Last updated: October 2026. Written by Josh Hutcheson, OnlineCourseing editor. Every course, rating and price on this page was re-checked at the source on 24 October 2026. See our review methodology. We may earn a commission if you enroll through links on this page; it never changes what we recommend.
Quick verdict
Pick the tool before the course. If you are serious about color, learn in DaVinci Resolve: it is the tool professional colorists grade in, the free version includes the full Color page, and Blackmagic gives away its own colorist training. Start with that free guide, then take Matthew Falconer’s Color Grading with DaVinci Resolve: Beginner to Advanced on Udemy for the structured, project-by-project version. If you already cut in Premiere Pro, Jordy Vandeput’s Lumetri course gets you grading without switching apps.
- Best overall (DaVinci Resolve): Color Grading with DaVinci Resolve, Beginner to Advanced (Udemy, 4.6 from 5,388 ratings, 34 hours)
- Best for Premiere Pro editors: Premiere Pro Lumetri: Color Correct & Color Grade (Udemy, 4.8 from 560 ratings)
- Best free start: Blackmagic Design’s Colorist Guide to DaVinci Resolve, with a free online certification exam
- Most recently updated: The Ultimate Color Grading Bootcamp in DaVinci Resolve (Udemy, updated May 2026)
- Best with a certificate track: Color Grading: Beginner to Intermediate (Coursera, 4 courses)
- Pricing: Udemy courses are one-time buys and go on sale often; DaVinci Resolve itself is free (Studio is $236)
- Editing photos, not video? You want color work in Lightroom: see our photo editing courses
See our #1 color grading course →
Pick your tool first, then the course
Before you spend money on the wrong online course, read this.
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Color grading is the craft of shaping the mood and consistency of footage, and unlike general editing the skill is tied closely to one of two tools. DaVinci Resolve is the industry standard for grading. Its node-based Color page is what professional colorists work in, and the free version is fully capable for learning. Adobe Premiere Pro (with its Lumetri Color panel) is the practical choice if you already edit there and want to grade without moving your timeline to another app. Decide which tool you will actually work in, then take the course built for it: that is the single biggest factor in whether a course is worth your time.
Two version notes before you buy anything. Blackmagic’s site now leads with DaVinci Resolve 21, while its official training books are still the DaVinci Resolve 20 editions, so even the official material trails the current release by one version. That matters less than it sounds: the Color page tools (primaries, curves, qualifiers, windows, nodes) have been stable for years. It does mean you should check a paid course’s “last updated” date and expect some interface drift in anything recorded on Resolve 17 or earlier.
Hardware is the other practical limit. Resolve leans on your graphics card, and grading 4K footage on an older laptop is slow. Most courses ship their own practice footage, so you can learn on modest hardware and lower the playback resolution while you work.
The best color grading courses
These eight are ordered by what we would take first for most people. Ratings and student counts are the course pages’ own numbers, read on 24 October 2026.
1. Best overall — Color Grading with DaVinci Resolve: Beginner to Advanced (Udemy)
Matthew Falconer’s course is the long, thorough option: 34 hours of video that start with the basics of the Color page and move through nodes, primaries, secondaries, skin tones, matching shots and full project grades. It is rated 4.6 from 5,388 ratings with 36,173 students, and it was last updated in July 2025. A colorist on r/cinematography said the value is in watching him grade complete projects from start to finish, and that it works well as a course you dip into for the parts you need.
Best for: anyone who wants the industry-standard tool and a complete, structured path. Worth noting: 34 hours is a lot; work through the fundamentals first, then pick the project grades that match your footage.
2. Best for Premiere Pro editors — Premiere Pro Lumetri: Color Correct & Color Grade (Udemy)
If you already cut in Premiere Pro, switching to Resolve just to grade is overkill. Jordy Vandeput teaches the Lumetri panel in the order you should learn it: correction first (exposure, white balance, matching), then creative looks. It is short, at about 2 hours, and rated 4.8 from 560 ratings, last updated July 2025.
Best for: editors who live in Premiere and want grading to fit their workflow. Skip if: you are aiming for a colorist track; learn Resolve instead.
3. Best free start — The Colorist Guide to DaVinci Resolve (Blackmagic Design)
Blackmagic Design publishes its own Colorist Guide to DaVinci Resolve as a free PDF, with downloadable lesson files and a free online exam at the end; pass it and you hold Blackmagic’s own DaVinci Resolve colorist certification. The current edition is written for DaVinci Resolve 20. It is the most-recommended starting point in the colorist threads we read: it is complete, it is free, and it comes with its own practice footage.
