AE, order of finishing

[Bruce Watson]

I'm finishing a vid using Production Premium CS5. Completed edit in PPro, with some graphics from Photoshop and some transitions. Did some minor clean up and sweetening of sound in Soundbooth. Now I need to polish it up a bit in AE.

What I've got left to do is some light color grading (color balance, contrast, etc.), add some simple motion graphics for lower thirds, and a transparent logo for the lower right corner.

I'm thinking I should be doing this in AE, but I've never done any of it before, so what do y'all think? Also, what order? I'm thinking I should do the color grading first (no point in grading over the top of the lower thirds is there?), but I could argue it multiple ways. What do y'all think?

[Paul Cuoco]

You should definitely do your color correction first.

I always do my finishing in the order it would have happened if shot in camera.

1. Fix lighting and exposure balance between shots
2. Add any composited materials or VFX except graphics.
2. Add creative color correction looks or filtration, denoise, noise, etc.
3. Add post sharpening (if needed)
4.Then add graphics over top (otherwise they'll assume the color corrections of your footage)