Mon 24
Everything before the grade
- How a color job runs, first contact to handover
- Scopes
- Color management
- Conform, what it is and where to learn it properly
Forty tutorials gave you forty starting points. Five days to build one process.
Colorist Foundations is a 5-day live color grading intensive — from the fundamentals to a grade you'd hand a client.
Early Bird, 20% off every seat, until . Enrolment closes , if there are still seats left. Seats from $399.
Live, Monday 24 to Friday 28 August 2026. Four hours a day, , five days straight. Not a video library. A room, with two Master Trainers in it, at a fixed time.
See the seats and pricingRegistration opens . Enrolment closes , if there are still seats left. This cohort's enrolment has closed. The next cohort isn't scheduled yet. Join the waitlist and we'll email you the moment it is.
The problem
Every technique in color grading is already free. That is not what is stopping you.
What stops you is the real project. Forty tutorials give you forty starting points, with no clear sense of the upsides and downsides of each. So you push the wheels until it looks alright, and you are left wondering whether there is a better way out there.
You are not missing a technique. You are missing an order to do them in, and a reason behind each step, so that the same approach works on the next job and the one after that.
That is what five days is for.
Who is teaching
Kaur Hendrikson, CSI
Blackmagic Certified Master Trainer · 16 Blackmagic masterclasses · 2,300+ tutored · Dolby Vision Certified Professional · member of the Colorist Society International · Mixing Light Contributor
Colorist, digital imaging specialist and educator, based in Tallinn, Estonia. Blackmagic certified DaVinci Resolve Master Trainer, listed among Dolby Vision Certified Professionals, member of the Colorist Society International, and a Mixing Light Contributor.
2,300+ people tutored across Blackmagic Design and university masterclasses. 16 masterclasses for Blackmagic Design, and he has moderated many more of their courses, both multi-day and single session. Masterclasses at the Baltic Film, Media and Arts School and at ECAM Madrid. Five years teaching filmmaking in a classroom, where you find out fast which explanations actually work.
He develops the DCTLs for PixelTools and teaches for PixelTools Academy, its education arm.
He is front of the room for all five days.
And a second Master Trainer in the room
Gedaly Guberek
Gedaly Guberek is a filmmaker and educator. While primarily working as a director, he's also been an editor, colorist, and VFX artist for commercials and feature films. As a Certified DaVinci Resolve Master Trainer, he teaches for Blackmagic Design, AFI Conservatory, and various filmmaking groups & post-houses around Los Angeles.
He introduces himself at the orientation call, and through the whole week he runs the Q&A and the chat. He has also moderated other well-known masterclasses and courses.
That is two Master Trainers in the room, doing two different jobs. Kaur teaches, front of the room, all five days. Gedaly is in the Q&A and the chat throughout, which is where your own question gets answered, properly, by someone qualified to answer it, without the session having to stop.
You have seen who teaches it. The full week and tiers are below.
See the seats and pricingWhat the week is
The week follows the shape of a real job, from what happens before you touch a knob to what happens after the client signs off.
Tue 25
Primaries
- Primaries, the core grade, with a day to itself
- A demo grade taking primaries start to finish
Wed 26
Look development
- Look development, and working from a reference
- LUTs, and what a colorist contributes before the shoot
- A demo grade building a look end to end
Thu 27
Secondaries and shot matching
- Secondaries
- Shot matching
- A demo grade matching a sequence
Fri 28
After the grade, and the road out
- Delivery, taught as reading a spec you have never seen
- Grading suite design, from the room to the display
- A full-speed grade at real working pace
- Where third-party tools fit, and where they do not
Three things run through all five days.
- The node tree is built with the room, topic by topic. You are never handed a finished template.
- Some blocks come with a handout, a reference page or a short PDF on that topic, yours to keep. Grade and Mentor seats.
- Teaching is live demos, not volunteer grading. Questions are welcome mid-demo and they steer where the teaching goes.
