Tagged with grading - Personal View Talks

Color Grading on Mac for free

nomad — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:10:46 +0000

From now on Resolve Lite ( the free version of DaVinci Resolve) is not limited to two nodes any more and it works with Avid too.
Unfortunately Mac only, but a serious grading program for nothing!

Reverse Grading + Conversion as Budget Solution?

qwerty123 — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 12:54:17 +0000

As we all know, there is little in the way one can do to in the way of a “budget” solution for a true broadcast monitor (the cheapest, “close-enough” solution seems to be connecting a calibrated hdtv via some card or breakout box). Of course, none of this is necessary if all you are doing is web work or if you don't care much about how your grade on your computer monitor translates to DVD or video broadcast.

But, I've always wondered about the following “reverse grade procedure”: if we know the ways in which Rec 709 differs from the RGB color space of a properly calibrated computer monitor, then how come the following isn't possible as a cheap solution for those who want accurate grades both for web and dvd / video / hd-cam distribution?

Step 1. Color grade movie on an RGB color accurate (IPS) computer monitor.
Step 2. Apply the universal adjustments to contrast and color necessary to make the movie played in rec 709 grade look very close to (exactly?) like the grade on the RGB monitor.

Of course, we'd need to know what are the proper adjustments. But once you know what they are, you can just apply them to any future grade.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but I'd like to be illuminated on this issue!

Stereoscopic 3D post-production

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:09:19 +0000

The Final Dance - Touches of Color (2012) - GH2 short film

davidhjlindberg — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 07:54:32 +0000

Hi people,

I wanted to share this film with you to get some real critics from you. I'm active on a Swedish forum already and usually put my films over there to get some feedback but I wanted to hear your opinions as well.

The film is a school project I had, and I wanted to make a short film where I could really show my color grading. So even though I directed, edited and made the vfx in this video, I did it almost only to show my grading skills to then have something to show post companies as a portfolio after my graduation, which was a few weeks ago.

What do you think is good, what can I've been doing better?

I was using GH2, Orion v4b, Nostalgic (-2-2-2-2). Lens was Samyang 35mm 1.4.

Software used was After Effects CS5.5, Premiere Pro CS5.5, Twixtor, DaVinci Resolve. Converted all my files to Cineform .MOV before editing.

Adobe Subcription Plans?

bwhitz — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 22:20:52 +0000

Anybody try Adobe's new subscription plans with CS6 yet? I think I'm about to try it for After Effects. Seems to be a great deal so far... just wondering if anyone's ran into any snags or problems?

Grading on Plasma, if that´s my target medium...good idea?

JackBayer — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 08:49:49 +0000

Hello,

I have a nice Panasonic Plasma hooked up to my workstation. I am in the process of grading my short film (with AE and Colorista) and I was thinking to do all the color directly on my plasma. Since blu-ray will be the medium for delivery and I do not own a pro grade balanced monitor. In After Effects all my grading projects are in rec709 color space.

Any thoughts on that? Are there any pitfalls to look out for? Thanks!

RAIN

Vitaliy_Kiselev — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:51:07 +0000

Colorist

eyeBOX — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:41:53 +0000

I'm looking for a colorist to do some grading for a music video.. any takers out there?

Joanna St. Claire's New Single "Prayer of Light" Music Video - Shot in Part with GH2 Sedna AQ1 C

thepalalias — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 01:23:50 +0000

Joanna St. Claire and I just finished the music video for "Prayer of Light" and released the single on iTunes.

Check out the videos (YouTube and Vimeo) at http://perlichtman.com/pasdenapulse/wordpress/2012/04/04/joanna-st-claires-new-single-and-music-video-prayer-of-light/

I will be writing an article on the production soon!

And here is the song link!

iTunes

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/prayer-of-light-single/id516408352?uo=4

YouTube version (1080P)

Standard Vimeo (1280P but possibly better compression than YouTube)

GH2 color grading

bwhitz — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 16:41:09 +0000

All discussions about color-grading, methods, suggestions, software, plug-in's, and soon to be (hopefully) tutorials... continued from the low-GOP thread.

