I mentioned earlier that I always color grade my footage these days (guide here). I usually use ‘Brightness and Contrast’ controls, the Color Corrector 3-way wheel, Magic Bullet Movie Looks and occasionally the freeware Aav6cc plugin for Sony Vegas. I don’t use “Curves” that much. Here’s how some dull and unremarkable footage looks before and how it’s transformed afterwards.

Here’s the finalized color-graded video.