TL;DR: Professional colour grading for corporate video costs £300–£5,000+ per project in the UK, depending on footage volume, LUT development needs and whether the brief includes a full DI (digital intermediate) conform. DaVinci Resolve is the global standard. This guide explains every cost layer — from primary correction to LUT licensing — so your budget holds.
Why Colour Grading Matters for Corporate Video
Colour grading is the controlled transformation of raw footage into a finished visual tone that reinforces brand identity and guides viewer emotion. It is not the same as colour correction, which simply fixes technical errors (exposure, white balance). A grade is a creative decision. Research published by the Journal of Marketing Communications found that 83% of viewers judge brand credibility within the first 5 seconds of video playback — colour is the dominant visual cue in those seconds.
For corporate video, an ungraded or poorly graded timeline is commercially damaging. Footage shot across multiple days, locations or cameras will exhibit inconsistency that audiences read — consciously or not — as low production value. A professional DI pass eliminates those inconsistencies and adds the tonal signature that makes your content immediately recognisable.
Colour Grading Workflow: From Conform to Delivery
- Conform: The colourist ingests all camera-original media and rebuilds the offline edit (from your editor's XML, EDL or AAF) at full resolution. Missing files, reel-name mismatches and frame-rate discrepancies are resolved here. A messy offline can add 2–6 hours to conform cost.
- Primary correction: Shot-by-shot lift/gamma/gain and white balance corrections to achieve exposure consistency across the entire timeline. This is technical, not creative.
- Secondary correction: Targeted adjustments using qualifiers, power windows and tracking. Isolating a sky, neutralising a skin tone, pulling a logo colour into brand-safe range — all secondaries.
- Creative look / grade: The signature tone applied to the project: contrast curve, saturation response, highlight roll-off. If the project has a brand LUT, it is applied and refined here.
- HDR / SDR deliverable splitting: For content distributed across broadcast and online, a dual-delivery HDR (PQ or HLG) + SDR master is created from the same grade. Each adds cost but protects against re-grading for future platforms.
- Quality control (QC): Vectorscope, waveform and luma-range checks to ensure the master meets delivery specifications (Rec.709 for web, EBU R103 for broadcast).
Tech Stack: DaVinci Resolve and the DI Pipeline
- Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve Studio: The global standard for professional colour grading. £295 perpetual licence (one-off). GPU-accelerated, supports ACES, DaVinci YRGB and custom colour science. Used in over 90% of UK post-production facilities according to Blackmagic Design's 2023 partner survey.
- Baselight (FilmLight): High-end alternative found in premium London post houses. Rental-only, typically £1,200–£2,500/day for facility hire — usually reserved for feature film and high-budget commercials.
- ACES (Academy Color Encoding System): Camera-agnostic colour space widely adopted for multi-camera corporate productions. Adds pipeline complexity but guarantees consistent results regardless of camera brand.
- LUT (Look-Up Table): A mathematical transform that maps one set of colour values to another. Custom brand LUTs can be developed by a colourist for £300–£800 and applied to all future productions, ensuring colour consistency across years of content.
- Remote grading: Most UK colourists now offer remote sessions via Streambox, Sohonet ClearView or Frame.io Review — eliminating studio hire costs for clients outside London.
Colour Grading Pricing: UK Rate Card
| Service | Description | UK Price Range (ex-VAT) |
|---|---|---|
| Basic correction | Technical fix only, no creative look, up to 10 min timeline | £300–£700 |
| Full DI grade — short form | Creative look + secondaries, up to 5 min finished cut | £800–£2,000 |
| Full DI grade — long form | 30–60 min corporate documentary or training content | £2,000–£5,000+ |
| LUT development | Bespoke brand LUT, tested across camera formats | £300–£800 |
| HDR + SDR dual delivery | PQ/HLG HDR master alongside SDR Rec.709 | +£400–£1,200 per project |
| Colourist day rate | Freelance, London-based, broadcast credit | £400–£900/day |
| Post-house suite hire | London facility with hardware panel (DaVinci Mini or Advanced) | £600–£1,500/day |
UK colourist rates have risen approximately 14% since 2021, driven by increased demand from streaming platforms commissioning UK content. Soho-based facilities command a 25–40% premium over equivalent regional studios in Manchester, Leeds or Glasgow — for delivery-only remote work, the gap is unjustifiable.
