r/colorists

Hey guys so I'm getting really burned out on learning about proper color grading techniques for Log footage.

So far I have always edited in premiere pro in standard rec. 709 timelines using input LUTs to get my Canon clog2 footage and my DJI drone footage to matching rec.709 color spaces.

I have gotten decent results for years until I recently learned that working in a 709 timeline before you export in 709 is really not utilizing the full potential of good Log footage.

So I have been experimenting with resolve and premieres new color management/wide Gammut (tone mapping) timeline settings. Obviously resolve is way better for all of this in general.

I just can't imagine doing a work flow of either exporting prores files or xmls back and forth to get the proper control of my footage. Also with the slate of work my team and I have we just don't have the time or energy at the moment to switch and learn davinci for editing with all of the hiccups and technical differences that accompany changing your work flow as such.

So I have been really trying to get premiere to work. Again all I am trying to do is have complete access to my Log footage dynamic range and color potential within premiere. And so far this is what has been working so far. Although I'm still frustrated.

I have not been having premiere Color manage and auto detect log footage. As that conversion looks like shit! I also find that the standard resolve color space transform pipeline to look equally as shit when using CST's on the front and back end of a node tree to access a wide Gammut working space.

So between both premiere and resolve I am getting the best results by having a log to rec.709 Lut that I love at the end of the color chain (last node on node tree in davinci and a adjustment layer above footage in premiere). This allows me to maintain wide Gammut controls in both working spaces without the rec.709 LUT crushing the data into a smaller color space.

Now the problem is that although I can get a nice result for my Clog2 footage, once I bring anything like After Effects animations or my DJI drone footage in, the color shifts. Both my drone and AE animations get darker and get a blue shift and don't grade and correct well at all.

But I don't have this problem at all in davinci because it can all be done on a clip to clip basis and resolve seems to recognize all the clips in a proper way.

Does anyone here have a similar situation? I just want to be able to grade Log footage properly in Premiere. But I also need to bring all sorts of mixed media into my timeline. Not just clog2 footage. Would appreciate some tips, perspective, advice, or info on what I am doing wrong here.

Thanks guys.

My job wants me to put together a video containing footage that spans several years, all recorded by freelancers who recorded in different file formats, using different cameras in different qualities etc.

If I want to have a consistent final video, what is the best method of ensuring consistency across all of the various clips?

What’s the best way to achieve smooth hue compression (hue attraction) using only curves or global transforms I want nearby hue variations to converge toward the base hue (e.g. all green shades become pure green) without masks or qualifiers, so it can be baked into a 3D LUT.

I'm used to using the Key Output Gain control in the color page key palette to modify how strong an effect is but I'm mystified by all the other controls. I've tried to search the manual but can't seem to find it . I'd be happy if someone could point me to the right page. Very difficult to search that manual and I've tried the TOC's
BTW so far I have not been using a Key mixer so maybe most of these controls are for that?

Are any of them useful for control an ordinary color effect i.e. :

The Key Input controls?

The other Key output controls : the output offset, the invert or mask button whatever that is?

The qualifier invert & mask buttons and gain & offset controls ?

As a secondary question I'm wondering if there is any universal way to control what part of the luminance of image a color effect will affect - if I want it to affect say only the brights or the darks (say saturation or a diffusion effect). I try to use the luminance only slider in HSL Qualifier but it doesn't seem very sensitive .

Hi guys,
I know there is so much information out there. I’ve genuinely gone too far down the rabbit hole and looking for some guidance and perspective.

For context, shooting on Sony, S-Log 3, mostly for Instagram (not YouTube) I edit on a Mac Pro.

For those who have similar set up, I understand that it is no longer recommended to use the Rec 709 A conversion, etc

For consistency in colours across devices as much as possible, particularly when uploading, what are your settings? Are you using the Rec 709 Scene work around now? What are your project settings and CST In/Out steps.

Any detail, guidance, will be so appreciated.

I’m not fussed about how it will look in QuickTime as I will be exporting MP4.

Help

Hello editors,

Something is happening to my log footage and I cannot pinpoint the exact problem/solution.

I am editing a piece in Avid Media Composer with footage shot on Canon C500 MII in Canon Cinema Gamut/Canon Log 2.

After the footage was shot, it was copied to a drive, and then sent through a transcode process (Vantage, by Telestream) to put into Avid Interplay.