How it actually works
Free tutorials can teach you a technique. What they cannot do is look at your work and tell you what is wrong with it.
1. Before the course, you grade a scene cold Grade and Mentor seats only.
On the Grade and Mentor seats you get a real multi-shot scene you grade twice. The brief goes out at the orientation call on , and it teaches you nothing and forbids you nothing. Set it up however you normally would. It is due .
Do not research it first and do not over-prepare. A true baseline is the entire point.
2. On Day 1, the room sees what came back
Not your grade. Patterns. Here are the things almost all of you did, and here is why almost everyone does them.
3. After Day 4, you grade the same scene again Grade and Mentor seats only.
Same footage. Four days of process later. The re-grade is briefed at the close of Day 4 and is due , which is midday in central Europe.
That is deliberately not the usual 23:59 PT. Day 4 ends late in the evening if you are in Europe, and a same-night deadline would mean grading until dawn. This way you can close the session, sleep, and do it in the morning. It is still a short window and it is said out loud at orientation as well as in the Day 4 brief, because a deadline you find out about late is a worse deadline.
If you are in the Americas, read that the other way round: 02:00 PT is the small hours of Friday morning, so your window is Thursday evening, straight after the session. Upload before you sleep rather than setting an alarm.
4. On Day 5, re-grades are reviewed live Grade and Mentor seats only.
Two or three volunteers, from an opt in at upload. Kaur has deliberately not looked at them beforehand, so what the room watches is a real diagnosis of unfamiliar work rather than a rehearsed one. Volunteering means your before and after go up together.
5. Then Kaur writes you feedback Grade and Mentor seats only.
Every Grade and Mentor student, within two weeks of the course, so by . You get one report, and it always has the same four parts in the same order:
- What's working
- The one thing costing you most
- What to do next
- What changed since your cold grade
You send back a Resolve project file and a render, both times. The project file carries your node tree, so Kaur can talk about how you got there and not only where you landed.
There is no score. Nothing is graded out of anything and there is no checklist to mark yourself against. What you get is the difference between your two versions and what to do with it next.
All of this is the Grade and Mentor seats. A Watch seat is in the room for all five days and gets everything taught, but does not receive the scene and does not send work back.
Three ways to learn this
Everything taught in this week can be learned three ways. Two of them cost less than this one, and they are better at some of it, so here is the whole picture rather than half of it.
| What you get | Free tutorials | Subscription libraries | Colorist Foundations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Costs nothing | Yes | No | No |
| Watch at your own pace, whenever suits you | Yes | Yes | No |
| Thousands of hours to choose from | Yes | Yes | No |
| One order to work in, with a reason behind every step | No | No | Yes |
| Someone looks at your own footage and tells you what is holding it back Grade Mentor | No | No | Yes |
| Written critique of the scene you graded, before and after Grade Mentor | No | No | Yes |
| Ask your question in the room and get the answer in the room | No | No | Yes |
| A date you have to be ready for | No | No | Yes |
If what you are missing is a technique, the first two columns will find it for you and charge you less. The third one is for the part they cannot do, which is to look at what you actually made and tell you what to change about it.
Choose your seat
Opens soon Registration opens . Leave your email and we will tell you the moment it does. The prices below are the ones you will see.
Early Bird Early Bird: every seat is 20% off until . After that the regular price applies and this cohort does not discount again.
0 days 00 hours 00 minutes 00 seconds
Bonus Book inside the Early Bird and it's 20% off the whole PixelTools store, until Thu 26 Nov 2026. Miss the Early Bird and the rate steps down to 15% off DCTLs only, same end date. One discount, not two — book early for the higher rate.
The Early Bird closed on , and the Early Bird store bonus closed with it. These are the regular prices.
