When a client says “I like how that video looks”, they are almost always talking about colour. And behind that there are two different jobs usually bundled into one word: colour correction, which fixes, and colour grading, which decides a style.
Correction: putting everything in its place
This is the technical stage. It means making the image neutral and consistent: adjusting white balance so whites are white, matching exposure between shots filmed at different times of day, fixing skin tones that went green under office lighting, and making sure levels stay within what broadcast and streaming platforms accept.
It is invisible work. Nobody will congratulate you on a good correction, but everybody notices when it is missing: the interview where the face shifts tone from one shot to the next is the classic example.
Grading: deciding how it feels
Once the image is neutral, the creative decision begins. Grading sets the emotional temperature of the piece: the cold blues of an industrial video, the warm golds of a tourism piece, the high-contrast saturation of a sports commercial, the muted documentary tone of a testimonial. It also does something very concrete in corporate communication: pulling the colours of the footage towards the brand identity, so the video feels part of the company’s graphic system.
Why “good” footage looks flat at first
When a shoot is planned for post-production, the camera records in a flat, desaturated profile (log) or in raw. That grey, contrast-free image is not a mistake: it holds far more information in the highlights and shadows, which is why it survives aggressive adjustment later. A LUT is then applied — a conversion table that returns contrast and serves as a starting point. A LUT is not a finished grade: it is step one, and confusing the two is what produces those videos with blown-out colours and orange skin.
What colour cannot fix
- An out-of-focus shot. No adjustment recovers sharpness that was never recorded.
- Blown highlights. If a window came out pure white, there is no information left to rescue.
- Mixed temperatures in the same shot. If one half of the face is orange and the other blue, correcting one makes the other worse.
- Not enough light. Raising exposure in the edit raises noise with it. Lighting properly is always cheaper than fixing later.
How to ask for it in a quote
Three things are worth more than any adjective: bring concrete visual references instead of describing the look in words, ask whether the shoot will be recorded in a log or flat profile that supports grading, and confirm that colour review will happen on a calibrated monitor rather than on somebody’s phone. It is also worth agreeing how many rounds of colour adjustment are included: this is the stage where everyone has an opinion and notes tend to multiply.
Want a video that looks the level of your brand?
We produce corporate and institutional video with post-production and colour included, for companies across Peru.