---
title: "Color Grading Mistakes & How to Fix Them | colorgrade.video"
description: "Ten common color grading mistakes, from crushed blacks and neon skin to LUTs on log footage: what each looks like, how to spot it on the scopes and the fix."
url: https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/mistakes
---

1. [Home](https://colorgrade.video/)
2. [Color grading tutorial](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial)
3. Common mistakes

Chapter 13 of 13 · Basics · 8 min read

# Color Grading Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Most grades that look amateur fail in the same handful of ways. The good news is that almost every one of them shows up on a scope before it shows up in a viewer’s reaction, so once you know what to look for you can catch them yourself. This chapter lists ten common colour grading mistakes. For each one you get what it looks like, how to spot it on the scopes and the fix in the studio.

You don’t need to have read the rest of the tutorial to use it, but each fix links to the chapter that covers it properly. If the scopes are new to you, start with [video scopes](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/video-scopes): every check below uses them. The cheat sheet at the end puts the whole list in one table.

Video guide

## Color Grading Mistakes and Fixes: Saturation, Clips, Skin

Duration:  0:44 

Your browser can't play this video. [Download the MP4](https://colorgrade.video/media/videos/color-grading-mistakes-and-fixes/video.mp4) or read the[full transcript](https://colorgrade.video/videos/color-grading-mistakes-and-fixes).

Chapters

1. [ Play from  0:00 Over-saturation ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/color-grading-mistakes-and-fixes#t=0)
2. [ Play from  0:13 Crushed blacks ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/color-grading-mistakes-and-fixes#t=13)
3. [ Play from  0:25 Skin tones ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/color-grading-mistakes-and-fixes#t=25)
4. [ Play from  0:42 Try it yourself ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/color-grading-mistakes-and-fixes#t=42)

English captions [Watch page and full transcript ](https://colorgrade.video/videos/color-grading-mistakes-and-fixes) 

## Key takeaways

* Correct before you create, and check with the scopes rather than your screen alone.
* Flat lines at 0% or 100% on the **Waveform** mean lost detail; **View** \> **Clipping** shows where.
* Skin belongs near the skin tone line on the **Vectorscope**, whatever the look.
* Convert log footage once: with **Footage** or a LUT set to **Before the grade**, never both.
* Check the exported file on the screens your audience will use.

## In this chapter

1. [ 1. Mistakes before you start ](#before-you-grade)
2. [ 2. Tonal mistakes ](#tonal-mistakes)
3. [ 3. Colour mistakes ](#colour-mistakes)
4. [ 4. Technical mistakes ](#technical-mistakes)
5. [ 5. Consistency and texture mistakes ](#consistency-and-texture)
6. [ 6. Colour grading mistakes cheat sheet ](#cheat-sheet)
7. [ 7. Try it: make the mistakes on purpose, then fix them ](#try-it)

## Mistakes before you start

### 1\. Grading before correcting

* **What it looks like:** a look that behaves differently on every shot, skin that is strangely green or magenta under an otherwise attractive grade, and a colour cast that survives every look you try.
* **On the scopes:** in neutral areas such as a grey wall or a white shirt, the **Parade** traces sit at different heights, and the centre of the **Vectorscope** trace leans away from the middle.
* **The fix:** switch the **Look** row off in **Layers**, balance the **Correction** layer first with **Auto colour**, **Pick white**, **Temperature** and **Tint**, then switch the look back on. The [workflow chapter](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/workflow) explains why the order matters.

### 2\. Judging by eye on an uncalibrated screen

* **What it looks like:** a grade that looked right last night looks heavy in the morning, or right on your laptop and wrong on everyone else’s. Screens differ, rooms change, and your eyes adapt to whatever they see for long enough.
* **On the scopes:** the scopes are the fix: they measure the picture’s values, so they read the same on any screen and at any time of day.
* **The fix:** switch to **Pro** so the scopes are always visible, turn off auto-brightness and warm night-time modes while you grade, keep the room light steady, and take short breaks so your eyes reset. Use **Bypass** (Shift+D) often to remind yourself of the original.

A two-second scope habit

Before you accept any change, glance at three things: the bottom and top of the **Waveform**, and the skin lobe on the **Vectorscope**. Those three catch most of the mistakes on this page.

