Request for Color Graders

[I Bloom]

I've been checking out some of the graded stills from the FXGuide image and the offhollywood shoot. I think your work is awesome and I am extremely excited about what can be done with this footage in post.

So my request is: describe what you did to the image to get it to that point. Sometimes I can guess, but I think we learn more if we share our techniques.

IBloom

[Shawn Nelson]

Is there a book or other training material? Sort of a "Color Grading 101" that's software agnostic?

[Joel Kaye]

Is there a book or other training material? Sort of a "Color Grading 101" that's software agnostic?

I've got "Color Correction for Digital Video". Not bad - it's mostly theory and scopes and sample images but shows a little AVID and other apps.

After Effects Professional Studio Techniques compliments it with some pretty good paint by the numbers scene matching information that's universal theory.

I'm kinda thinking AE may be a pretty good grading solution. It's got 32bit, a zillion plugins, 8 core aware, quicktime display acceleration, any mask you want. It's not real time... but in Stu's DV Rebel's Guide he makes a convincing argument you can get feature film quality out.

[John Hudson]

I tend to eye ball

Contrast, saturation

Color Grading seems to come natural for me.

[Shawn Nelson]

How good is the new Apple Color? Are there any training material specific to that?

[Joel Kaye]

How good is the new Apple Color? Are there any training material specific to that?

Potentially great, but I keep hearing serious bug and workflow problems. Like so bad you wouldn't use it.You would sure think training would be out there in spades for that.

I think the more esoteric stuff is a little more like Photoshop manipulation. Different blurs, diffusions, defocus, secondary manipulation, power masks, skin effects, selective sharpening and layering - ALL IN MOTION.

Combine all that and you start getting the really good stuff. Maybe Photoshop books are the place to look for that part of the equation. Then translate it to your app.

[Shawn Nelson]

Potentially great, but I keep hearing serious bug and workflow problems. Like so bad you wouldn't use it.You would sure think training would be out there in spades for that.


Seriously?? I thought Apple took an already winning CC tool, fixed some bugs and released it.

[Nook Kim]

Hi Shawn,

From my tiny experience with Color (about 2 months), I don't have anything
to complain about it, yet. Keep in mind though, I haven't used any other
color grading tool that only does grading. Prior to Color, all I did was using
either FCP or Shake. FCP, in my opinion, handles color information fairly well,
and Shake is very time consuming, but I could get the results that I wanted.
I look at Color as these two combined, plus it is very intuitive.

There are few bugs that people have been complaining about, but once I got
to know the workarounds, I think Color is a very powerful tool, especially for
the price tag.

Hope this helps.

PS. Just like FCP, Color converts any format you throw at it to Y'CbCr 4:4:4
space according to Graeme. I'm just waiting for Color to handle above 2K
resolution in the future upgrades. For now, I don't need the 4K capability, but
I'd like to have that option for the future.

[Joel Kaye]

Seriously?? I thought Apple took an already winning CC tool, fixed some bugs and released it.

I think the "fixed the bugs" part is what didn't happen. I got pretty good demo at NAB and I was pretty excited about it. A friend of mine has the 8-Core Mac and is telling me Color is currently a lot of trouble for him. Partly, it's an integration issue. Like the round trip to/from FCP is a hassle. That's 2nd hand info.

The other report I got is his 8 core is less stable than his previous Mac - which was VERY rock solid. He's hoping the next OS addresses it.

Mike Curtis does cover Color in his blog at hdforindies.com - check that out.

[Nook Kim]

Seriously?? I thought Apple took an already winning CC tool, fixed some bugs and released it.

I think some problems came along as Apple was "fixing" Final Touch to work
with other FCS software. They are working on the bugs, and I don't really
have any serious problems with Color, yet. Some people say Color can't even
handle anything longer than 30 minutes, but I've done a project that was longer
than that. IMHO, some people haven't got used to managing the file folders,
which makes all those missing files happen.

I am just about to start a feature on Color. I will let you know how it goes if
you'd like to hear.

