Grading tutorial using Premiere and AE CS6 exclusively - or is that even workable?

[Shian Storm]

@Mike thanks. I've been a member for a few years, since I first shot on the M-X and had problems with that ver. of the firmware. Since then I've just been a casual observer, keeping up with the latest talk, but not participating much. But now that there are a growing number of RED users hopping on the CGT bandwagon, I thought I'd at least give you guys some access to it's creator if you have questions.

@Les The tracker in CS6 seems super fast, but it's hard to tell because it may just be all the RAM I added. For quick power window grades to fix skin tone on a face, SpeedGrade is excellent, the only problem is SG is really only good for masking, secondaries, and tech passes. It lacks any kind of curves adjustments. And, as of yet, no round tripping, no AAF or XML export.

I do all my secondary CC in SpeedGrade which is super fast for that, export the LUTs, import it into AE, apply them where needed. Do the rest of my complex grades with ColorGHear at 32bit, export 444 linear off, and get stunning results.

The tracker in Resolve is excellent. And at 1080p its totally free. But it'll cost you $999 for 4k.

And no, I don't really have a comprehensive description. I've been busy working on the Film School Tutorials and never got around to putting one together, the walkthrough (primer) videos pretty much cover it. In short, it is a layer/node based system, it has ColorFist which is replacement for Colorista, a 3-way color correcter, GHears to fix DSLR artifacting, noise, and chroma skew, and over 65 GHears that can be used individually, or combined to create any look you desire. Everything else about the system is incorporated through AE's own state-of-art infrastructure.- Tracking, Masks, and I've customized AE's NR...

Primer part 1
https://vimeo.com/34078225

Primer part 2
https://vimeo.com/34105381

Together it's over an hour of video... I will try, when I'm not shooting on a project, to put together something more concise, and something in PDF form that details the system.

For now, there's a thread over at the GH2 hack forum that covers things from when I first made it available in January, until now.
http://www.personal-view.com/talks/d...stem-for-ae/p1

Here's a test I did on hacked GH2 footage. If it can do this to 4:2:0 DSLR footage, imagine what it can do for 444 R3D footage.

[Rob Ruffo]

Yes, I've heard the RedGiant tools really slow you down - I don't think they are accelerated.

I agree that it is not ideal at all to denoise at a later stage, and especially at 1080p output from Resolve.

Have you looked at the video tutorials from Presynkt? http://www.presynkt.com/blog/ also look on their vimeo channel for newer videos https://vimeo.com/presynkt

He's outputting 1080p from Resolve, and then de-noisiing with NeatVideo.

Not ideal, but ... his work looks very good, and his tutorial workflows on R3D/Resolve are GREAT!!

Maybe 'not ideal' is good enough for most web useage?


Agreed! The only thing getting in the way of me using Resolve is this one single issue.

With that issue 'resolved', I could edit in Premiere, and send the R3D's to Resolve - and do final render in AE from either 1080p or 4K (depending on the version) image sequence from Resolve.

What we need to do is start emailing BlackMagic to add OFX OpenFX support to Resolve.

We could have a NeatVideo node on either Windows or Mac as the very first node- and OFX would open up other pllug-ins that are used by compositing tools like Nuke and Fusion.

I'd certainly be willing to pay BlackMagic for this.

What if they had an intermediate version for $500 that had OFX and maybe 3K render output (their free version will already work with 4K R3D's).

It's not the GPU acceleration issue, it's that the interface is extremely slow and much less immediately inter-active in comparison to Resolve with a surface. Easily 10X slower, maybe more.

Plugin architecture within Resolve is something I indeed dream of.

[Bob Gruen]

As far as NeatVideo, Adobe seems to have implemented a similar de-noiser in After Effects / CS5.5. I have been using it on a boosted underexposed shot and it does a very good job...

Bob

[Les C.]

As the creator of ColorGHear I will tell you this. What ColorGHear does; is turn AE into Resolve. If you are experienced using AE, you know that to do complicated grading in AE you spend a lot of time piling effects on top of each other, saving presets, recalling them, modifying them, sometimes even using effects that either cancel out an effect you used earlier, or twisting the image in a bad way unintentionally. As an experienced Colorist, and rabid AE user, I have taken all the guess work out of it for you, and created a system that makes grading, quick, easy, VERY Powerful and flexible. The Presets I have created work as nodes, like they would in Resolve. They cover any and every look you could ever want to create, and can be combined to create other looks.

I created ColorGHear Toolkit (CGT) over the span of 6 years working as a colorist where I had Davinci at work, and AE at home, When I left my job to go freelance I used AE exclusively with a very primitive version of CGT, and when I tried to teach a friend how to use it, I realized it had to be simplified, so in the process of doing so, and teaching him, CGT was born. He picked it up in no time flat, and was blown away by what he could now do to all his footage.

It works on everything. I've used it on R3D as well as F900, DSLR, HVX, and 35mm. It works the same across the board. It does have some features that are designed to help clean up DSLR compressed footage, but those are just a small part of the toolkit. And those tools can help clean up RED footage as well.

