Graded or ungraded - that`s the question.

Hi there, i have a question.
Would you rather upload ungraded, "normal" looking footage in REC.709 Gamma 2.4 or is grading something people are looking for?
I just graded some footage to make it a little more cinematic looking but i realised, once the blueish look is baked in, it`s allready baked into the file. However, if you don`t grade it, customers may still attach their own style to it making it more suitable for their projects.
Any experiences or A/B tests?

I tried that years ago. Uploaded ungraded footage and the same graded.
Ungraded never sold or in one case did sell and I happened to see it in a YouTube video.
It was still ungraded. Which tells me that most buyers don’t have the time or know how to properly grade footage.
Or just lazy.

So I grade all my footage for color correct and slight contrast. Don’t go overboard on it with cinematic looks because that’s just as bad.

If someone is looking at clips to buy and it’s up to yours which is ungraded and flat and another that’s graded and vibrant.
Their eye will go to the vibrant one.
Same with stock photos. I’ve never seen flat photos being sold. Why do that with videos?

Pond5 sez here among other stuff:
https://contributor.pond5.com/getting-started/preparing-your-files-2/footage/


General Guidelines

Moderate color correction and effects are okay; however, please remember that many buyers will color correct or otherwise modify the look of the footage after purchase, and will therefore desire a high-quality, minimally manipulated, or RAW image to work with. We will evaluate videos with filters applied on a case-by-case basis.