After nearly thirty years of crop marks and keyframes I came to realize that I’ve never tackled color grading cuisine. This struck me as odd since I’m such a foodie like the rest of my family. My favorite sushi restaurant, Irashiai, is just a short walk from my front door. My sister and I just had lunch there earlier this week. Their sushi chefs pride themselves on presentation as much as their bold blend of umami richness in every delicious dish they deliver to our table. I keep an ongoing photo library of each of my visits there.
Color grading these four shots was more challenging than I’d imagined. It’s been a gentle balancing act between retaining and gently sharpening texture details and highlights while pushing the sushi’s saturation a smidge richer hoping to tantalize the viewer’s tastebuds. During the process I also removed some harsh black one pixel outlines that were introduced around the highlights during the sharpening processes. Once I removed the inherent haze I paid close attention to giving the reflections on the table some love, too, by bending them towards more golden hues. I used Affinity Photo for all corrections.
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