# Colour grading basics: the order that makes it easy > Five steps, done in one order, and most of a grade is finished. What to fix first, what to leave alone, and why scopes beat your eyes on three of the five. Canonical: https://batchtone.com/blog/color-grading-basics 21 September 2026 · 4 min read Work in this order: convert out of log if you shot log, set exposure, set white balance, match every clip to one reference, then apply the look. Four of those five are technical and have a correct answer you can verify on a scope. Only the last is taste, and it is far quicker than people expect once the first four are done properly. Grading looks like a skill and is mostly a sequence. Done in the right order, four of the five steps have correct answers, and the creative part shrinks to a decision that takes minutes. Done in the wrong order, all five feel like taste, none of them settles, and you spend an evening moving sliders back and forth. ## The five steps | Step | Technical or taste | Judged by | |---|---|---| | 1. Out of log | Technical | The camera profile | | 2. Exposure | Technical | Waveform | | 3. White balance | Technical | Vectorscope, neutral objects | | 4. Match clips | Technical | A reference clip | | 5. The look | Taste | Your eyes | Everything above the line is [correction](https://batchtone.com/blog/color-grading-vs-color-correction); the last row is grading. Mixing them is the usual cause of an evening lost. ### 1. Out of log If you shot log (S-Log3, D-Log, C-Log, V-Log), the footage is deliberately flat and low contrast to preserve range. It is not a look and it is not broken; it is a container. Converting out of it is a fixed transform for your camera, not a judgement. [S-Log3 to Rec.709](https://batchtone.com/blog/sony-slog3-to-rec709) and [D-Log to Rec.709](https://batchtone.com/blog/dlog-to-rec709) are the two most common; the principle is the same for all of them. Do this before anything else, because every later decision is made through it. If you shot standard profile, skip this step entirely. ### 2. Exposure Set midtones where they belong and stop. Use the waveform, not your monitor: your eyes adapt within seconds and your monitor is probably not calibrated. Rough targets: skin around 60–70 on the waveform, highlights short of clipping, blacks touching the bottom without crushing. These are starting points, not rules. ### 3. White balance Neutral should read neutral. Find something in the frame that is genuinely grey or white and make it so. This is the step that matters most across a shoot, because white balance drifts between the morning and the afternoon, between indoors and out, and between two cameras that disagree about what daylight is. ### 4. Match everything to one clip Pick the clip that is closest to right and make the others agree with it. Not with your memory. With it, on screen, side by side. This is the step people skip and the reason a look lands differently on every shot. A grade cannot hide a mismatch; it magnifies one. ### 5. Then the look Now, and only now, apply the creative decision. Usually one LUT and a small adjustment. [What is a LUT](https://batchtone.com/blog/what-is-a-lut) is the mechanism and [free LUTs](https://batchtone.com/blog/free-luts) is where usable ones come from. If step five is taking a long time, the problem is almost always that steps two to four were not finished. ## What to leave alone - **Saturation**, mostly. Raise contrast first and most footage stops looking flat without touching it. - **Individual colour channels**, until the basics are done. - **Sharpening.** Not grading, and it does not fix soft footage. - **Per-clip creative decisions.** One look across the piece is what makes it read as a piece. ## Where the time actually goes Not in step five. In steps three and four, repeated across every clip on the timeline. That is mechanical work with a correct answer, done by hand, forty times. That is the part worth automating, and the part [colour grading software](https://batchtone.com/blog/color-grading-software) differs most in. ## How BatchTone handles it Step one, across a folder, from the conversion LUT rather than by eye. Drop the card in, pick the conversion, and every clip takes it identically, with a frame pulled from each so you can see the whole shoot agreeing before anything creative happens. - Per-clip strength for the shots that need less. - One `.cube` per batch, the same for every file by default. - Audio copied across untouched. - Originals never written to. The judgement in step five stays yours; the conversion before it is the one that is the same every time. There is a [seven-day trial](https://batchtone.com/download). ## Common questions **What order should I colour grade in?** Out of log, exposure, white balance, match clips, then the look. The first four have correct answers; only the last is taste. **Do I need scopes to grade?** For exposure, white balance and matching, yes. Eyes adapt and monitors lie. For the creative decision, no. **How long should grading take?** Minutes per clip for correction and one decision for the whole piece. If the look is taking hours, correction was not finished. **Should I grade every clip differently?** No. Correct each clip individually, then apply one look to all of them. Varying the look per clip is what makes a sequence feel disjointed. **Is colour grading necessary if I shot in a standard profile?** Less of it. You can skip the log conversion, and exposure, white balance and matching still apply. **About this article.** Written by the team that builds BatchTone, a macOS app that applies .cube LUTs to whole folders of photos and video. Spotted something wrong or out of date? Write to [support@batchtone.com](mailto:support@batchtone.com). ## Read next Explainers 20 September 2026 · 4 min read ## [Colour correction vs colour grading: the actual difference](https://batchtone.com/blog/color-grading-vs-color-correction) Correction is technical and objective: neutral white balance, correct exposure, legal levels, and every clip matching every other clip. Grading is creative and subjective: the look. Correction comes first, always, because a look applied to inconsistent footage amplifies the inconsistency instead of hiding it. [Read it](https://batchtone.com/blog/color-grading-vs-color-correction) Explainers 19 September 2026 · 4 min read ## [What is a LUT? The whole idea in five minutes](https://batchtone.com/blog/what-is-a-lut) LUT stands for lookup table. In video and photo editing, a LUT is a file that says, for a grid of input colours, what each one should come out as. Applying a LUT means looking up every pixel in that grid and interpolating between the nearest entries. [Read it](https://batchtone.com/blog/what-is-a-lut) Comparisons 19 September 2026 · 7 min read ## [Color grading software: the best apps by job, compared](https://batchtone.com/blog/color-grading-software) The best color grading software depends on the job. To grade an edit, use DaVinci Resolve (free) or the colour tools in Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro. To develop raw stills, use Lightroom or Capture One. For film looks, use a plugin such as Dehancer or FilmConvert. To put one LUT on a whole folder of photos and clips on a Mac, use a batch tool such as BatchTone. [Read it](https://batchtone.com/blog/color-grading-software) ## One look. A whole shoot. BatchTone applies your .cube LUTs across photos and video at once, with a strength dial on every file. Seven-day trial, everything unlocked. [Download for macOS](https://apps.apple.com/app/batchtone/id6821727167)