Just one thing, if longer project will be a problem, I could always cut the
project up in portions and combine them back. Workarounds, workarounds..

[Kjetil Haugen]

Not so much about color grading as they are about the softwares but here are a few links with videos explaining Lustre and Pablo. Some might find them interesting... I don't know...

http://www.quantel.com/site/en.nsf/html/conceptvideo?OpenDocument
http://www.autodesk.com/us/lustre/tutorial-2007-01-23/
http://download.autodesk.com/us/lustre/getting_started/index.html

[Cail Young]

They are working on the bugs, and I don't really
have any serious problems with Color, yet.

If you look in the Workflow forum there's a sticky detailing some problems. Most of them relate to Color's DPX conforming code, which is very picky with its EDL formatting.

[RPMpost]

Is there a book or other training material? Sort of a "Color Grading 101" that's software agnostic?

Shawn,

We offer exactly that ... 'COLOR 101 Training' but it's based on Apple's FCP and COLOR software ... COLOR is a lot more robust than 'Final Touch' used to be and Apple will soon be issuing an upgrade that handles RedCine.

If you want to learn the fundamentals of film grading, suggest you start with what ever software tools are available to you ... for a $499 upgrade to Final Cut Studio 2 you get a pretty powerful $25k color grading application for FREE! ... many basic color correction techniques are transferable from one application to another.

We grade movies in both Apple COLOR and Assimilate SCRATCH ... both are great tools and both handle RED footage well .... we can show both in action if you're interested.

One of the most important parts of learning the 'Art of Coloring' is working in a professionally calibrated environment ... an environment where you are seeing colors correctly and understand how the color space and tools you're using map onto to the creative changes you're trying to make.

The other important thing to understand is the difference between transmissive light (LCD and CRT) and reflective light (projector and screen) and the restrictions of the color gamut you're grading in (Rec. 709). Most professional grading takes place in a 2k DLP projector environment at the moment and until RED comes out with their 4k REDjector this will continue for a while.

We run 'COLOR 101' once a month and start with the basics and go through a typical film DI workflow ... we have a Barco 2k DLP projector and a 20 foot DI screen in a professional grading theater ... if you want to learn the fundamentals of color grading at the same time as experiencing how a professional colorist operates, check out our website for details.

We based in West Hollywood on the old Warner Bros. movie lot ... fun place to visit.

Regards,
Neil Smith
VP, Workflow and Technology
RPMpost
Red Post Masters
www.rpmpost.com

[Noah Kadner]

Color is bleeding edge but in trained hands it can equal the highest end digital color correction suites out there. We do a training DVD (http://www.callboxlive.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=30) for it that would be a help if you want to get started quick.

-Noah

[Zach Nelson]

I just picked up "Color and Mastering for Digital Cinema" .. I'm only on chapter 2 though, so far so good.

[Chris Nuzzaco]

I've always just used After Effects, its great, but it certainly has some work flow issues though.

[GlennChan]

Some resources:
Kevin Shaws website
finalcolor.com

Steve Shaws website
digitalpraxis.net

fxphd.com - The Lustre course was very good, especially the ones with Jeff Olm at the end. The courses are not free but way better value than film school.

[Andrew Benz]

Thanks Glenn and everyone else for the info...

[Michele Gavazzeni]

Color Works Fine Most Of The Bugs Reported Are Noting Else But User Errors...

[RPMpost]

Color Works Fine Most Of The Bugs Reported Are Nothing Else But User Errors...

We tend to agree, Michele ... we've graded many movies and shorts using Final Touch/COLOR and as long as you set things up correctly in FCP you can generally get in and out without too much trouble.

There are a couple of gotchas which you have to be wary of, but in general, COLOR is now pretty stable and has some great functionality and for $499 (FCS2 Upgrade) represents amazing value for money.

RED FCP users will be pleasantly surprised once FCP can handle R3D files .... there is a bit of learning curve with COLOR but the results are worth it especially for a 2k QT workflow.

Once there's a few more RED shooters out there we'll offer a specific FCP/RED/COLOR Training course .... see our web site for details.