## Tonal mistakes

### 3\. Crushing the blacks or clipping the whites

* **What it looks like:** shadows that turn into flat black shapes with no texture, skies and windows that become flat white patches, and hard edges where detail ends. Pushing contrast for drama is the usual cause.
* **On the scopes:** the **Waveform** trace flattens into a hard line at 0% or 100% and the **Histogram** piles up against one edge. Set **View** to **Clipping** for red stripes where a channel is at 100% and blue where everything is at 0, or **False colour** for purple crushed blacks and red clipped areas.
* **The fix:** ease back **Contrast**, raise **Blacks** or lower **Whites** until the line just lifts off the edge, and use **Highlights** and **Shadows** to recover detail without flattening the whole image. For log footage, keep the **Footage** panel’s **Highlights** on **Soft roll-off**. See [contrast and tonal range](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range).

Deep blacks are not a mistake in themselves. A night scene or a moody interior can have plenty of true black; what matters is that you chose it and that nothing important, a face, an eye, the texture of a jacket, disappears into it.

[ ![The chart test scene with heavy contrast applied and View set to Clipping: blue stripes mark the shadow areas crushed to 0 and red stripes mark the sky where a channel reaches 100%.](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/mistakes/mk-clipping-view.webp)  (enlarge image) ](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/mistakes/mk-clipping-view.webp) 

**View** on **Clipping** shows exactly where detail has been crushed or clipped.

## Colour mistakes

### 4\. Over-saturation and neon skin

* **What it looks like:** colours that glow rather than sit in the scene, red and orange areas that lose their texture and bleed, and faces that look sunburnt or orange.
* **On the scopes:** on the **Vectorscope**, the trace stretches out towards or past the 75% colour-bar targets, and the skin lobe reaches far along the skin tone line. For natural footage, a trace beyond the targets is a warning sign, not a hard rule.
* **The fix:** use **Vibrance** instead of **Saturation**, since it protects colours that are already strong. **Colour boost** below zero in **Wheels** calms the most saturated colours, and **Hue vs Sat** in **Curves** turns down one colour. See [video saturation](https://colorgrade.video/video-saturation).

[ ![The chart test scene with Saturation pushed to +60, beside a Vectorscope whose trace stretches past the 75% colour-bar targets towards red, yellow and blue.](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/mistakes/mk-oversaturated.webp)  (enlarge image) ](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/mistakes/mk-oversaturated.webp) 

Too much **Saturation**: the **Vectorscope** trace runs past the 75% targets.

### 5\. Orange-and-teal on everything

* **What it looks like:** every video gets the same blockbuster palette whatever its story: grass turns teal, skin turns orange, and a quiet family video looks like a trailer.
* **On the scopes:** the **Vectorscope** splits into two lobes pointing in opposite directions, towards orange and towards cyan, with little in between, and greens are pulled away from their natural angle.
* **The fix:** choose a look for the scene, not by habit. If teal and orange is right, lower **Intensity** and raise **Protect skin tones** so faces stay natural. The [teal and orange page](https://colorgrade.video/teal-and-orange) shows it done with restraint, and [creative looks](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/creative-looks) covers the alternatives.

### 6\. Ignoring skin tones

* **What it looks like:** a grade that is beautiful on the background and makes people look ill: a little green, grey or magenta in the face. Viewers forgive almost any colour on a wall, but not on a face.
* **On the scopes:** the skin lobe on the **Vectorscope** points away from the skin tone line, towards green on one side or magenta on the other. Skin of every complexion sits near the same line; darker and lighter skin differ mainly in lightness and saturation, not hue.
* **The fix:** correct with **Tint** or the **Gamma** wheel if the whole shot is off. If only the look moves skin, raise **Protect skin tones**, or add a secondary layer with the **Skin** qualifier and fix it there. See [skin tones](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/skin-tones).

[ ![A daylight portrait with a strong teal and orange look at full intensity, and the Vectorscope showing the skin lobe stretched far along and slightly off the skin tone line.](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/mistakes/mk-skin-line.webp)  (enlarge image) ](https://colorgrade.video/guides/color-grading-tutorial/mistakes/mk-skin-line.webp) 

A strong look at full **Intensity** pulls skin along and off the skin tone line.

