Color Correcting / Grading HELP Matching Shots.

I am working on a Marketing video and I'm pretty new to color grading, although I've watched a ton of tutorials so I have a general idea of whats going on. However, I can not get these two shots to match and I need some advice. Obviously the lighting changed between shots so I need to play with the brightness...but I cannot get the colors to match after doing that. Any help from you awesome professionals would be greatly appreciated!

I want this ending shot to match...
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4687/Metal_J.../Junk/YORKShot_2.png

this shot...if possible.
dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4687/Metal_J.../Junk/YORKShot_1.png

That should be pretty easy to get close. Definitely start with the exposure settings. Boost the highlights and shadows to get close. The shadows adjustment should be very slight. Then you can start working on the colors (primarily concentrating on any skin tone shift).

Color correcting is kind of like compositing in that you can get basic information that will get you close but it takes a lot of time and experience to get really good. The good news is that you don't have too far to go with these shots.

---> Jarrod

Agreed, it should be pretty easy. If you can send me one-second files of each clip I can do it and just tell you the exact settings that need to be used.

Not too hard, but it requires some finessing. The RGB parade will tell you everything you need to know. The first image (the "darker" one) actually should have its highlights brought down slightly, but its mid and mid-shadows need boosting. You really need a luma curve to do this properly, though. The Color Finale plugin will get you a great curves tool. The built-in color board exposure controls are way too rough for this. For example, it lets you boost the shadows, but it will boost the whole floor, which is not what you want. You need to boost the area right above the floor, but still preserve your black level. Finally, you will probably need to boost saturation (unless you gang the luma curve to the RGB curves, which means you mirror the boosting of those color levels with the luma).

Also, be aware that you will probably have to handle the window portion separately if you want a closer match (you can do this by masking it out and doing separate color corrections on it). In the first shot, the stuff outside the window is blown-out, and since your priority is matching the subject, those same settings will not make the windows match.

I did a quick example here:




Here is the curve for the subject:




And here is the curve for the window.




Personally, if it were a static shot, I would actually comp in the window from your target shot because your window in the dark shot is blown-out. You can sort of get it "close enough" like I did, and it would be ok.

Note that there are still some differences in the lighting on the subject which would take some more work to match.

Thanks guys for the help! With your assistance I was able to get what I needed. You guys ROCK! \m/