- Open call
- Free open live call. After Early Bird ends
- Orientation
- Orientation call, 30 to 45 minutes. Recorded
- The course
- to Fri 28 Aug 2026 The course. Four hours a day,
Watch
Early Bird $319$399
Or 4 interest-free payments of $79.75 with Shop Pay.
$399
Or 4 interest-free payments of $99.75 with Shop Pay.
For the week itself.
The full week, live, in the room.
- Live teaching, all five days
- Q&A and chat throughout, run by Gedaly
- Private recording of your own cohort, yours to keep
- The Discord community, during the week and after it
- Certificate from PixelTools Academy, once you pass the exam
- You do not send work in
Grade
Early Bird $559$699
Or 4 interest-free payments of $139.75 with Shop Pay.
$699
Or 4 interest-free payments of $174.75 with Shop Pay.
For getting your own work looked at.
The week, plus the homework, and written feedback on your grades from Kaur.
- Everything in Watch
- A real multi-shot scene, yours to work on
- Written critique on both your grades, from Kaur
- Your work eligible for live review on Day 5
- Four take-away guides: Grading Suite Build Guide, The Colorist Glossary, Resolve Free vs Studio, and Job Cycle Worksheet
- Block handouts
- A 3-month subscription to PixelTools Phosphor™ and Three/Strip™ OFX
Mentor
Early Bird $799$999
Or 4 interest-free payments of $199.75 with Shop Pay.
$999
Or 4 interest-free payments of $249.75 with Shop Pay.
For a specific problem you want solved.
Everything in Grade, plus an hour one-on-one with Kaur, on a topic of your choice.
- Everything in Grade
- One hour, one-on-one, on a topic of your choice
- Bookable any time until Fri 27 Nov 2026
You can cancel for a full refund up to , which is also when enrolment closes. Details under "Before you decide" below.
| Feature | Watch | Grade | Mentor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | $399 | $699 | $999 |
| Early Bird, until | $319 | $559 | $799 |
| Live teaching, all five days | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Q&A and chat throughout, run by Gedaly | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Private recording of your own cohort, yours to keep | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| The Discord community, during the week and after it | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Grading Suite Build Guide, ~30 pp | No | Yes | Yes |
| The Colorist Glossary, ~50 pp | No | Yes | Yes |
| Resolve Free vs Studio, ~10 pp | No | Yes | Yes |
| Job Cycle Worksheet, 1 pg | No | Yes | Yes |
| Block handouts | No | Yes | Yes |
| 3 Month License to PixelTools Three/Strip™ & Phosphor™ OFX | No | Yes | Yes |
| Certificate from PixelTools Academy, once you pass the exam | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 15% off all PixelTools DCTLs, until 26 Nov 2026 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Early Bird: 20% off the whole PixelTools store, until Thu 26 Nov 2026 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The homework. One thing, not four:
|
No | Yes | Yes |
| One hour, one-on-one, with Kaur, on a topic of your choice | No | No | Yes |
What a Watch seat is. A place in the live room for all five days, every recording yours to keep, the orientation recording, the Discord community, and the same exam and the same certificate as everyone else. It carries the same store discount as every seat, until Thu 26 Nov 2026: 20% off the whole PixelTools store if booked inside the Early Bird, stepping down to 15% off DCTLs only once Early Bird closes. The one thing it does not include is sending work in and getting it back.
Bonuses, Grade and Mentor only.
- Grading Suite Build Guide, ~30 pp
- The Colorist Glossary, ~50 pp
- Resolve Free vs Studio, ~10 pp
- Job Cycle Worksheet, 1 pg
- 3 Month Subscription License for PixelTools Phosphor™ and Three/Strip™
Times shown in Pacific Time.
There is an exam, and the certificate is earned
Every seat sits the same exam on the same terms. Pass it and you get a certificate from PixelTools Academy. It is not issued for turning up.
