The Easiest Way to Color Grade DJI Osmo Action 6 Vlog Footage

So from my recent vlog trip to the Philippines, many of you have asked in the comments how I color graded my Action 6 footage. In this video, I'll show you exactly how I color grade my clips shot in D-Log M using Final Cut Pro and walk you through my workflow. I'll show you how I turn my flat image into the final look. And at the end, I'll also show you how to save this setup as a preset so you don't have to repeat the same technical steps every time. And if you prefer to skip the technical setup completely, I also created my own LUTs for D-Log M footage. I'll briefly talk about the LUT pack at the end of the video, and you'll find the links in the description below. So we're here in Final Cut Pro, and these are the three clips that we will be grading today. So the first step I do is apply a conversion LUT. And DJI provides a D-Log M conversion LUT to turn your flat image into a normal looking footage. And I'm going to leave a link below so that you guys know where to download it. So in order to apply the conversion LUT, I'm going to select the clip and then head over to the search tab and type in custom LUT. Now I'm going to double click it so it will be applied to the effects in the inspector. And over here under LUT, I can now go to my DJI LUTs and I'll choose DJI Osmo Action 6 D-Log M Direct 709. Once I selected it, you can see that it now converted it to a normal looking image. The next thing I'm going to adjust is exposure, saturation, and white balance. I'm going to add a color wheel and I'm going to do the adjustment before the conversion LUT. So I'm going to drag this on top and I'm also going to open up the luma wave form. And this basically shows me the exposure level of this image. And I want to avoid going above 100 IRE, otherwise my highlights will be blown out or go below zero, which will crush my shadows. So I can lift the highlights a bit. So I'm going to head over to the color wheels and then in the highlights, I'm going to drag this all the way up around here. I'm also going to add a bit of contrast by pulling down the mid-tones. And you can see by bringing down the mid-tones, our image pops a bit more. The next thing I'm going to do is adjust the white balance. So I do feel that the image is a bit green and we can also add a bit more warmth. So I'm going to pull away from green and I'm going to push it more towards orange, just like that. And I'm also going to add a little bit more warmth into the mid-tones. I think this looks great. The next thing I'm going to do is add a bit more saturation. So I'm going to use the global wheel to boost the overall saturation a bit. So this is the before and after you can see quite a difference. The next thing I'm going to do is adjust the different colors in this image. I want, for example, to make the skies a bit more teal and remove a bit of red in my face. I think this is a bit too overly saturated and I want to adjust the greens more towards red. So let's do that by adding a hue versus saturation curve. Again, you want to move the hue versus saturation curve above the custom LUT. And in the hue versus hue, I can use the color picker and let's start with the sky. And now I can move it up to introduce more teal into the image. I want to create a sort of orange and teal look, which creates a nice color contrast. I'm going to choose the color picker again, and this time I'm going to select the green color. I'll be pushing this more towards red. I think this looks nice. The next thing I'm going to do is choose hue versus saturation, and I'm going to select my face and simply reduce a bit of that red. Just a tiny bit like so. The next thing I want to do is add a little fade to this shot. And to do that, I'm going to add a color curve. And again, I'm going to bring this above the custom LUT. And now I'm going to add a point over here and simply lift the shadows a bit. Just like that. We look at the before and after. You can see that it kind of softens the shadows. Now what I like to add at the end is some haze. And there's this plugin called Hazy, and I can simply apply that. And this again goes at the very top. And I'm going to link the plugin in the video description below. And in here I can input the camera. So that would be the DJI D-Log M. And I'm going to use the bloom. That's what I like. And let's add 10%. That's a little bit too much. So you can see when I now disable and enable it, you can see that it kind of softens the highlight, making the clip look a bit more dreamy. Now I'm going to head back to the color wheel and I'm going to lower the highlights a bit, just like that. Now, additionally, what I'm going to do is head back to the shadows and I'm just going to introduce some blue to it, just like that. I think this looks great. Now we have this nice separation of orange and teal. This to me looks great. So that is basically it. I can now save this as a preset. I can head down to save effect preset. I'm going to call this D-Log M Beach LUT. And now I can save this under my favorites. It's safe. And now when we head to favorites, you can see, I already have a bunch of presets saved. When I scroll down, you can see D-Log M Beach LUT. So now I can head over to this second clip. I can double click on this, and now you can see it's instantly applied it to this clip as well. And I can do the same for this third clip. Click it again. And now we have our final look. I still recommend you check the exposure, contrast, saturation, and white balance. But usually these are just minor tweaks that you need to do. So that is the color grading workflow I used for the Philippine trip, all filmed on the Action 6. If you want to skip the technical setup and get a clean, natural look instantly, I've created my own essential LUTs that you can apply directly to your D-Log M footage. So let me give you an example again with this clip. I'm going to select the clip, head down here, and type in custom LUT. Double click on it. Then I'm going to head over here, and then we're going to start with the essential LUT pack, which are not stylized and heavily color graded looks. So these are base LUTs that give you a natural look for your clips. And there are three available. There are standard, rich, and fade. So the standard looks like this. Rich will add a pop to it. And then there is fade, which will lift the shadows here. And you can still tweak it to your liking if you want. But as you can see, they're ready to use and give you a natural look in your video. Next up, let's look at the creative pack. So when I head to the creative LUT pack, you get eight stylized LUTs. Let's start with the first one. This will give you instantly a stylized look without needing to apply the D-Log M conversion LUT. And this to me, it looks really great already. And there's more. You can experiment with different looks, such as the second one, this look over here. I wasn't really creative with the naming. And this really allows you to create your own unique stylized look in your videos without needing to do complex color grading. Now, my favorite one is the first one. And I can also adjust the intensity over here. So I'm going to dial it down to around, let's go with 80. This to me looks great. I'm going to do the same thing for the second shot. I'm going to apply a custom LUT. This time, let's go with number five. You can see this looks really great. Now the third shot at a custom LUT, and I'm going for number seven, which looks cool. And these LUTs are not limited to the Action 6. They work with all DJI cameras that support D-Log M, including the Pocket 3, Action 5 Pro, Osmo 360, and Osmo Nano. Along with the LUTs, I've also included my recommended camera settings for these popular DJI Action cameras. Both packs are linked below if you want to speed up your grading or explore different looks. Now, if you have any questions, let me know. Thank you so much for watching, guys. Take care, and I'll see you in the next one.