I use it exclusively for all my work. I employ the theory behind it when in grading sessions for TV and Film, and sometimes I even have to lean over the console when as a DP I'm watching someone else get stuck on a grade, and I have to apply a trick I learned using CGT and AE to NuCoda, Baselight or Davinci. And they look at me like I'm from Mars when they see the results.

It's not just a toolkit, it's a system. A way of thinking that can be applied to all grading systems, and you'll pick up through the tutorials on the site. It's the best $50 you'll ever spend.

Coming soon - CGT will have a series of SpeedGrade GHears via CS6's ability to import LUTs created in SpeedGrade, which will give you better secondary CC control than when using ColorFinesse. And faster!

Shian - your tools look interesting!

I haven't had time to fully go thru your videos, but it looks like your 'nodes' don't have a nodal GUI interface.

Have I missed something?

As you mention turning AE into Resolve, do you have tutorials showing the same kind of tracking that Resolve has (and how do the AE trackers compare to Resolve - and is it necessary to upgrade them (are they supplied by Mocha)? )

I get the impression that, besides the great presets you offer, a major component of your product is the tutorials where you share your knowledge on grading - having used both Resolve and SpeedGrade over many years.

Could you post some of your work history?

Also, not sure of the date when your post was made, so this may have changed, but I think you said your current workflow involves an initial grade in SpeedGrade, and then importing the 'look' into AE - and then using your tools.

Is that still your workflow?

Can you bring in a 'look' from Resolve in the same way you can from SpeedGrade?

As far as NeatVideo, Adobe seems to have implemented a similar de-noiser in After Effects / CS5.5. I have been using it on a boosted underexposed shot and it does a very good job...

Bob

Adobe may have a de-noiser, but NeatVideo is still pretty much the standard - at least until I see some side by side comparisons run by people who fully understand both.

Actually, that would be very useful - and I'd really like to see both NeatVideo and Adobe have a go at it!!!

[Shian Storm]

@Les no they work within AE layers, so it's not a true nodal interface. They accomplish the same thing, but through a different means. If the plug-in really takes off, and I can hire the programmers necessary to create an actual nodal interface, I will. Which was my original intention, but I lacked the programming skill to do so.

As far as the tracker goes, No, I haven't really changed the way AE works, I've only cut right the heart of AE's color engine. I've really just made grading in AE a LOT easier. And I've tweaked the settings on AE's NR module to make it more effective on CMOS sensor footage. I call it GHrain Killer. Those who have used Neat Video have said that GHrain Killer is very comparable to NV, but renders faster. I personally think NV is the standard, it does an amazing job! But GHrain Killer can be used to do some things that NV can't, like smooth out skin detail - kind of like applying a mist or soft filter in post.

here's my imdb - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0832549/
Which has a few of my freelance color credits
I worked as a Restoration Artist and Colorist at Lowry Digital for 3 years before going freelnace (now Reliance Mediaworks http://www.reliancemediaworks.com) and worked on way too many films to list.

As for the importing into AE from resolve, no. the great thing about Adobe is the interactivity of their programs, and with the new creative cloud option I pay $30 bucks a month and I get the entire Creative Suite, so I edit in FCP7, export XML, import XML into AE, identify which clips need secondary work, do the secondary work in SpeedGrade, import those LUTs into AE, and grade in AE then export from there.

If I were more familiar with Premiere Pro, I would edit in PP, import that edit into AE...and the rest would be the same.

I am currently working on versions of ColorGHear for both Premiere Pro and Resolve and they should be ready by the end of summer.

Hope that answers your questions.

[Uli Plank]

Hi Shian,

great you chimed in, I like your work, so I pointed the OP to it here, but couldn't have it explained like you do!

[Noel R.]

I agree. So what is the benefit of using Speedgrade vs. DaVinci? I shoot a lot of music videos applying effects like time re-mapping and others, and if that can't transfer those effects directly to Speedgrade, why not just use DaVinci? The workflow sucks but Speedgrade doesn't seem to offer a huge improvement other than the send to option, which to me just means your are only skipping exporting and importing an XML file.

The problem is that, to work with SpeedGrade using R3D's, you have to do your edits in Premiere, then send the R3D's to SpeedGrade.

You can't apply any effects in Premiere that get past onto the R3D's sent to SpeedGrade.

Coming out of SpeedGrade, it's no longer R3D.

To me, this is a major issue.

I might as well use Resolve, which is more powerful with nodes, pretty much the same workflow - and a bit more battle tested (I read about blue screen issues with SpeedGrade)

[Les C.]

If anyone else also desires OFX NeatVideo (and other OFX plug-ins) support in Resolve, you might email:

support-usa@blackmagic-design.com

would be nice if they had a forum for Resolve also.

[Shian Storm]

So I'm not hijacking this thread, I've created another one to specifically handle all things ColorGHear.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthr...-After-Effects

[Peter Chamberlain]

Like this one

http://reduser.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?62-DaVinci