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Questions | 60, multiple choice |
| Time | 60 minutes |
| Pass mark | 85%, so 51 of 60 |
| Attempts | 3, at least 24 hours apart |
| Window | Any time within a month of the course ending |
| Materials | Open book, open software |
| Who sits it | All three seats, on identical terms |
Open book is the point, not a concession. Nothing on it can be answered by searching the slides. Every question puts you in a situation and asks what you would do, which is the only thing worth testing in a craft where the facts are all a search away.
It is modelled on Blackmagic's own certification exams, deliberately, so the bar is one the industry already recognizes. Everything on it is taught during the week, and after an attempt you are told which questions you got wrong.
If you do not pass, you keep everything else: the recording, the Discord, and, on Grade and Mentor, your handouts and your written critique.
The free open call
Open live call. Free, no ticket needed, come and ask anything. It runs as long as there are questions.
Note the date: Early Bird is gone by then, so waiting for the call to make up your mind costs you the lower price. That is what makes it early.
Before you decide
Refunds
You can cancel for a full refund up to , seven days before we begin. You do not have to give a reason. The full terms are in the questions below.
A recording you keep
Every participant gets a private recording of their own cohort, and it is yours to keep.
Two Master Trainers in the room
Kaur teaches, front of the room, all five days. Gedaly is in the Q&A and the chat throughout.
Requirements
DaVinci Resolve. Some demonstrations use Studio-only tools. DaVinci Resolve Studio is not required to watch this course and learn from it. No homework depends on a Studio feature, and nothing you are taught to do needs plugins or add-ons. Working along hands-on is the better way to learn, and for those demos you either watch instead or work with a watermark on screen. That is a real cost and it is not a blocker.
No plugins and no add-ons are required. Third party tools do come up as subject matter, including alternative display rendering transforms, but nothing you are taught to do depends on installing anything, and the PixelTools plugins are shown as one option among others.
Where something is worth installing, it is free. The alternative display rendering transforms get taught and demonstrated because they are worth understanding and because the good ones are free and open source. They are not ours, we do not hand them out, and you are pointed at the authors instead.
Resolve version: 21.0.3 or newer. The course project is built on it, and a project saved in a newer build will not open in an older one. If you would rather not update, there is also a plain timeline file you can conform yourself, and that route is demonstrated at the orientation call.
Where you need to be starting from. You should be able to find your way around DaVinci Resolve: import media, cut a timeline, move between pages. This course teaches color grading from zero. It does not teach Resolve from zero. If that part is still shaky, Blackmagic's own beginner's guide books are the fastest way to close the gap before the week starts.
Your setup. Day 1 has a short block answering the question every beginner actually has, which is will my setup hold me back this week. The answer is no, and there is no purchase advice in it. The full room, monitor and calibration conversation is on Day 5, once you have context for it.
There is no minimum hardware spec. If Resolve runs on your machine, you can do this week. A few things genuinely help, and none of them is required: a second screen, so Resolve and the call are not fighting for the same space. Your phone on a charger, because four hours is long and the chat, Q&A and interaction all run in a custom course app that you are in throughout the session, rather than in the video call itself. A desktop browser works for that app too. And Resolve on a computer rather than an iPad, because the iPad version differs from the desktop version in many ways.
And one thing worth knowing before you spend money. You do not need Studio for this course. But if you decide to buy it anyway, buy it from Blackmagic's own site rather than the App Store. The App Store build has quirks. It is a few hundred either way and it is not our sale, so we would rather you knew.
Your time.
| Live sessions | 4 hours a day, , five consecutive days |
| Orientation, | 30 to 45 minutes. Recorded, so you can catch it later |
| After Day 4, Grade and Mentor | The re-grade. Due , which is midday in central Europe, so you can sleep on it |
| Before the course, Grade and Mentor | The cold grade, any time between orientation and . It is a scene from a film and it is meant to be done quickly |
Dates and deadlines
Every time below is shown in your own time zone first, with Pacific Time underneath it. The course is run and announced in PT, and deadlines close at 23:59 PT with one deliberate exception, marked below.
