Teal and orange
A movie-style color grade that warms skin and highlights toward orange while cooling shadows and backgrounds toward teal.
See it
What it is
Teal and orange is a complementary color grade that steers skin and other warm highlights toward orange while moving shadows and backgrounds toward teal or cyan. The hues sit across from each other on the color wheel, so the split creates quick subject-background separation and the polished action-movie look associated with 2000s blockbusters such as Michael Bay's Transformers.
Reach for it when warm skin, fire, wood, or sunset light needs to stand against a cool environment. Build the contrast from the colors already in the frame, then protect neutral whites and believable skin instead of pouring the same two colors over everything.
Gotcha: teal and orange is easy to recognize because it is easy to overdo. Cyan blacks, radioactive tans, and colorless clothing make the grade feel like a preset. Separate the subject first, keep saturation controlled, and leave some colors outside the pair.
Ask AI for it
Create a restrained teal-and-orange grade in DaVinci Resolve with the Color Warper: move deep shadows slightly toward teal, keep neutral blacks intact, and push warm highlights gently toward amber. Use a qualifier to protect natural skin tones on the vectorscope skin-tone line, preserve white objects, and avoid cyan contamination in faces.