## Technical mistakes

### 7\. A LUT on log without a conversion, or a conversion twice

* **What it looks like:** a creative LUT on unconverted log footage gives a pale, flat picture with odd hues. Converting twice, with **Footage** set to the camera’s profile and the maker’s conversion LUT as well, gives harsh contrast, heavy saturation and clipped ends.
* **On the scopes:** unconverted log huddles in the middle of the **Waveform** with nothing near 0% or 100%; a double conversion slams the trace into both edges.
* **The fix:** convert once: either set **Footage** to the camera profile, or import the maker’s LUT with **Apply LUT** on **Before the grade** and leave **Footage** on **Standard video (Rec.709)**. Creative LUTs go **After the grade**. If the camera already burned a LUT into the file, it is no longer log. See [log footage and LUTs](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/log-footage-and-luts).

### 8\. Forgetting the delivery gamma

* **What it looks like:** the grade looks right in the studio but lighter and flatter on one screen, heavier on another, or different in one particular player.
* **On the scopes:** nothing: the scopes measure the values in the file, not how a screen shows them, which is exactly why this one catches people out.
* **The fix:** decide who will watch and on what. For log footage, leave **Output** in the **Footage** panel on **Rec.709** unless your project needs another curve, export, and check the exported file on a phone and a second screen. Don’t bend the grade to suit one player. See [delivery](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/delivery).

## Consistency and texture mistakes

### 9\. Mismatched shots

* **What it looks like:** each shot looks fine alone, but the scene jumps at every cut: a face warms and cools, the room changes contrast between the wide and the close-up.
* **On the scopes:** compare the shots: the bottoms and tops of the **Parade** traces sit at different heights on the same neutral object, or the skin lobe points to a different angle on the **Vectorscope**.
* **The fix:** pick a hero shot, use **Grab still** and **Show as reference** in **Match**, run **Match colours** for a first pass, then trim by hand. Share the look with **Copy grade** and **Paste grade**. See [shot matching](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/shot-matching).

### 10\. Too much grain or vignette

* **What it looks like:** grain that becomes the subject and turns into blotchy noise after upload; a vignette that reads as a dark ring, most obviously when the camera pans and the shading stays put while the scene moves.
* **On the scopes:** heavy grain thickens the **Waveform** trace into a fuzzy band; a strong vignette makes both ends of the trace droop at the left and right edges of the frame.
* **The fix:** lower **Grain** until you notice it only when you look for it, and export at **High** **Quality**. For the vignette, keep **Amount** small and raise **Feather** so the edge disappears. Toggle it with **Bypass** to check that it helps. The [film look page](https://colorgrade.video/film-look) covers grain in more depth.

## Colour grading mistakes cheat sheet

__Ten mistakes at a glance__
| Mistake                        | Scope sign                                   | Fix in the studio                           |
| ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- |
| Grading before correcting      | Neutrals uneven on the **Parade**            | Balance **Correction** first                |
| Uncalibrated screen, no scopes | None: use the scopes                         | **Pro** mode, steady light                  |
| Crushed or clipped             | Flat line at 0 or 100%                       | **Contrast**, **Blacks**, **Whites**        |
| Neon skin, over-saturation     | Trace past the 75% targets                   | **Vibrance**, **Colour boost**              |
| Teal and orange everywhere     | Two opposite lobes                           | Lower **Intensity**, **Protect skin tones** |
| Ignoring skin                  | Skin off the skin tone line                  | **Tint**, **Skin** qualifier                |
| LUT and log                    | Trace in the middle, or slammed to the edges | Convert once                                |
| Delivery gamma                 | None: check the export                       | **Output** on **Rec.709**, test screens     |
| Mismatched shots               | Different trace heights                      | **Match**, then trims                       |
| Too much grain or vignette     | Fuzzy trace, drooping ends                   | Less **Grain**, more **Feather**            |

Run down the table before every export. It takes a minute, and it catches problems while they are still easy to fix. The [tutorial overview](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial) puts each fix in the order it belongs.

## Try it: make the mistakes on purpose, then fix them

Push a test clip into three classic mistakes while watching the scopes, so you recognise the signs on your own footage, then fix each one.