Times shown in Pacific Time.
| When | What | Days remaining |
|---|---|---|
| Early Bird ends. Every seat goes to regular price on the 7th | ||
| Open live call. Free, no ticket needed, come and ask anything. It runs as long as there are questions. Note the date: the Early Bird is gone by then, so waiting for the call to make up your mind costs you the lower price. That is what makes it early | ||
| Your course project download link is live, at least 48 hours before orientation | ||
| Enrolment closes, if there are still seats left | ||
| Orientation call. 30 to 45 minutes of housekeeping: how the week runs, and how to get the project open. Recorded and sent to everyone, so you do not have to be there live | ||
| Tue 18 to Sat 22 Aug | Time for doing the cold grade (Grade and Mentor) | Date range |
| Cold grade due (Grade and Mentor) | ||
| Mon 24 to Fri 28 Aug, | The course. Five consecutive days, four hours a day | Date range |
| Re-grade due (Grade and Mentor), briefed at the close of Day 4. This one is not 23:59 PT, on purpose. It is midday in Europe, so you can finish Day 4, sleep, and do it in the morning rather than through the night | ||
| Written feedback delivered, within two weeks of the course | ||
| Mentor 1:1 sessions expire |
is late evening in Europe and the middle of the night further east. That is real, and it is the most common reason someone decides this is not for them. Everyone gets a private recording of their own cohort, so a missed session is not a lost one, but the live room is the product and you should go in knowing the hour.
FAQ
The questions people actually ask before buying a seat.
Do I need DaVinci Resolve Studio, or does the free version work?
No, Studio is not required to take this course and learn from it. Some demonstrations use Studio-only tools, and for those you either watch rather than work along, or work with a watermark on screen. Learning by doing is better than watching, so that is a real cost, and it is not a complete blocker. No homework depends on a Studio feature, and nothing you are taught to do needs plugins or add-ons.
Where a demonstration uses a Studio-only tool it is framed as exactly that: here is what Studio buys you. The method you are taught always stands on its own without it, and it is taught that way on purpose, not adapted afterwards.
Your critique will never mark you down for not having a tool your edition does not include.
And separately: no plugins, no add-ons. Third party tools are shown as alternatives, never as requirements.
What if I cannot attend live?
Then think carefully before buying. The live room is the product: the questions, the answers, the demos steered by what people ask on the day. Every participant gets a private recording of their own cohort, and it is theirs to keep, so a missed session is not lost. But a course you only ever watch back is a worse version of this course, and there is a lot of excellent free material if watching is what you want.
What if I miss a day?
You get the recording of your own cohort, and the Discord community is running the whole week, so you can ask there what you missed. The one thing that does not wait is the re-grade deadline, , which is midday in central Europe, so if you know in advance you will miss Day 4, plan for that.
What experience do I need before I start?
You should be able to find your way around DaVinci Resolve: import media, cut a timeline, move between pages. Color grading itself is taught from zero. This course assumes you have started learning grading and got stuck, not that you already grade well.
How much time per day, including homework?
Four hours live, , five days running. On Grade and Mentor there is the re-grade on the evening of Day 4, which is one night. Before the course, Grade and Mentor grade a scene from a film, cold, any time between orientation and , and it is meant to be done quickly rather than perfected.
What exactly is the written critique, and who gets one?
Grade and Mentor seats. It comes within two weeks of the course, so by Fri 11 September, and it is written by Kaur.
Every critique has the same four parts, in this order: what's working · the one thing costing you most · what to do next · what changed since your cold grade.
Kaur looks at your Resolve project file as well as your render, so the feedback can talk about your node tree and how you got there, not just the picture. There is no score, no mark and no pass. It is available on the Grade and Mentor seats because each critique is written individually by Kaur.
Is there an exam, and what happens if I do not pass?
Yes, on all three seats, on identical terms. The certificate is earned rather than issued for turning up.