DaVinci Resolve 8.1.1 Lite, DNxHD and GH-2 footage

disneytoy — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:05:56 +0000

As you guys may already know, DaVinci Resolve is available (for the moment) as MAC only lite version FREE. Soon to be Windows 7 compatible!
As of yesterday the main handicaps of the lite version were the limit to 2 nodes. This prevented some very essential corrections requiring 3+ notes for tracking or power windows. But now Black Magic has lifted that limitation! So now unlimited nodes, great use of CUDA acceleration. More importantly for us Windows users, DNxHD codec use to require a $500 license. But now is FREE! The fact ProRes as a writing codec is not available to us PC users, the free Avid DNxHD codec becomes an excellent alternative.

With finalcut X loosing its luster with the current upgrade, and the highly touted Resolve coming to Windows, us PC users have much less reason for MAC envy. I do have a Mac I can try Resolve 8.1.1 on at the moment but that computer isn't part of my editing workflow.

Particularly in light of high bit-rate GOP1 hacks such as Driftwood, I'd like to hear back regarding other's workflows getting their MTS files through a Resolve grading and out. I've done some transcoding tests with 5DtoRGB which supports output in 3 flavors of DNxHD. I believe it writes a .mov file. I'm not sure but I think Resolve wants an Avid MXF wrapper. Maybe someone can report back on that. Also, any other workflows to bring our MTS files into Resolve.

For now I will leave a couple links to some good tutorials to get you started. The interface is a bit non-intuitive. But, if you follow along these should get you going.

Davinci Resolve Lite Tutorial Part 0 - Basics for Free 8.1.1

DaVinci Resolve workshop part1 (Montreal 2011) (4 Parts)

Supermeet 2011 - Part 2 -Dedo Valentic - DaVinci Resolve 8.1

And to download the free Mac version go here: http://blackmagic-design.com/support/detail/?sid=3948&pid=11735&os=mac

:

Need Help! Looking for Colorist to color grade my short film.

Aksel — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:40:34 +0000

Hi everyone I am a Moroccan screenwriter director and I live in Chicago,USA right now, I have directed a short film in Morocco with no budget couple years ago with an international crew. DP Mexican, Camera AS Spanish, Sound Spanish, Actress Chilean, Actors Moroccan. the short film is a 3 short films in one. NADOR'S TRILOGY- the old man, the whore, and the shoeshiner. (dur25min) I need someone to help us with Color grading. and I am sorry I can't offer you any money, but of course your name will be in the credits and you will have a copy of the film so you can use it for your reel.

P.S by the way the film was shot in P2,HVX200.

Thank you. Aksel

Color Grading & Visual Effects Before & After - Hacked GH1 (GH13,GH17)

pixelphile — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:06:25 +0000

Hey guys,

Here is a little before and after comparison video to show how far you can push hacked footage during a color grade.

Hope ya like it,

Michael "Pixelphile"

After Effects from a N00b

itimjim — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:47:38 +0000

We shot part of our first short film earlier last year as a bit of an exercise for learning film making. The rushes were adequate in quality, but there were things all over the place that were wrong...and still are :-). Oh, and we're doing the acting ourselves for now, as we don't have the heart to involve anyone who can even remotely act, to our amateur film crew. This exercise has put us a few steps closer to feeling more confident however.

Anyway, in an effort over Christmas, having a little time to myself, I decided to embark on learning a bit more about After Effects. And what better footage to work on than our incomplete short. We'd done a few edits and quick grades, but nothing serious, so now was the time.

First of all, the script called for this to be set at night time, and we'd shot in the daylight. Plus, there was supposed to be a character that magically appears in the garage, and we'd left the bloody side door open! We also wanted to add some form of special effects, knowing full well it would look cheesy, we just didn't want it to look like we'd drawn them on with crayons.