Pre-Production Checklist for a Clean DI
- Shoot in camera RAW, Log (S-Log3, C-Log3, BRAW) or at minimum a flat picture profile — never apply in-camera LUTs to the recorded image if you plan a professional grade.
- Use consistent white balance cards or colour charts (DSC Labs, X-Rite ColorChecker) on every camera at the start of each shooting day.
- Supply your colourist with a project brief including brand colour references (Pantone or hex), a reference film that captures the desired tone, and your delivery specification (platform, resolution, colour space).
- Export your offline edit as an XML (DaVinci Resolve), EDL or AAF — not a Premiere sequence file — for clean conform.
- Confirm with your editor that audio has been separated from the video export to avoid sync drift during conform.
- Agree deliverable formats in writing before grading begins: web H.264, broadcast MXF, ProRes 422 HQ master, etc.
Hiring a Colourist: What to Ask
- Request a grade test: supply 3–5 representative shots and ask for a grade pass. Any professional colourist accepts this without charging.
- Confirm they work in DaVinci Resolve Studio (not the free version, which lacks noise reduction, optical flow and film grain tools used in corporate work).
- Ask whether they have a hardware colour panel (DaVinci Mini, Advanced or Tangent) — panel-based grading is measurably faster than mouse-driven, which matters when you are paying a day rate.
- Clarify whether online or remote sessions are available — a 2-hour remote session typically costs £200–£400 and is sufficient for a round of revisions on a 3-minute corporate video.
- Verify broadcast delivery experience if your content is destined for BBC, ITV, Channel 4 or SKY — Ofcom-compliant deliverables (AS-11, IMF) require specific expertise.
FAQs: Colour Grading for Corporate Video
- What is the difference between colour correction and colour grading?
- Colour correction is a technical process that fixes errors in exposure, white balance and colour cast introduced during production. Colour grading is the creative application of a consistent visual tone — contrast, saturation, colour bias — that becomes your brand's visual signature. Corporate video needs both: correction first, grade on top.
- How long does colour grading take?
- A 3-minute corporate video takes 4–8 hours to grade professionally, including conform, primaries, secondaries and two revision rounds. A 30-minute training film or documentary typically requires 2–4 days. Rush delivery (same-day turnaround) is available at most post houses for a 40–75% premium.
- Do I need a LUT, and who owns it?
- A brand LUT is worth commissioning if you produce four or more videos per year on the same camera format. It ensures colour consistency without needing a full grade on every project — a LUT application pass costs £100–£300 per video. The LUT you commission is your intellectual property; confirm ownership in the project agreement.
- Can colour grading fix bad lighting from the shoot?
- Partially. A grade can correct colour temperature, lift shadow detail and reduce highlights by 1–2 stops. It cannot add detail that was not captured (blown highlights, crushed blacks) or remove harsh shadow patterns. Grading is not a substitute for proper lighting — but it can rescue footage that was lit acceptably but not optimally.
- What colour space should we shoot in for the best grade result?
- For maximum grading latitude, shoot in your camera's widest log format: S-Log3 (Sony), C-Log3 (Canon), LOG C (ARRI) or Blackmagic RAW. Apply a conversion LUT or colour science transform at the start of the grade to normalise to your working colour space (Rec.709 or ACES). Never bake in-camera picture profiles if a DI grade is planned.
- Can the same professional grade our corporate videos and our social content?
- Yes, and it is preferable. A colourist who grades your main content can also apply a matching grade to vertical-format social cuts or cutdowns, ensuring brand colour consistency across all channels. Many colourists offer a multi-format delivery add-on at 30–50% of the original grade cost.
- What is a conform, and why does it cost extra?
- Conform is the process of rebuilding your offline edit using full-resolution camera-original media rather than the proxy files your editor used. It is essential for a quality DI. Projects with poorly managed media (missing files, renamed reels, mixed frame rates) can add 2–8 hours to the conform — at £400–£900/day, this is a material cost that good production management prevents.
- Is remote colour grading as good as in-person?
- For most corporate video briefs, yes. Remote grading via Frame.io, Sohonet ClearView or a calibrated client monitor delivers equivalent results to in-person sessions. The key requirement is that your monitor is calibrated to Rec.709 D65 white point — an uncalibrated display produces inaccurate viewing conditions and leads to revision rounds that a calibrated session would have prevented.