washed out

[egproductions]

What is the reasoning for the muddy look of the non CCed footage and grabs. Is it because there is so much detail in the shadows?

[Graeme Nattress]

That's just what RAW looks like - undersaturated and pasty, due to the large dynamic range and colour gamut.

Graeme

[Jason Murphy]

This has been gone over a few times in other threads. Perhaps one of the best posts on this was made by Stu Maschwitz, in which he says (and I quote only part):


...Of course, some people will be looking at the first RED One images off the line and hoping that they "look good." But that should not be the case unless the images have been color corrected (http://prolost.blogspot.com/2007/07/todays-color-beforeafter.html). While RED Alert has some color correction controls, it's not a color grading station, and the ideal RED One workflow would most certainly not be to make permanent color decisions early in the process.

Remember that an image that shows a broad dynamic range will look flat and low-contrast. An image that shows good highlight handling will probably appear underexposed. And an image that shows good color fidelity will appear to have very low color saturation! I urge new RED One users to learn to love underexposed, low-con, low-saturation images as they come off your camera, for they contain the broadest range of creative possibilities for you later.

Think that pretty much sums things up.

Edit: Looks like Graeme beat me to the punch.

[Graeme Nattress]

Graeme - no "H".

Graeme

[jbeale]

If anyone is putting together a FAQ on these subjects, I think a very useful entry would be to describe the difference between "color correction" which many people are familiar with, and "color grading" which is less familiar to a lot of folks. There is a wikipedia entry on the topic but I'm not sure if that's the best description. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_grading

One thing you may have seen, on a DVD with "deleted scenes" you sometimes see a out-take scene that was never color corrected / graded and it just looks amazingly flat, washed out and even dreary when compared with colors and contrast in the regular movie.

[egproductions]

This is what I pretty much figured, thanks for the quick response.
I actually think it is a good thing. It forces you to look at the video as a blank canvas, instead of just excepting what the camera gives you.