Zack Snyder's Justice League Color Grade

This one was a viewer request (thanks, Anton!): the Zack Snyder's Justice League look. It's a really cool grade: complementary teal and orange, except the teal is heavily desaturated and pushes toward a light green. Whole scenes sit dark, gloomy, and drained, and then saturated colors, muzzle flashes, Cyborg's blue, Flash's red, punch through and put all the emphasis on the action. We're matching a frame with Batman, Flash, and Wonder Woman, working on log footage from Artgrid, using Color Finale 2 Pro (though most of these moves have Final Cut equivalents, which I'll point out).

Step 1: Log to Rec 709, manually

CF2P's "assume log" conversion would work, but for this clip it crushes the shadows too hard. So convert manually: on the luma waveform (ignore the line at the bottom, that's just the letterbox), raise the highlights toward but not past 100 IRE, lower the shadows toward but not below 0, lift the midtones a tad, add a touch of saturation. That's it: dynamic range expanded, working color space achieved. Rename the layer "log to Rec 709."

Normally you'd color correct next, but this shot already reads natural and it's lit with RGB practicals, so we skip straight to the fun part.

Step 2: The look

Get your reference up: Window, Show in Workspace, Comparison Viewer (I eventually just overlaid the reference frame in the corner of my shot, which I liked better). New color wheels layer:

Lift (shadows): pull toward the darker blues, not the teal yet. Gamma (midtones): crank toward teal-green, overshoot, then pull back until it matches the reference. Then desaturate both wheels: this look lives and dies on drained color. Toggle it: suddenly cinematic, dare I say. Rename it "look."

Step 3: Contrast

Color curves, master luma curve: a slight S-curve, shadows down, upper mids and highlights up for oomph. Watch her skin and the ground pop. Optionally fade the very bottom of the curve up slightly for a gentle black fade, and pull the highlights down a touch for mood.

Step 4: Vector surgery

Into the six vectors (Final Cut's native equivalent is Hue vs Hue in the HSL curves): select the teal and pull its saturation down further; fine-tune its hue toward that green. Then the red vector: swing the hue toward Flash's suit color and desaturate to that dull, worn red their costumes share. Back into the look layer as needed, pushing more blue-teal into shadows and mids until the overlay comparison agrees.

Step 5: Clean blacks (the professional touch)

Bring up the HSL curves and go to Sat vs Luma: select the darkest values (in CF2P, click the dark circle; add and anchor points, smooth them) and pull saturation OUT of the shadows. Do the same at the bright end. Look under Batman's arms in the reference: no blue tint, just clean black. That single cleanup move is what separates professional grades from tinted mush. If it fights your look, rebalance by pushing the look layer's shadows a little further instead.

Copy it everywhere

Command C the graded clip, Command Shift V on any other clip, choose the effects to paste, and tweak per shot.

Recap: manual log conversion, desaturated teal-green mids with blue shadows, an S-curve, vector surgery on teal and red, and desaturated blacks and whites. A couple of steps, honestly an easy grade, and it nails the Snyder gloom-with-pops look. Want more movie-matching breakdowns? Tell me which film.