Best for: self-directed learners and anyone who wants the official certificate. Worth noting: it is a book with project files, not a video course, so it suits people who learn by doing. Find it on Blackmagic’s training page.
4. Most recently updated — The Ultimate Color Grading Bootcamp in DaVinci Resolve (Udemy)
Sana Shaharyar’s bootcamp is the most current of the well-reviewed Resolve courses: last updated May 2026, rated 4.8 from 1,061 ratings, with 5,259 students and 8.5 hours of video. It is a tighter alternative to Falconer’s course if 34 hours feels like too much.
5. Best with a certificate track — Color Grading: Beginner to Intermediate (Coursera)
This four-course Coursera Specialization is offered by Skillshare and taught by professional colorist Fred Trevino. It covers lift, gamma and gain, contrast and saturation, matching shots across a scene, and cinematic looks in DaVinci Resolve. Coursera estimates four weeks at about ten hours a week. It is young (2,229 enrolled, 4.3 from 9 reviews), so treat the rating as early. It is included in Coursera Plus, which costs $59 a month or $319.20 a year (normally $399).
Best for: learners who want graded assignments and a shareable certificate. Worth noting: a Coursera certificate shows you finished the course; clients and studios still hire from a reel.
6. Best short beginner course — DaVinci Resolve for Beginners (Domestika)
Colorist Alex Berry’s course is a gentler, project-based introduction: 41 lessons (5 hours 9 minutes), 15,140 students and 92% positive reviews from 199 reviewers. It covers Resolve’s editing workflow as well as color, which helps if you are new to the app entirely.
7. Best for narrative grading — Color Grading from Scratch: Technique and Narrative (Domestika)
Cassiana Umetsu, a working colorist, focuses on why you grade a scene a certain way, not just which slider to move. It is short (13 lessons, 1 hour 32 minutes), with 1,251 students and 95% positive reviews from 19 reviewers. It was recorded in Portuguese; check the audio and subtitle options on the course page before you buy.
8. Longer Premiere option — Adobe Premiere Pro: Color Grading Masterclass (Udemy)
George Katsilidis’s masterclass runs about 3.5 hours inside Premiere’s Lumetri tools and was updated in March 2026. It is rated 4.2 from 735 ratings, below the Lumetri course above, so take it second if you want more Premiere examples.
Color grading courses compared
| Course | Tool | Length | Rating (24 Oct 2026) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Color Grading with DaVinci Resolve (Falconer) | DaVinci Resolve | 34 hours | 4.6 (5,388 ratings) | Complete, project-based path |
| Premiere Pro Lumetri (Vandeput) | Premiere Pro | About 2 hours | 4.8 (560 ratings) | Premiere editors |
| Colorist Guide to DaVinci Resolve | DaVinci Resolve | Self-paced book | Official, free | Free start + certificate |
| Ultimate Color Grading Bootcamp (Shaharyar) | DaVinci Resolve | 8.5 hours | 4.8 (1,061 ratings) | Most current Resolve course |
| Color Grading Specialization (Coursera) | DaVinci Resolve | 4 courses, about 40 hours | 4.3 (9 reviews) | Graded certificate track |
| DaVinci Resolve for Beginners (Domestika) | DaVinci Resolve | 5 hours 9 minutes | 92% positive (199) | Total beginners |
| Color Grading from Scratch (Domestika) | DaVinci Resolve | 1 hour 32 minutes | 95% positive (19) | Narrative grading |
| Premiere Color Grading Masterclass (Katsilidis) | Premiere Pro | About 3.5 hours | 4.2 (735 ratings) | More Premiere examples |
Color grading vs. photo editing — which do you actually need?
People often search “color grading” when they mean color work on photos. If you are adjusting the color of still images, you want Lightroom and Photoshop, not a Resolve grading course: start with our best photo editing courses or the best Lightroom courses. Color grading proper is a video discipline. If you are shaping the look of footage, the courses above are the right place to begin. And if you are building broader camera skills, this page is part of our guide to the best online photography courses.
Color correction vs. color grading
Every good course teaches these as two steps, in this order. Color correction fixes problems so the footage looks natural and consistent: exposure, white balance, contrast and matching one shot to the next. Color grading is the creative step on top: a look, a mood, a palette that serves the story. Skipping correction is the most common beginner mistake; a stylized grade on badly balanced footage looks worse, not better.
| Color correction | Color grading | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Accurate, consistent footage | A deliberate look or mood |
| Typical tools | Primaries, white balance, scopes, shot matching | Curves, qualifiers, windows, LUTs, film looks |
| When | First, on every shot | Second, scene by scene |
| Judged by | Scopes and skin tones | Whether it serves the story |
How to learn color grading in 30 days
A month of short daily sessions is enough to grade your own projects competently. This is the order the courses above, and the colorists we read, converge on:
- Days 1-7: the Color page and scopes. Learn primaries (lift, gamma, gain), white balance and how to read the waveform and vectorscope. Blackmagic’s free guide covers this with practice files.
