remember in the Vinci Resolve the signal flows from left to right this means if I now go to my exposure node and lower the offset again you can see how everything works out nicely there is one very important thing to note here so let's reset all the grades and notes there is a workflow out there which lets you apply a color space transformation at the start where you go from your recording color space so in this case Sony s gamut 3.in Cine slo 3 to Dainci white gamut and Da Vinci intermediate and then you add another node with another color space transformation so I will just copy and paste this now I want to swap that around because I now want to go from Da Vinci white gamut Da Vinci intermediate to Rex 709 with a gamma of 2.4 and this workflow wants you to do all your adjustments in between so let's see what happens if I select this node in between and lower the exposure you can see everything works out wonderfully as well this is completely fine and nothing will be lost because your log footage might be this big and your X79 target might be this big but what happens in between is that you go from a large color space to an even larger color space which is Da Vinci white gamma Da Vinci intermediate and then with your output color space transformation you then go to Rex 709 this means it doesn't matter whether your footage is overexposed or not because the color space transformation into Da Vinci wide gamut Da Vinci intermediate will accept a much much bigger input and again you're going from a large color space to an even larger color space to do all your adjustments so nothing will be clipped and nothing will be lost this workflow is one of the only exceptions where you want to put a color space transformation at the beginning if you find the workflow with color space transformations too cumbersome you can also change the color management in your project settings but I don't want to go into detail here because you will find plenty of resources out there already just know that this is also an option one important thing you need to know is that the order of operations does not mean that this is the order in which you work this means you have your video file or your input and let's say on my desk the signal flows from left to right again the next step with your log footage would be to apply a lot to achieve a proper REC 709 output because at the end of the day you want to get an image that you can judge once all of that is in place you can start making your adjustments but the order of operations tells you to slide your exposure adjustment before the L what I want to say is that even though the L or the color space transformation should be the last thing in your signal chain in your workflow you still want to apply this first because you want an image that you can judge and nobody can judge a log image so get your color management straight before you do all of your adjustments but just know that you should put all of your adjustments before the L or the color space transformation and this is the point in the video where you can be proud of yourself you have learned one of the if not the most important concepts of color grading once you truly understand and apply this it will save you months of trial and error but if you want to level up even faster there's a way to shortcut this process and no this is not a pitch to some online course this is one-on-one just you and me working through your footage your specific goals and your workflow i will meet you exactly where you currently are and together we will get you creating outstanding images in no time click the link in the video description to learn more and since you're still around here's a little bonus i'd like to give you my blueprint for a proper order of operations i should note that this is just a framework and generally speaking yes exceptions apply but this is usually how I set up my signal chain if needed noise reduction goes first in the signal chain because noise reduction needs the clean signal therefore having it at the beginning of the signal chain makes the most sense a close second to this is exposure and contrast this is also where I shape the light in my scene after that I put my balance adjustment this is something like white balance or setting the overall mood of the scene directly after my balance adjustment I put my secondary adjustments such as skin tones the next thing in my signal chain is some kind of look and last but not least my color space transformation to Rex 79 or whatever my deliverable will be i should also note that these steps happen almost exclusively at the clip level whereas the other two adjustments happen almost exclusively at the timeline level i do these either on the timeline level node tree in Dinci Resolve or when grading in Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro this would be your adjustment layer which goes on top of your entire timeline i said it before but I want to say it again the order of operations is not the way I'm working this is just where these corrections are one after another the order in which I work actually depends on a few other factors and frankly this would be too much for this video because this is already like an hour long but if you're interested in building a solid workflow you should watch this video