I exported some of the footage as an MXF from Avid to Resolve to start coloring.

When I put my usual color space transform(CST) and LUT nodes on the clips, the information loss was very obvious. I realized there was substantial crushing of the blacks and whites of the ingested footage, and the footage no longer looked flat log, but looked dark and saturated.

I also noticed in the meta data of the clips in resolve, it showed that the Input Color Space was "Rec.2020".

I theorized that somewhere during the Transcode/Interplay ingest process the color space meta data of the footage changed from "Canon Cinema Gamut/Canon Log 2" to "Rec.2020". Unsure if that was the culprit or not, but reguardless we usually work with rec.709, not rec.2020.

I tested my theory by importing the original RAW clip files straight into Resolve. The Input Color Space was "Canon Cinema Gamut/Canon Log 2" and the LUT made the images look correct, with no information loss.

I thought I may have found my problem until I kept testing.

In a new Avid test project, I imported one of the original RAW clip files straight into Avid (without the transcode process) and then imported the same clip but of the Ingested files to compare them.

The only difference I can see looking at them in the project is when I go to their Source Settings > Color Encoding tabs. The RAW clip's source color space reads "[0-63 (10bits)]". The ingested clip's source color space reads "Rec.2020 [video levels]".

Another test I tried was I imported a RAW file into Avid, had it point me to the file it created after importing, put the file copy that Avid created into Resolve, and found that the footage still has information loss but resolve interprets the Input Color Space as "Canon Cinema Gamut/Canon Log 2".

I have tried multiple different color space settings in Avid with no progress in finding the problem.

The only thing that seems to make the Ignested footage look like the RAW log (and with what seems to be the same information but unsure) is when I apply the color transformation of "Level scaling (full range to video levels)" in the color encoding tab. I tried this and exported as an MXF and put it in Resolve (it doesnt work with AAF apparently). It looks almost identical to the RAW log footage except for an extremely small color shift and data loss.

I understand what that setting is hypothetically doing, but I cant say for certain its correcting the issue or not harming the image for color.

Any advice or guidance would be grately appreciated as I have been trying to figure this out for some time now, and am starting to feel officially lost.

Disclaimer: This is a feature length project with a deadline and re-editing it would be the least ideal scenario.

Hi,

I'm a french user of Davinci Resolve 20 free version and I noticed that my exports of my black and white project other than h.264 like ProRes or DNx exports are a lot darker (blacks are crushed). I wonder why. I'm a Windows Pc user (GPU), not a Mac user... Could you help me solve the problem?
Sorry for my english.

Have a nice day.

PS : rushes are .mov and monochrome 709 rec whithout Log, I shoot with an ten years old Canon reflex.

Hello i am hoping to hire a colorist for my indie film. Shot on a bmpcc and canon 200 have raw files. If interested please message me to discuss the project further :) run time is 77 mins. budget around 1000 usd can go a bit more if needed but funding this myself and not the richest person in the world aha :) as for time I believe 10 ish hours maybe be what it needs or even less. Thank you and look forward to hearing from you!

https://preview.redd.it/076r4ofxuiah1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=b9a1880f432909d6a2c0b30cbf2b7e922f7d3388

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Hi guys!

Based on your advice, I decided to add some technical aspects to my showreel, and now I’d really appreciate the opinion and advice of professionals.

I’m currently practicing shot matching between footage from different cameras and shot in different lighting conditions. All clips are at the Rec.709 stage with no creative grading applied. The first shot was used as the reference.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated - maybe I’m overlooking some important detail.

I’d especially appreciate tips on shot matching.

There are Shots from Arri, RED, Sigma and Sony cameras. All clips in Rec.709.

Following the rules I need to attach the node tree:

This is my typical node tree. I don’t use every node for each grade.

