color correction?

[JFUNK]

Ive mainly used color correction in final cut pro. With the Red camera, some people are suggesting using outside color correction programs.. is this necessary, or will FCP be fine?
what are the advantages to an outside color correction system, and what do you recommend??

Also, with the LUT's for the RED, how do these work, and do they work within FCP, or is this through Red Cine or another program?

[wlaroussi]

Hi ,

Before putting a complete "tutorial" on how to use color correction , i'll just give some basic things :
- If it's an Hd shot in good conditions for broadcast TV , Then FCP with AE will do the job (except if you have 90 min film) . I guess that you have always done before .

- Now with red one using 2K/4K , a preliminary test is the first step to do and many on that forum are waiting for the results . Grading will allow you to group similar shots and aplly them the same color correction (for the primaries ) then fine tune up with the secondaries . Many NLE and compositing softwares can do the job but they are slow and not specialized for these tasks . Here the ones i know :
- Iridas speedgrade (about 10 K$) fast easy with no extra hardware and gives valuable results (is it used by Arri) .
- Autodesk Lustre (better to rent it) It's about 150 K and not so easy . However you may edit and grade an uncopmressed 4K so fast .
- A new version of Cinespace 2.5 (price ???) but it's can be interfaced with popular softwares like shake , nuke and digital fusion . It's also calibrates luts and monitor colors for windows , linux and mac for the same shots .
- Premiere pro 2 with color finesse (if you have cineform prospect HD or 2K) .

Grading is not like conventionnal "color correction" it follows a logical and organized pipelined tasks .

That's all what i know . Hope somebody else will give you more .

Regards .

[Bruce Allen]

JFUNK, the problem is that FCP's color correction tools are basic. It is very frustrating to do power windows, for one thing.

The idea is that if you're spending $40,000 on a camera package, storage, etc, you might as well spend a bit of effort on making the footage look good. Also, RED is specifically designed to give footage that is nicely malleable with more advanced color correction tools.

If you don't do a good CC, there's a distinct chance your Red footage won't look as succulent to the average viewer as the footage from someone shooting on a $5000 HDV camera but doing a real CC session.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[wlaroussi]

Hi ,

What you get in that post is the software list . The hardware one may be more or less expensive . Now since color grading software are using sequence files (no AVI or quick time) , so is very important to know the size of the transcoded footages by redcine . some softwares like lustre use only uncompressed files . At the end no recomended configuration or techniques can be suggested at the moment (the upcoming configuration will depend on speed , wich it's self depends on the size of transcoded files ) . You may keep you FCP/AE configuration until the results are shown . Another point if you have a poor grahic card (an nvidia fx Quadro is the strict minimuml) , a slow firwire sata storge and a cheap HTDV monitor , so don't expect something good even with the most expensive softwares .

Regards

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Jumping back to RED and LUTs, I know that there will be some predefined LUTs for common color spaces that can be applied in REDCINE when processing REDCODE RAW to REDCODE RGB or other desired format. But since now (apparently) we'll be able to use REDCODE RAW from within any Quicktime application, what does that do to us? Can we now assign the desired LUT from within the REDCODE QT settings? I wonder what LUTs will be included with RED/REDCINE? Will we have some to emulate various film stock in addition to common electronic color spaces? Can we create our own tables? I guess this will all be spelled out at NAB, just one of those things that we're all eagerly awaiting details on.

[Sean]

Why do you have to have cineform prospect HD or 2K to use Color Finesse with Premiere pro 2? Does the same go for After Effects?

[wlaroussi]

Hi ,

A NLE is combination of software/hardware . adobe with it's Premiere Pro is not manifacturing hardaware (unlike Avid or Canopus) , so it's relay on Aja boards , unfortunatly you will not achieve realtime editing unlike you add a software codec (raylight or cineform) . When it's comes to 2K the resolution is too big to be handled by premiere Pro so a bundle of cineform ( prospect 2K) can take charge of that .

Color finesse is the only 32 bits plugin (now there is also cinespace but it's quite different and not for adobe suite) "color corrector" that handle primaries , secondaries and Lut . It' a lot faster on premiere . The same color finesse goes for AE except that AE is slow on 2K/4K.

Regards .

[Clayton Harper]

I am hoping and praying somebody tries to bring something back to the $5000 price point like we used to have before Apple kidnapped Final Touch HD. The XML support and the insanity associated with getting a project in the suite made me want to firebomb my computer but the features were rocking.

10k for speedgrade is too expensive for a small shop. Hopefully, Scratch or even Apple will give us a GPU-based application at NAB to fill that niche.

[wlaroussi]

Hi ,

For AppliedVisual . Yes you can create your own Lut on almost any professional video software like FCP , Avid , digtal fusion , shake , nuke , speedgrade , or lustre .... Among all the NLE and compositing softwares few are dedicated to the grading and 2D/3D luts tasks .

Regards

[wlaroussi]

Hi ,

For lordnumberzero . You can make your job on AE (even with import/export luts) for less than 5 K , if you can wait 7 to 10 days rendering a 2K cineon or 16 bits (even with nucleo) . Now if you have Fiber channel storage and nvidia 5500 SDI (on linux/PC don't know for mac) you can get it done by the weekend or less time . The problem is not the new or old soft/hard solutions , but how the redcode can be integrated in the softwares used for your files to be graded . I have seen somewhere in that forum that a user did not succeed tu use redcode with AE . Now Let's get to the fact , since there is no hardware capture cards involved in the passage of red movies to the computer and red cine can transcode to any codec , The only thing that remains is : Will these softwares accept this codec for import and export or not? . Try to use Avid DNxHD codec on combustion , is not even listed on the available codec list in combustion . The expensive solutions use uncompressed files effecienly so no more need for any codec , and they are fast for that . If redcodec can be used by only 2 or 3 apps that will be GREAT AND FINAL.

Regards