To access the old thread - go here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1817/colorghear-toolkit-color-grading-system-for-ae/p1

So as not to be misleading, ColorGHear is a system, and not so much a plug-in... a school of thought supported through the ColorGHear Toolkit -which is a set of MODULAR PRESETS for After Effects and ColorGHear Pro - which is a set of MODULAR LUTs for Davinci Resolve, FCP7, Premiere Pro, and Adobe Speedgrade, and is not what you'd consider a classical style plug-in.

The toolkit isn't a collection of drag and drop "looks" like Magic Bullet. It is a series of nodes which contain a set of grading instructions or "macros" (a set of operations), specially designed to work with each other to speed up your workflow. Along with these nodes, comes a system of grading which replaces having to perform the minutia of individual corrections by hand. Learned through the online tutorials, this system will give you speedy and precise grades. It is this precision that prevents you from "bending" your images like with standard methods which is what allows me to get such drastic and dramatic grades from normally flimsy DSLR codecs.

As a professional colorist, I noticed that because of the way the color channels in RGB video are tied together; that typical methods like the Color Balance tool, and the 3-way Color Corrector will actually bend an RGB image out of shape. So in order to maximize the full potential of any given image, I had to learn a method of grading that would avoid damaging the footage. I called this method "precision grading."

I also noticed that in executing these precision grades, I was performing the same operations over and over. I began taking notes on what these operations were, and trying to determine if it were possible to create a set of interacting preset nodes that would save me time in having to repeatedly perform these operations.

I soon discovered 37 distinct sets of operations that would serve to correctly grade any, and all footage. 6 of these macros cancel each other out, and only 1 of those 6 could be effectively used at any given time leaving me with 32 nodes - giving me 1,024 possible combinations. Over a thousand distinct grades. Over time, I added some other tools to the set which now sits at 74 nodes all of which are designed to be used in conjunction with the other nodes. (69, if you subtract the 5 canceling nodes) which brings the total to 4,761 distinct grades.

The precision method I mention above is demonstrated here. Along with how the 3-way Color Corrector damages your footage.

The power of ColorGHear is presented in the video demonstrations below.

ColorGHear is available at http://www.ColorGHear.com

(ColorGHear Pro not yet available to the public)

The dream of integrated non-linear editing, visual effects and compositing is a reality with HitFilm 2. Jump between your editor sequence and visual effect shots with a single click.

Short review:

• NLE video editing
• Particle simulator
• Atomic particles
• Shatter
• Lights & flares
• TV & film damage, Grain and dirt
• Procedural simulation of light and fire
• A compositor's toolkit including animation
• Color correction & grading
• Keying & extraction
• The complete 2D & 3D tracking package
• 3D compositing

Programs site - http://hitfilm.com/

Runs on - PC, coming up to Mac this year

Price from - $149

I have a $1000 cap. I'm outside U.S. so, Dell would be better because of support here. Also need to buy on Amazon. So, find those two computers:

Dell G3 - 8th gen i7 six-cores, GTX 1050ti 4GB, two fan slim chassis; or Dell 7000 - 7th gen i7 quad-core, GTX 1060 6GB, better cooling and chassis.

Both have thunderbolt and have same price. Other things are identical or not relevant.

Application will be primary Adobe CC and Davinci, but plans use it to learn Nuke, Flame, Vegas and game development things (Godox, Unity, Unreal, Maya).

What do you think?

Have a look at the video, its not in every shot, but there are enough examples of what I mean - most of them are b/w.

• Was this created on set/in camera?
• How did he light the faces?
• Any post production tricks?
• How to do it today?
• How to do it today without tracking every eye and using power windows?

(I wish I could smile like Norman Bates....that would help beeing a teacher ;-)

His 360VR Toolbox used to sell for over $1,000. If you produce or are thinking of making 360 videos then this is a great pack of plugins.

 
Here the Editor Essentials

https://fxfactory.com/info/editoressentials/

 
and a cute SG

 
Source: http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/1956-tim-dashwood-joins-apple-all-of-his-plugin-products-are-now-free

I'm having some trouble doing this in Premiere Pro. Any suggestions?

The idea behind the plugin is simply that sometimes, it can be advantageous to use the full sensor in 4:3 and then stretch in a 'clever' way afterwards. The included images show an original image in 4:3, stretched 16:9 and stretched 16:9 with a distortion grid overlay and the protected region shown in green. The plugin is quite customizable (stretching, size and position of protected region plus some bells and whistles) but the default settings should work in most cases.

It currently only works under Windows but in both AE and Premiere (6.0 or later), we expect to compile it for Mac eventually.

If you feel like this is a good idea and you would like to help us with testing, send me a short PM. We would like feedback on: bugs, usability, suggested features and settings.