It's much easier to view in a carousel format, but the moderators won't approve it.

https://preview.redd.it/19vw5km1elah1.jpg?width=1883&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=008dedeebc54af44de990f05c8026db4d4704d50

https://preview.redd.it/fkwfa303elah1.jpg?width=1883&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=044becc2819543ac58f1b1474586dceae70caf07

https://preview.redd.it/dt44pqkfelah1.jpg?width=5649&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d8e42edb1ad53138bc1562257e322ae17488a67b

https://preview.redd.it/dbjzhv9gelah1.jpg?width=1883&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff35591302f204a2b84a64a37e37cf4c4c5b575b

https://preview.redd.it/fc5m32zgelah1.jpg?width=1883&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cbfc7b01f695d5d6ece3de00e6fe05ee7c4f1dcc

https://preview.redd.it/018ge5jhelah1.jpg?width=5649&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e2eac3b7f583cee3bafd88f59b1ef9837bf1eea

I've been thinking about getting into color grading for quite some time, but I'm honestly feeling a bit lost about where to start.

There are so many courses, YouTube channels, workshops, and training programs that it's hard to know what's actually worth the time and money. I don't mind investing if it genuinely helps me build a strong foundation, but I want to avoid wasting time learning the wrong way.

I'd really appreciate some guidance from people who are already working as colorists.

- If you were starting from scratch today, how would you learn color grading?

- Which online or offline courses would you genuinely recommend?

- Are there any books, YouTube channels, or mentors that made a big difference in your journey?

- Also, should I invest in a beginner color grading setup from the beginning, or is it better to wait until I have the basics down?

I'm serious about pursuing this as a career, so I'd love to hear your experiences and any advice you wish someone had given you when you were starting out.

Thanks in advance!

Bit of a different question about the right way to think about being a colorist, learning, and doing the work.

From what I gather, being a colorist comes down to knowing a bunch of different and small individual methods to achieve results, and then applying any number of those to do the actual work.

For example, you might learn a specific technique directly from someone else, or spend time messing around with tools and discover something you like. Then when working on a shot or look, you'd apply those small individual tools and tricks to get where you want to go. Kind of like building with lego - each brick is usually an isolated trick or technique. And you build this library of tricks over time and that experience lets you do anything you want in the future.

Of course, there is the objective technical side of color grading, but when it comes to the artistic side of it, I'm learning more and more that there are no real rules and it's the wild west. Do what you want, how you want - the final image is king. If there are 'rules', they tend to be more of a warning, like "don't do this because this unrelated symptom will happen and make your life really hard or break some technical spec rule" (typically in a professional context where one bad move early will make your grade miserable to work with when the client is turning your node tree into spaghetti in real time).

Keen to hear your thoughts - am I right or wrong with this? Is there a better way to think about the work?

Folks! I'd like to get a premium membership on the Lowepost website to take some color grading courses. It says I can cancel my subscription at any time. Just in case I decide to cancel after a while, will I receive a partial refund for the remaining subscription period?

Hi all,

figured this was the best place to ask since a lot of you are online editors and conform artists too.

When I send an AAF from Avid, it relinks perfectly fine on the other end, no issues there. But the names showing up are the modified names I renamed in Avid, not the original source filenames (e.g. A001C006_260512_RNRD). I'd like the original filenames to carry through instead.

Is there a way to get the AAF to reference/display the original source filename rather than whatever I've renamed the clip to in Avid? Or is this more of a "rename a specific column before export" situation?

Thanks!

Tldr; where do i start looking/learning if I want to create an IDT like spektrafilm but for a game engine like Unity.

Soo I worked in film for most of my career as an editor then later an online editor mostly in commercials and documentaries.

A year ago I was very fortunate to get an opportunity to work at a local independent games company as a community manager/ video producer type role.

I've been editing game trailers, making general content around the games we make etc and as part of that I've been learning who to work in the game engine (Unity in this context).

I was surprised to see how different the colour pipeline is in games compared to how it is in film industry (VFX compositing, colour grading etc).

It seems pretty standard that 2D artists create assets in Photoshop or Clipstudio paint with the sRGB colour space, and then that gets important into the engine which converts to linear, makes all lighting calculations in linear and then converts back out to sRGB at the end - which 3 options for tone mapping (neutral, ACES or none).

This is probably very uninteresting if you're a colorist so let me get straight to my questions..

Where do I start if I want to develop a filmic IDT for Unity? For example I saw Spektrafilm exists, based on open source (I think) white papers.

Does it make sense at all to want to develop an IDT for games?

To me, the tone mapping available in Unity is ugly, and the conversion from linear to sRGB/P3 etc to be uninspiring.

EDIT:

Every mention of IDT was meant to be DRT - I made this post first thing in the morning before I had my coffee, pls forgive me <3