1. 1  
### Open a test clip with the scopes
Open a clip with faces and neutral areas, switch to **Pro**, and show the **Waveform** and **Vectorscope**.
2. 2  
### Over-saturate it
In **Adjust**, push **Saturation** high and watch the **Vectorscope** trace pass the 75% targets. Reset it, then try **Vibrance** instead.
3. 3  
### Crush the blacks
Raise **Contrast** and lower **Blacks** until the **Waveform** flattens at 0%. Set **View** to **Clipping** to see where, then undo.
4. 4  
### Push skin off the line
In **Looks**, apply a strong look at full **Intensity** and watch the skin lobe leave the skin tone line, then raise **Protect skin tones**.
5. 5  
### Compare
Set **Compare** to **Split** to check the fixed grade against the original.

## Common mistakes: questions

### What are the most common color grading mistakes?

Grading before correcting, judging without scopes, crushing blacks or clipping whites, over-saturating skin, using the same teal-and-orange look on everything, mishandling log footage and LUTs, and leaving shots mismatched. Most of them can be caught with a glance at the waveform and vectorscope.

### How do I know if my video is oversaturated?

Look at the **Vectorscope**: if the trace reaches towards or past the 75% colour-bar targets on natural footage, or the skin lobe stretches far along its line, it is probably too much. Toggle **Bypass** too; if the original suddenly looks grey, your eyes have adapted to an over-saturated grade.

### Why do skin tones look orange after color grading?

Usually because a warm or teal-and-orange look pushed them there, or saturation was raised for the whole picture. Lower the look’s **Intensity**, raise **Protect skin tones**, or use **Vibrance** instead of **Saturation**, and check that skin sits on the vectorscope’s skin tone line.

### Can I put a creative LUT directly on log footage?

Only if the LUT was made for that log format, which most creative LUTs are not. Convert the footage first, with the **Footage** setting or the maker’s conversion LUT, then add the creative LUT on top.

### Why does my color grade look different after export?

Usually because the screen or player is showing it differently, not because the export changed it: phones, laptops and TVs use different display curves and brightness, and some players colour-manage video differently. Heavy compression can also add banding and smear grain. Check the exported file on the screens that matter.

[ ← Previous: chapter 12 Grading workflow ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/workflow) [ All chapters → Color grading tutorial ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial) 

## Keep going

* [ Video scopes Read the waveform, RGB parade, vectorscope and histogram, and check levels with false colour and clipping views. ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/video-scopes)
* [ Grading workflow The order colourists work in, from colour management to export, and how it maps to the studio’s Layers, Resolve’s nodes and Premiere’s Lumetri sections. ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/workflow)
* [ Skin tones Use the vectorscope skin tone line and the waveform to keep faces natural, fix colour casts on skin, and keep skin out of a creative look. ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/skin-tones)
* [ Color correct a video online Neutral, accurate colour from one button, with scopes and sliders to refine it. ](https://colorgrade.video/color-correct-video)
* [ Delivery and export Why the same file looks different on a phone, a monitor and a TV, which output curve to choose, and how to export video, stills and LUTs without losing the grade. ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/delivery)

All 13 chapters 
1. [ 1\. Video scopes ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/video-scopes)  · Basics
2. [ 2\. Contrast and tonal range ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/contrast-and-tonal-range)  · Basics
3. [ 3\. White balance ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/white-balance)  · Basics
4. [ 4\. Colour wheels ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/color-wheels)  · Intermediate
5. [ 5\. Curves ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/curves)  · Intermediate
6. [ 6\. Secondary correction ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/secondary-color-correction)  · Intermediate
7. [ 7\. Skin tones ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/skin-tones)  · Intermediate
8. [ 8\. Log footage and LUTs ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/log-footage-and-luts)  · Advanced
9. [ 9\. Creative looks ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/creative-looks)  · Advanced
10. [ 10\. Shot matching ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/shot-matching)  · Advanced
11. [ 11\. Delivery and export ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/delivery)  · Advanced
12. [ 12\. Grading workflow ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/workflow)  · Intermediate
13. [ 13\. Common mistakes ](https://colorgrade.video/color-grading-tutorial/mistakes)  · Basics