As this is a hobby project no money will be involved :-)

General comments are also welcome

• CINEMA 4D Lite and live 3D pipeline between CINEMA 4D and After Effects
• Refine Edge tool, Roto Brush & Refine Edge effect, and Refine Soft Matte effect
• Warp Stabilizer VFX, improvements to the Warp Stabilizer effect
• improvements to the 3D Camera Tracker effect
• ability to find instances of missing fonts, effects, and footage
• snapping to layer features, including anchor points and masks
• bicubic resampling
• Pixel Motion Blur effect

We don't yet know what it will be called yet, but here's a preview, sort of...

http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2013/04/whats-new-changed-after-effects-next.html

ProLUT is a color grading pack of looks based on real films and movies.

It comes in every format you can think of so that you can use it in whatever software you're using.

Watch the demonstration video here:

More info http://www.davidhjlindberg.com/?product=prolut

First try shooting FMX, not very easy ... Happy by the way, a nice afternoon in my big friend Julien's backyard. Goog vibes and atomic riding from a passionate guy. Go on dude, you're on the right way ;-)

Shot & Edit: Julien Miscischia Camera: Panasonic GH3 Codec: MOV 50mbps IPB 1080@50 PAL Lenses: Olympus 45mm 1.8, Panasonic 14-42mm OIS kit lens, Canon FD 35-105mm 3.5, Helios 135mm 2.8 with Fader ND Profile: Natrual -5,-5, 0, -5 Edit and grade: Premiere Pro CS6, After Effect CS6, FilmConvert

Music: Sleepless (Fakear remix) soundcloud.com/fakear/sleepless-fakear-remix soundcloud.com/fakear

Comments are welcome

Basically speaking, I have a situation where I may want to insert frames that are generated from the surrounding frames. For example, if I have a one-frame gap between 00001.MTS and 00002.MTS, I'd like to generate that frame from the last frame of 00001 and the first frame of 00002. Or, perhaps I could find those moments when the camera goes out of focus, snip those frames out, and generate new replacement frames.

I'm sure there's software that does this that might be affordable. It may even be in After Effects, for all I know, and I'll go check that package out. But does anyone have any knowledge of such a thing?

My current workflow is: MTS files into AE > converted to 2.33 aspect ratio (1920x824) DNxHD format > footage imported and edited within Premiere Pro > exported as 175 bit DNxHD 1920x1080 master file. Note that the 2.33 conversion is strictly letterboxing via composition settings in AE and not altering the pixel dimensions (as those 1920x824 files don't show the pixilation).

One thing I noticed was that when I expand the video feed in Premiere it shows the pixilation that's outputted in the final format, but I wrote that off as simply being reduced resolution for real time playback that wouldn't translate to the final video. Also the preview remains pixilated even with no effects applied (only effects on clips are quick color corrector, Neat Video, and shadows/highlights).

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. I've included a still of the 175 bit DNxHD final video, and a matching frame of the original MTS file straight from the camera. Ignore the top and bottom margins, but look at the high contrast lines like on the Marshal logo, and the metal frame of the B-52 amp below it.

Windows 8 Intel Corei7-3630QM Geforce GTX 680M / 4GB GDDR5 12GB RAM DDRIIII 750GB 7200RPM

hence, should have no problem running any of these programs in cohesion.

And, It's breakdown;

http://mohitseb.com

Panasonic GH2 14-140HD firmware 1.1 1920x1080 50i

I keep getting glitches in my After Effects output, always in the top left hand corner. Usually it's a square shaped glitch (like in the attached picture), but not always the same size, and sometimes it's an oblong. Usually it contains some kind of offset video, but on a few rare occasions it's been black.

I've tried with the Lagarith and Canopus lossless codecs, both in MP mode. I've tried playback in WMP, PPro and AE.

I've got other things I'm going to try (other codecs, single-threaded renders, disk write speeds), but since the problem is sporadic it's going to take quite a few tests to nail down.

Has anyone got any suggestion on where I should focus my efforts?

In this test, watch how far I can push the darkest midtones to bring all those stones and rocks underneath the surface back in a really nice way. Even though the grading gave it a crispy, contrasty look, you can look at the ice blocks that we didn't loose too much information in the highlights. We didn't loose too much in the shadows either, but a little bit more though we darkened the surface so much.

The grade was made in Adobe After Effects only using curves.

I am in need of a little guidance regarding my workflow options for an upcoming project I will be shooting on a Panasonic GH2.

Footage from my GH2 is in the .mts format/AVCHD codec and my usual workflow is to use FCP's 'log and transfer' function to convert the footage to ProRes, for editing in FCP. I usually also archive each SD card as back up.

However, I am wondering whether there is a better method for this project, which will involve heavy use of the Twixtor plugin in After Effects. My initial instinct was to transcode the raw files into ProRes via FCP as per usual and then import these ProRes files into After Effects for processing. But I wonder whether I would be better of editing the .mts files directly in After Effects before exporting for FCP. My understanding is that this method involves one less re-compression and should theoretically result in less artifacts.