I've put together a few screencasts of our learning process and what we did, and I just thought they might be useful to anyone that is very new to all of this. These are by no means tutorials though, just commentary around what we did, why and our learning experience.

After Effects Door Removal Clone Tool (Part 1)

After Effects Door Removal Clone Tool (Part 2)

Learning After Effects Commentary: Crop, Levels, Day for Night

Learning After Effects Commentary: Light Effects and Motion Tracking

And here was the result of my learning efforts, which I was quite pleased with considering how much of a novice I am.

Camera: Panasonic GH2 (Unhacked)
Lens(es): Panasonic 14-140 4-5.8
Software: After Effects/Premiere Pro CS5.5, 5DtoRGB Batch, Red Giant (Looks, Shine), Video CoPilot (Optical Flares)

Hope its useful to someone.

Tim

Color Grading: A Conversation Starter

magnus387 — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:13:15 +0000

About a week ago there was a post about color grading Driftwoods' various GH2 hacks, and while that post will probably resurface I thought it might be fun to share some color grading tips/tricks etc.

I shoot with a hacked GH13, and have used this little "Monster" of a camera on 3 music videos, including my most recent video for Asher Roth's "Last Man Standing" feat. Akon. The most beneficial part of the hack for me has always been what I can subsequently do with the image in post without worrying about the degradation of image quality.

I generally have 2 methods of color grading, and I have included examples of both. The 1st way is incredibly time consuming, but produces very otherworldly HDR-looking results. I begin by exporting an image sequence from quicktime, then I open up one of the resulting TIFF files in Photoshop and adjust the levels to my liking. 3 rounds of unsharp masking later, as well as a boost to the Vibrance of the image, and I'm ready to create an Action and batch process all of the images. After all of the images have been batched through photoshop, I drag them onto a Final Cut sequence (making sure that each image is only is only 00;00:01 long) and export a raw quicktime movie. Obviously this is not for everyone as it drains ones mental sanity faster than you can say High Dynamic Range Video, and you may have some sync issues on longer clips because of the 23.98 and 24 fps disparity - but the results are cool and not achievable in FCP.

My second method is what I use to make video look more like 16mm film - It's fast, easy, and works with almost anything you can shoot. It utilizes Magic Bullet Looks and Final Cut's 3-way color corrector. I begin by applying "Looks", and starting off with the "Blockbuster" preset. I delete the diffusion filter, the vignette filter, and I slightly lower the highlight part of the "Curves" filter. Then I add the "3-Strip Process" filter and adjust the strength to around 6%. Based on how the image looks now I will usually adjust the the individual color channels of the "Curves" filter so that I make sure my Blacks are not too Blue, and my highlights are not too Yellow. Add some "Film Grain" at 3% and turn off the color mode, and you're done with the "Looks" part. Back in FCP, I add the 3-way color corrector and use the Auto Balance Color function to, again, make sure that my blacks aren't too blue, and my highlights aren't too yellow. Then I crush the black's slightly, raise the Mid's a touch, and actually crush the white's a tiny amount. Adjust the saturation to taste, and then I'm done.

I realize this is long winded, but I hope it starts a fun conversation, and I am more than willing to answer any questions about my process.

DaVinci Resolve Lite (available for download)

andres — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 22:02:22 +0000

Resolve 8 is a top end color grading aplication, now that Apple Color will not be upgraded ( :-( ) Resolve is a good choice for a change.
oh and the Lite version is Free

Donwnload here:
http://blackmagic-design.com/support/detail/?sid=3948&pid=11735&os=mac&leg=0

The problem is it doesn´t run on every mac and it´s design for big monitors however if you wish to install it on a 15" go to your terminal and write this:

defaults write com.blackmagic-design.davinci.Resolve AppleDisplayScaleFactor 0.75

that will launch the aplication 75% smaller, you can change the porcentage to whatever.

to undo:

defaults write com.blackmagic-design.davinci.Resolve AppleDisplayScaleFactor 1

enjoy.
ps. on my new MBP 13" it crashes for not having a propper grafic card. Those apple guy are to blame.