Why scopes beat your eyes
Your monitor lies — it's biased by ambient light and screen calibration. Lumetri Scopes (Window → Lumetri Scopes) show waveform, vectorscope and RGB parade independent of any display. Trust the scopes; the eye comes second.
Primary correction
Open Lumetri Color panel. In Basic Correction, set Exposure so the waveform sits roughly 0–100 IRE. Pull Whites until clipping just touches the top, Blacks until the bottom touches 0. Use Temp and Tint to neutralise color casts.
Curves
Open Curves → RGB. Add an S-curve for contrast. Switch to individual R, G, B curves to remove color casts in shadows or highlights — for example, lift Blue in the shadows to cool down a scene.
Color wheels and match
Color Wheels & Match has Shadows, Midtones, Highlights wheels. Push midtones toward warm orange for a sunset, shadows toward teal. Click Comparison View → Match → Apply Match to copy color from a reference frame onto your current clip.
Secondary corrections (HSL)
HSL Secondary lets you target a specific color. Eyedrop a sky, refine with H/S/L sliders, then adjust just that selection — pull saturation, shift hue toward deeper blue. Perfect for skin-only warming.
LUTs for looks
Creative section → Look dropdown. Apply a Lumetri LUT, dial back Intensity to 50% for subtlety. LUTs are starting points, not finishers — always grade first, LUT last.
Adjustment layers
File → New → Adjustment Layer. Drop it on the top track to grade an entire sequence at once. Useful for show-wide stylistic color, leaving per-clip layers for individual corrections.
Final delivery
Switch to broadcast-safe range — Lumetri → Settings → Broadcast Safe. Export with Rec.709 for SDR HD, Rec.2100 PQ for HDR. Always preview the final on a calibrated reference monitor before delivery.