I am also unsure about what the most efficient codec for exporting from After Effects to bring back into FCP.

My ultimate goal here is to preserve quality and minimise re-compression artifacts.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers. J

Where it was stated that shooting flat in 8bit was a terrible idea, and the nonsense we've heard over and over that you can't bring that color back, which everyone who has seen my work knows is just not true.

While it is true you cannot magically turn 8 bit color into 32bit color. Working in a 32bit environment does allow your corrections to enhance your footage rather than deteriorate your footage.

@FilmingArt FCP X, Premiere Pro CS6, Vegas Pro 12, Smoke 2013, are all 32bit

Just go to my vimeo channel to see tons of video's shot using this method on 8bit cameras https://vimeo.com/channels/shianstorm

And then check these threads for why you are catastrophically wrong about "noise and all kinds of other problems." And welcome to the discussion.

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1817/colorghear-toolkit-color-grading-system-for-ae/p1

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/5346/colorghear-toolkit-color-grading-system-for-ae-part-2#Item_10

http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/3773/expose-in-the-zone-getting-the-best-image-for-grading./p1

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/david.hj.lindberg

twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidHJLindberg

The short story: 31-OCT, the day the Portuguese Budget for 2013 was approved. People gathered in front of the Parliament to say we're being governed by thieves. Not very original I know, but it's a great place to shoot video and take pictures (well at last until it degenerates into mayhem which is rare around this parts but not unheard of until very recently). This is how I worked it.

1) The extremely simple setup:

GH2, screen folded back as a monitor, Transcend 32GB class 10, Samyang 7.5mm fisheye (my favorite video lens), set and forget to hyperfocal, ISO 400 I believe, SS=1/25s. Flowmotion 2 was used as I never know before hand how much video I'm going to capture or how many photos I'll be shooting, so I need something that is very good quality but doesn't make me have to change cards when something very important is happening. If the card is pre-formatted (the extended, not the quick format) it has never failed me to span.

2) The capture:

This is all about getting there up front and trying not to shake the camera. The police until very recently (and only after a 1h stone shower) has been instructed not to charge, so it's an easy job, you just dodge the TV reporters and other amateurs like me. So, here's my first mistake: the aperture is fine, this lens is sharp as an axe, but should have upped the ISO and set a faster SS because in these situations you are always bound to get bumped and it shows in wobbles after software stabilization.

3) Defishing the Samyang:

Load the MTS into AE. Export as image sequence. Use a batch (http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/comment/69869#Comment_69869) to defish the images and import the output again to AE now as image sequence. The defishing was done using the Panini projection. It's loads more natural on people than Rectilinear, it preserves a lot more corner resolution and still manages to keep a few lines straight. This was the first export and not reasonably quick because the synthesis part takes it's toll: ~2-3fps.

4) Stabilizing:

Throw AE's Warp Stabilizer on the footage. Set the "Smoothness" to 15-25% (it will require much less cropping later) set borders to "Stabilize, Synthesize Edges" (again a lot less cropping) but drop the "Synthesis Input Range" to 0,2s otherwise you'll bog AE. In this kind of footage there is usually little point in using a higher value. Skim the footage looking for black borders and try to resize and reframe it so that they don't become evident. Note: defishing after stabilizing should make more sense as you would have more image to work with (defishing crops it) but from a few rough tries, the AE stabilization isn't clearly as effective when working on fisheye footage. This was the second export and a very long one: below 1fps.

5) CC & Denoising:

Used some of ColorGHear's gears, notably GHrain killer to kill a bit of noise and blockiness, but the footage was already very clean from the start and little color correction was used, just a little bit of levels adjusment. This was the third export and I believe it was even longer than the third due to the noise reduction filters: below 0.5fps.

6) The "so long" part: video effects, tracking and subtitling:

Translations were pretty quick, the hard and long part (at least until I found out how to smooth it) was tracking. It was fastidious to track people's features, takes a long time and needs constant review and adjustment. In the end I found out a few tricks (like increasing the tracking area) and smoothing the tracking points. This eased the job a lot and gave much better results. In the end I had to do it sometimes up to 3x until I was satisfied with it. In the process I had to learn a lot about tracking, smoothing, 3D objects, texting, transitions and light sources. This was the forth, the quickest and last export, probably around 10fps.

7) Audio mixing.

This was the part I was more ignorant about, but turned out to be pretty simple. Even though it's pretty rough, the footage is little demanding with so much crowd noise. It was as simple as importing the last video export from AE into Premiere, importing the original sound, importing also "Le Tigre - Dike March 2001" cutting and pasting a few pieces of this track and adjusting the volume here and there to serve the original events while leaving the words of the protesters audible when needed and off I was to the final export.

The resulting video can be found here:

Here are a few pictures of the event.

Anything more you may want to know about any part of the process I'll be glad to detail it.