Color Adjustment

~10 min · color, eq, curves, grading

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Filters in your reach

eq — brightness / contrast / saturation / gamma. Quickest fix.
colorchannelmixer — per-channel matrix mixing. Fine control over each RGB channel.
curves — Photoshop-style tone curve, with presets like vintage, color_negative.
colorbalance — shadows / midtones / highlights cast adjustment.

Daily fixes

Phone footage too dark: eq=brightness=0.08:contrast=1.1:saturation=1.2. Drone footage too flat: eq=contrast=1.15:saturation=1.3. Black-and-white look: hue=s=0.

Real grading

For serious color grading you want LUTs (look-up tables). Use lut3d=file=warm.cube with .cube files exported from DaVinci Resolve, Premiere, or Photoshop.

Code

Quick color fixes·bash

# Slightly brighten + boost saturation (phone footage rescue)
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 \
  -vf "eq=brightness=0.08:contrast=1.1:saturation=1.2" \
  -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a copy out.mp4

# Black and white
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "hue=s=0" -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a copy bw.mp4

# Vintage curves preset
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "curves=preset=vintage" -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a copy vintage.mp4

# Warm cast in highlights, cool cast in shadows
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 \
  -vf "colorbalance=rs=0.1:bs=-0.1:rh=-0.1:bh=0.1" \
  -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a copy cinematic.mp4

Apply a 3D LUT·bash

# .cube file from your grading software
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "lut3d=file=looks/film_emulation.cube" \
  -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -preset slow -c:a copy graded.mp4

# Combine LUT with eq tweaks
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 \
  -vf "lut3d=file=warm.cube,eq=contrast=1.05:saturation=1.1" \
  -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -preset slow -c:a copy out.mp4

External links

Exercise

Take a phone video with mediocre exposure. Apply eq=brightness=0.08:contrast=1.1:saturation=1.15 and compare. Then download a free .cube LUT (rocketstock.com has freebies) and apply it. Did the LUT-graded version look more 'cinematic' or just different?