Archive republication: This article was originally published on 21 October 2020. It has been translated into English and lightly updated for clarity while preserving the original reporting and context.
This article originally appeared in Digital Production 01/2014.
Professional colour correction had not traditionally been a strength of Adobe’s video applications. SpeedGrade filled the technical gap, but moving between it and Premiere Pro remained cumbersome. An update for Creative Cloud customers introduced a much more direct workflow: SpeedGrade could open and save Premiere Pro sequences, while its integrated playback engine supported the formats Premiere Pro could play.
The New Colour-Grading Workflow
SpeedGrade offered two operating modes. Native mode retained its established colour tools, masks, look management, timeline editing and export. Premiere Pro mode imported sequence settings and displayed the edited clips in the SpeedGrade timeline, where they could be selected for grading. Timeline structure, the media browser and export remained locked because those tasks stayed in Premiere Pro.
A Premiere Pro sequence could be sent to SpeedGrade through Direct Link or opened directly as a Premiere project before selecting the required sequence. Transitions, effects and titles were represented in the SpeedGrade timeline. Artists could then apply primary and secondary corrections through SpeedGrade’s layer system, use masks and manage looks.
The update also included LookLabs SpeedLooks: 3D LUTs designed to match footage from different cameras or create traditional film looks. Once grading was complete, the Premiere project could be saved in SpeedGrade or returned to the editing application.
The Lumetri Engine
The workflow was enabled partly by Premiere Pro’s Lumetri Engine, derived from SpeedGrade’s colour engine. Premiere Pro CC could already apply SpeedGrade LUTs through the Lumetri effect, but previously this had to be done manually for every clip. Saving or returning a sequence now applied the relevant Lumetri effect and LUT automatically.
Although the looks could not be edited directly in Premiere Pro, sending the sequence back to SpeedGrade restored all correction-layer settings. Editors and colourists could therefore move repeatedly between editing and grading without exporting additional clips.
Three-Way Correction versus SpeedGrade Layers
SpeedGrade’s interface required some familiarisation, but its colour wheels offered finer control than Premiere Pro’s three-way corrector. Artists could work with external Tangent panels or a mouse, focusing a wheel with a right click, changing chroma through pointer movement and luminance through the scroll wheel.
SpeedGrade allowed unlimited correction layers, with every layer retaining access to the source material’s complete colour and contrast information. One layer could adjust midtone exposure while another recovered highlights. In Premiere Pro, the first correction could discard information needed by a later adjustment; a comparable approach in After Effects required a 32-bit working space.
SpeedGrade also offered stronger masking. Each correction layer could have its own mask, or several layers could share one mask in a workflow comparable to clipping masks in Photoshop. Secondary colour correction occupied a separate layer and could be varied in strength or restricted further with masks.
Focusing on the Look
SpeedGrade prioritised continuity across a film. Its monitor could display several clips simultaneously so neighbouring shots could be matched, and Auto Color Matcher could align the displayed clips automatically.
The Look Browser stored finished looks or intermediate stages for quick comparison and presentation. Artists could create alternative moods from a base correction. The snapshot window exported a look as an image or imported a reference for Auto Color Matcher, making it useful for documenting intermediate decisions.
Conclusion
SpeedGrade’s grading tools were worth exploring, and Direct Link plus the expanded format support in Premiere Pro sequence mode made the application substantially more practical for video production.