It is 60 multiple choice questions, 60 minutes, open book and open software, and you need 85% to pass. You get three attempts, at least 24 hours apart, any time within a month of the course ending. Everything on it is taught during the week. After a failed attempt you are told which questions you got wrong, and not the right answers, so the retake still means something.
It is modelled on Blackmagic's own certification exams deliberately, so the bar is one the industry already recognizes. If you do not pass, you keep everything else: the recording, the Discord, and, on Grade and Mentor, your handouts and your written critique.
What happens after the course ends?
You keep the recording of your own cohort. Grade and Mentor seats keep the handouts. The Discord stays open, and it is meant to be a place people stay rather than a support channel that closes. Grade and Mentor students get their written critique by Fri 11 September. Mentor students can book their 1:1 hour any time up to Fri 27 Nov 2026. Everyone can earn a certificate from PixelTools Academy by passing the exam, and every seat carries a store discount until 26 Nov 2026: 20% off the whole PixelTools store if you booked inside the Early Bird, stepping down to 15% off DCTLs only once Early Bird closes. It's one rate, not two — booking early gets you the higher one.
What is Discord, and do I have to use it?
Discord is a free chat app. It is where the class lives between sessions, in the hours when the session is over and you are actually grading. You do not have to post, and plenty of people will read rather than write, but it is a designed part of the week rather than a bonus, and it is the main thing happening between one session and the next. It is on Discord rather than inside the course platform because that is where people already are and where they stay once the course is over.
Refunds and cancellation
You can cancel for a full refund up to , which is seven days before we begin and the same moment enrolment closes. You do not have to give a reason. After that the seat is no longer refundable, because the course plan and feedback schedule are fixed when enrolment closes.
Missing a session is not a refund case. Every participant gets a private recording of their own cohort and it is yours to keep, which is the answer to a clash you cannot move, though it is worth being straight that watching it back is not the same as being in the room. If the hours do not work for you at all, decide that before 17 August rather than after.
Will my work be shown to other people?
Sessions are recorded and shared with your cohort, and student work may be shown and discussed in class. You agree to that in writing when you enrol, and it is how the Day 1 patterns block and the Day 5 review work at all.
Day 1's look at the cold grades is aggregate and anonymous. Nobody is named. Day 5's re-grade review takes two or three volunteers, from an opt in when you upload, and volunteering means your cold grade goes up next to your re-grade.
The footage itself stays private: you keep it for practice, but you may not publish it, post it, or put your graded version in a public reel. That is a written condition of receiving it.
Is there a payment plan, or pricing in euros?
Prices are in US dollars only. There is no euro price. Your bank converts at checkout, and Shopify shows you an approximate amount in your own currency before you pay.
You may be able to pay in installments. Go through to checkout and choose Shop Pay. If installments are available where you are, they appear there.
How do I join the sessions?
On Zoom. Every session, the orientation call and the open call all run there, and the link comes to you by email. Webcam and microphone are welcome but not required, and there is a chat channel running alongside for questions, which Gedaly is on all week.
Five days, one process. Repeatable, understood, and yours to grow.
Colorist Foundations runs live, Monday 24 to Friday 28 August 2026, .
Early Bird, 20% off every seat, until . Enrolment closes , if there are still seats left. Enrolment closes , if there are still seats left.
Tell me when it opens
Free. One page.
See how a color job actually runs
The job lifecycle sheet maps a color job from first contact to delivery: who hands you what, what you check before you touch a wheel, and where revisions actually come from. It is one page, and it will not teach you to grade. It shows you where grading sits in the job, which is also the fastest way to tell whether these five days are for you, because the course is built on the same map.
It's on its way
Grab it below. It is also on its way to your inbox, and you'll hear from us about the course itself. Didn't get it? Check spam, or write to info@pixeltoolspost.com.
Download the job lifecycle sheet (PDF)