Should White Balance always be the first step in Color Correction?

great question and good responses.

I only have old cs6 and speedgrade doesn't work on my win 10 machines, so I use resolve 15, but color is color and they are all basically the same with fundamentals ( NLE's that can color correct ).

I do what Kevin does but don't turn down saturation usually. But like him I do the luma adjustments for lift gamma gain ( like his S curve ). First lift ( black point ) then gain ( white point ) and then gamma, and then back through it again until I'm 'legal' and like the basic look of exposure.

For some stuff you'll be masking out specific areas to work on later ( sky, forest, face, etc. ) but at first it's just a ballpark adjustment.

I rarely adjust the white balance cause I shoot my own stuff and even using raw I dial in the white balance on the camera, so it's OK from the beginning.

Basically 32K for indoor stuff and 56K for outdoor stuff.   However, that's using movie lights balanced at 32K indoors, and assuming noon time north america for daylight. Indoor practicals ( normal lamps in homes ) are really more like 28K  and early morning or late afternoon daylight is warmer than 56K.  So you just kinda go with what you got to shoot re: WB.

Anyway, after the basic lift gamma gain luma stuff I then deal with the most blaring problems ( skin tone, etc ) and start messing around with the other controls ( contrast, saturation, etc. )... and then as a final thing deal with the color ( take out blue in skin tone shadow or whatever ).

Sometimes that leads me to get into S curve stuff using specific colors ( RGB ).

You'll find it helps to have a control surface ( trackballs etc ) to do this stuff cause the adjustments are much more easy to finesse with that stuff.

Can't add anything to Kevin's comments except to say that for any trained colorist, that's the starting point ... tonal corrections. Then color/hue. Get every thing looking "normal".

Then ... fixing a particular main issue with a clip. Do that first, down the line, and if you have any time left, do more touches.

Neil

Hi Michael,
To answer your question: White Balance, for me, is a step that comes after adjusting exposure and before adding the creative touches related to hue.

From what I have learned, it's best to adjust tones before adjusting hues. Step 1 for me is to turn down SAT to zero. Then, with the Waveform Monitor up, and after adding a basic S-curve for Luma, I work on optimizing Exposure. Then, I work on elements of exposure: Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, etc. When I'm satisfied, I add back SAT. Then I start working about hues. White Balance is my first hue adjustment. In the Lumetri color panel, you basically then work top to bottom, adding the creative touches. You can go pretty far in some of these panels. I like to finish off the grading with a vignette, to taste.

I'm sure others have their own methods and standardized ways of color correcton and grading.

Hope that helps.

Thanks,
Kevin