Quicktime Gamma Correction

[P Andersson]

If you have a Mac and have FCP2 with the QT pref Color Compatibility checked, you can download the movie and see what it should look like.

Jim

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/251_1193890359.png

on my system the quicktime movies look different depending on the browser, safari keeps the gamma in the lighter look, firefox keeps em darker,

turning the qt pref on or off only changes the quicktime loaded outside of the browser

my screen is calibrated to 2.2 gamma (this comment is to show the different behavior of the QT preference in and out of browsers, see below for the comments on working in FCP and more)

[P Andersson]

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/251_1193890796.png

qt pref off

[Jarred Land]

this is very important... not only the gamma check box in Studio 2's version of quicktime player, but the fact that he has a calibrated monitor at Gamma 2.2 .. I highly recommend people follow.

[Andrew M.]

This is exactly what I have noticed before, one have to follow the settings through the whole pipe. The best would be if the original poster of the material will give us some indications of what he thinks the best setting is to be used.

[Fergus Meiklejohn]

this is very important... not only the gamma check box in Studio 2's version of quicktime player, but the fact that he has a calibrated monitor at Gamma 2.2 .. I highly recommend people follow.

sorry I'm being slow..:bye2:

Could you list please exactly what should we do? Should the monitor be set to gamma 2.2 or 1.8? AFAIK FCP requires 1.8 (drives me insane with fear and loathing..:) )

Thanks very much..

[Michele Gavazzeni]

from the FCP user manual you should be in 1.8

BTW using an external brodcast monitor is the way to go! not joust an option.
Never trust colors on a computer monitor!

[Rocco Schult]

second that.

Apple assumes you have an 1.8 gamma, hence the implemented shift.
Unfortunately applications make irregular use of the feature. So you never know what happens without try and error. SDI I/Os should be fine.
The processing within (shake in/out and AE in/out) together with a FCP/FCS pipeline is terrible. Some take the gamma in, some out... crap.

[Michele Gavazzeni]

The processing within (shake in/out and AE in/out) together with a FCP/FCS pipeline is terrible. Some take the gamma in, some out... crap.


rad this! should be interesting you
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93794

solved my problems in both Shake & AE

[Blair S. Paulsen]

rad this! should be interesting you
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93794

solved my problems in both Shake & AE

Thanks for the link. Sure is annoying to have to deal with this issue. As much as I love Macs and FCP I just want to scream "please give us one gamma to rule them all" and it seems 2.2 would be the solution. Just sayin'...

[Jarred Land]

Thanks for the link. Sure is annoying to have to deal with this issue. As much as I love Macs and FCP I just want to scream "please give us one gamma to rule them all" and it seems 2.2 would be the solution. Just sayin'...

Trust me.. if Apple would give up the ghost and change to 2.2, there would be world peace.

I just hate those things that just make so much sense but most likely will never happen.

[Mark L. Pederson]

Trust me.. if Apple would give up the ghost and change to 2.2, there would be world peace.


I am willing to bet we'll all have iPhone watches with holographic 3D iChat ... and still have gamma issues -

[P Andersson]

expanded the above test with a bunch of applications with two separate gammas on the monitor and with quicktime preference on or off

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/251_1195169931.jpg

it is fascinating how differently all the applications react, the next step was to try to find the settings that made the image look the most similar

http://www.reduser.net/forum/uploaded/251_1195169959.jpg

this test is done importing jim's quicktime h264 file and would look different on other codecs

safari on leopard adjusted itself just like photoshop does depending on what profile the monitor is set to

[P Andersson]

Rami suggests this solution -- found here:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=22636
Thanks for the in depth research.


Ok everyone, I’ll try to expose here what I understand about gamma issues in Quicktime. Don’t know if what I do is correct so please feel free to tell me if you think I’m wrong.

1- Everybody seems to agree that when you work on Mac you should calibrate your monitor and set gamma to 2.2.

Once you’ve done that, the monitor of your Mac has the same gamma setting as a PC so you can safely grade your Red footage knowing that it’ll look the same on a PC as it does on your Mac. But…

2- There’s another gamma issue. When you export your Red footage (In RedAlert for example from R3D to Apple ProRes 422 HQ). What you grade in RedAlert and looks good to your eyes becomes suddenly completely washed out in Quicktime.
Solution seems to be that if you have a Mac and have FCP2, then check the QT pref Color Compatibility so you can see what it should look like.
It works fine but then it’s only a way to see it right on your Mac. Your file will still look washed out on a PC or a Mac without FCP2…

3- I read a lot about this. I’ve tried many things. And I’ve found that:

- In RedAlert when you export your R3D file to a Quicktime File with QT codec set to “None” then you get a file with no gamma issue! It means that your file looks the same whatever you check the QT pref Color Compatibility or not. Gamma won’t change. Best of all you can export your file to whatever you want (Apple ProRes 422 HQ for example) and your file will still look good. Gamma won’t change even if you you check the QT pref Color Compatibility or not.
Question is why can’t we do it directly from RedAlert?

- If you exported your R3D file to a Quicktime File and have this Gamma problem you still can get rid of that issue. How? Well, you’ll have to export your file (command E).
Then click Options… Check Settings and Size so that your file remains the same.
Click on Filter > Settings > ColorSync
Go to “Source Profile” and select your Calibrated Monitor’s name (for example “Display Monitor Calibrated”) which Gamma setting is 2.2.
Then go to “Destination Profile” and select your Native Monitor’s name (for example “Display Monitor”) which Gamma setting is 1.8.
Now you can export your file.
What you’ll get is a file (same size and settings) with no Gamma issue. Gamma won’t change even if you you check the QT pref Color Compatibility or not. Your File will look good as well on your Mac or your PC.

That’s it.

Rami

P.S: Sorry for my bad English I’m French.

[AIO Films]

What is this sticky offering?

Maybe I am too slow, I still don't get it. What is the proper way/settings to see a QuickTime movie generated from RED footage on a Mac? Can people in the know hold our hands and show us a step by step solution.

Please assume some of us as really entry level RED users with minimal digital imaging background. We need very structured guide book to deal with most RED issues.

Give you another example, the camera User Guide for Build 17 says we can map the 5 user keys on the camera body, LCD and viewfinder. But I don't even know which 5 physical buttons the Guide is referring to.

Please help, thank you.

[Nook Kim]

I wish someone from Red could give us a little conclusion on this. Everytime I hit this problem, I get confused. I come here, and all I find is people.. confused. :sick:

PS. Actually, my post should be directed to Apple. Sorry, Red.

[P Andersson]

perhaps there is a better future


From the Snow Leopard seed notes (10a190) :

Default Gamma Changes
To better meet the needs of digital content producers and consumers, the default display gamma has been changed from 1.8 to 2.2 in Snow Leopard. Applications that override the deftault and assume a gamma 1.8 setting may have different onscreen and printed output than they did in previous releases of Mac OS X. Please report any visual differences that you encounter.

found here :
http://news.worldofapple.com/archives/2008/10/25/latest-snow-leopard-build-10a190-now-available-seed-notes/

perhaps this is an intermediary fix for the h264 movies from chris and trish meyer at PVC
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/cmg_blogs/story/brightness_issues_with_h264_quicktime_movies/P0/

[fde101]

Are those "seed notes" under NDA?

As nice as that sounds, you may not have been legal in posting that here... this is a publicly viewable forum...