Cheers,
Neil
RPMpost
Red Post Masters
www.rpmpost.com

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I've found the biggest issues with color are speed... It's somewhat of a dog and a handful of annoying little workflow quirks that can usually be worked around or just accepted as part of the package. I wouldn't want to grade an entire feature in Color until Apple gives a serious update. But for shorts or ad spots or smaller things, Color looks like it will be great. I haven't actually used Color for a real project yet, but have played with it off and on. It performs just fine for me with DVCPROHD 720p footage from the HVX. I'm really hoping we get an update for Color and Motion to support 4K / REDCODE internally as FCP will. I know it will happen eventually, but I'm really hoping for sometime in the near future like end of this year or by the time MacWorld rolls around in January. I'm also hoping for menu authoring and proper 1080p support to be added to DVDSP's HD-DVD capabilities as well as full Blu-Ray authoring. I'm really hoping to be shooting REDCODE 4K, editing in 4K via 2K proxy and delivering on Blu-Ray early next year. ...And I still can't believe this is all going to be possible this soon.

[Nick Shaw]

My impression from what Graeme said to me at IBC was that for the moment FCS integration was via the Quicktime proxies, which are currently not full quality, but rather a quick debayer for editorial. If you are grading in Color, you would not want to use those, but rather transcode to something else like ProRes or uncompressed.

He did say though that he expected in the future to develop a high quality Quicktime codec (supporting 4k I hope) that could be used to take the by-reference QTs into other apps like Shake, and I assume Color.

Graeme please correct me if I've mis-quoted you.

[Hans von Sonntag]

Color is cheap. Very cheap, threatening cheap. And not bad at all.

I've been a long time FinalTouch user and found the interface then and now kind of akward, others like SpeedGrade (haven't had my hands on Scratch yet) are much more sexy. Though Color is very powerfull and not as buggy as often said... For the money a nobrainer and for any REDuser on budget a must.

I would recommend learning colour correction with Color and later if the budget increases get some more sexy app. like Scratch or SpeedGrade. But then Color might have a new interface, can work with RAW and is as sex as its competitors...

Hans

[Antoine Baumann]

Not so much about color grading as they are about the softwares but here are a few links with videos explaining Lustre and Pablo. Some might find them interesting... I don't know...

Pablo, Lustre, DaVinci, Baselight, etc.. are very powerfull color grading tools, but it is really not the same ballparks as Color, in term of price and power. These are bundeld with hardware that are very powerfull and very expensive.
Then you have solution like Scratch and Speedgrade that are not bundeld with hardware but that obviously need some, but are cheaper solution (in term of price) than the others.
Final Touch was a bit like Scratch or Speedgrade, but not quite as good IMHO, you would still need some good Mac hardware to go with it.

I think the difference that will stay is the support. You will get great support from Assimilate and all high end manufacturer, but not from Apple, and that is so important for lots of post house, labs, etc...

PS: I aggree "Color and Mastering for Digital Cinema" from Glenn Kennel is a very good book.

antoine.

[Nik Manning]

If you want to color grade get after effects and that stu book. This is my image graded. I used photoshop but could have been done in after effects. Day for night.
http://aycu40.webshots.com/image/27799/2003505066940906896_fs.jpg
http://aycu15.webshots.com/image/28574/2003524400853930314_fs.jpg

I recommend after effects cause then you can put in stuff like stars, clouds, and moon. I even dropped a barn in the background (top left).

The key is don't think that you can do it all in one pass. One pass for everything. So if your color grading a close up. One mask for face one for eyes and one for hair and one for background. And then an overall color grade. Actually pretty simple I like it alot better than editing. Plus Colorists are half magician so who can pass that up. :)

[Brandon Rice]

Honestly, for my color grading I use the simple Avid CC tool, and it works fine. saturation, and curves is all I need...

[Nik Manning]

Honestly, for my color grading I use the simple Avid CC tool, and it works fine. saturation, and curves is all I need...

This is what I am talking about to take our videos up a notch. (http://www.siliconcolor.com/support/tutorials/user_shapes/index.html)