- Days 8-14: correction and matching. Balance a full scene and match shots shot at different times of day. This is the skill clients notice.
- Days 15-21: nodes and secondaries. Build a node tree, isolate skin with qualifiers, and use power windows to shape light.
- Days 22-30: looks and delivery. Build a look from scratch, compare it with a LUT, and export for web. Grade one complete short project end to end.
Work on footage you did not shoot as well as your own. Grading other people’s footage teaches you to fix problems you would never create yourself.
Is color grading hard to learn?
The tools are learnable in weeks; the taste takes longer. One colorist on r/davinciresolve described the job as “tools and taste”: mastering the software, then developing a sense of how color affects emotion and story, and getting faces right. Expect to grade simple projects well within a month and to keep improving for years. Practicing on varied footage, and comparing your grade with a reference, speeds up the taste part.
What working colorists recommend beyond courses
In the r/cinematography and r/davinciresolve threads we read, the same resources came up again and again alongside paid courses. We list them unlinked because none is on an affiliate network we use, which has no bearing on their quality:
- Alexis Van Hurkman’s Color Correction Handbook, the standard textbook, recommended in nearly every thread.
- Mixing Light, a membership library of grading tutorials with project files, aimed at working colorists.
- Cullen Kelly, a colorist with film and streaming credits who publishes free grading education on YouTube and teaches privately.
- Darren Mostyn on YouTube, for free Resolve technique videos.
- FXphd, for intermediate courses from senior colorists such as Warren Eagles.
One caution from the same threads: be wary of popular YouTube grading courses that never mention color management. A good course explains color spaces and how to set up a project correctly before it teaches looks.
Do you need a color grading certificate?
Not to get work. Clients and post houses hire colorists from a reel and references. If you want a credential anyway, Blackmagic’s own colorist certification (the free exam that comes with the Colorist Guide) is the one recognized in the industry, and it costs nothing. A Coursera or Udemy certificate of completion shows you finished a course and is useful on a LinkedIn profile.
How we chose these courses
We started from the courses ranking on Udemy, Coursera and Domestika for DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro grading, then checked each one at the source on 24 October 2026: live and open for enrollment, last-updated date, rating and number of ratings, length and instructor. We read the r/cinematography and r/davinciresolve threads where colorists recommend training, and weighted courses those communities name. We did not take every course end to end, so we do not claim to have tested them; we compared them on what each page shows and what learners report.
Frequently asked questions
Should I learn color grading in DaVinci Resolve or Premiere Pro?
Learn in DaVinci Resolve if you want the industry-standard colorist workflow; the free version is fully capable for learning. Choose Premiere Pro’s Lumetri tools if you already edit in Premiere and want to grade without switching apps.
Is DaVinci Resolve free version enough to learn color grading?
Yes. The free version of DaVinci Resolve includes the full Color page used in the courses above. DaVinci Resolve Studio ($236 on Blackmagic’s site, 24 October 2026) is the paid upgrade with extra professional features, which you can buy later if your work needs them.
Is color grading the same as color correction?
No. Color correction fixes problems: exposure, white balance and matching shots. Color grading is the creative step that builds a look or mood on top of corrected footage. Good courses teach correction first, then grading.
Is there a free color grading course?
Yes. Blackmagic Design’s Colorist Guide to DaVinci Resolve is free, with lesson files and a free online certification exam. It is the best free starting point and pairs well with any paid course.
How long does it take to learn color grading?
About a month of short daily practice to grade your own projects competently, and years to develop the eye of a professional colorist.
What is the best color grading course on Reddit?
In the colorist threads we read, Blackmagic’s free official training and the Color Correction Handbook come up most, with Mixing Light, Cullen Kelly and Matthew Falconer’s Udemy course also recommended.
Is there a color grading course with a certificate?
Yes. Blackmagic’s free exam gives you its official DaVinci Resolve colorist certification, and Coursera’s Color Grading: Beginner to Intermediate Specialization issues a certificate when you finish all four courses.
Which DaVinci Resolve version should a course use?
DaVinci Resolve 21 is current, and Blackmagic’s own guides are written for version 20. Any course recorded on Resolve 18 or later teaches tools that still work the same way; older courses show some interface differences.
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