Exactly! With these two powerful modules you can already achieve a lot.
Let’s start with “Clean & Classic” look:
https://shop.signatureedits.com/clean-and-classic
Since we don’t know how they did it, let’s analyze this style a bit.
As it looks, green colors contain a bit more yellow content, blues are greener and warm colors (red to yellow) are a bit more brown.
We will try to reproduce that. Note that the aim here is not to copy the style completely, but to create the basis for development of own style.
We now need a photo where all colors are present. It is also very important that - before we dare to color grade - white balance has been done so that there are no color shifts.
This is how the photo looks, and it is ready for color grading:
For the first part we will use channel mixer in the color calibration module. Since we are now dealing with the aesthetics of the photo, we will move a new instance of color calibration module above the filmic and in the CAT tab we select CAT16(CIECAM16) as illuminant adaptation.
Since in “C&C” style blue is more greenish we go to G tab (green color channel) and move a part of blue to green (input blue) and at the same time we decrease the green part (input green) so that the photo does not get a green cast:
You can see how blue has changed and how in the same time the yellow color have moved towards orange.
We will now increase the yellow part of the green and orange and for this we will go to the B tab and move the green part (input green) of the blue channel to yellow and the red part (Input red) to blue:
Now the green is a little more yellowish and the orange color is not so reddish.
Green and blue is already very similar to the “C&C” style and in the next step we need to make warmer colors a little more brownish.
For this you have several options, I will use here color balance module. We activate color balance module and move it above color calibration module:
Since we want to change only warm colors, we use parametric mask (hue value) and change the colors in the middle gray and highlights area until the warmer colors become more brownish:
With this we have imitated the color mood from the “C&C” style. I will now enhance contrast with a new instance of color balance and the processing is done:
We can now save the settings we made in color calibration and color balance modules as presets and/or make a style out of them in history and apply it to other photos.
Here are a few examples:
It is very important to know that these presets and styles still need to be adjusted when you apply them to other photos and that not every photo is suitable, but they can also serve as a foundation for new styles.
I highly recommend playing with them.
Since the work on this post has taken a long time, the other two styles that @person101x has mentioned I will soon make in new posts.