Correct color with D-Cinelike

[kingofmyempire]

Hello! This is my first post here, just bought the Mavic Air!

Have anyone tried color correcting the D-Cinelike Log like mode? I'm not after a LUT that ads some kind of effect type look but rather a "correct" color look?

Andy

 

[dwallersv]

Sure, do it all the time.

There isn't really any answer to your question. The broad basics are, darken midtones, extend whites, increase saturation. However, the tuning is unique to every clip, and has to be adjusted to "taste".

Best bet is to watch some dlog CC tutorials on YT.

 

[kingofmyempire]

Ah, perfect, I would like a LUT that only corrects color so that I can match shoots with say a Canon C300 or any other camera!

I could do it my self, but I suppose someone have allready done it

 

[kingofmyempire]

Sure, do it all the time.

There isn't really any answer to your question. The broad basics are, darken midtones, extend whites, increase saturation. However, the tuning is unique to every clip, and has to be adjusted to "taste".

Best bet is to watch some dlog CC tutorials on YT.

Thing is, I'm not after "taste" I'm after technically correct. I want to tune green to be correct say broadcast green and not "green'ish" When I look at the footage from the mavic air in a vectorscope I can see that some colors are bit off!

 

[dwallersv]

Thing is, I'm not after "taste" I'm after technically correct. I want to tune green to be correct say broadcast green and not "green'ish" When I look at the footage from the mavic air in a vectorscope I can see that some colors are bit off!

You seem to understand the concepts, even looking at things on a vectorscope. Which puzzles me as to why you even asking about something as chimerical as "technically correct" insofar as color is concerned. It's a phantom -- such a thing doesn't exist. There isn't anything such as "technically correct" color.

Surely you're familiar with white balance, and all that concept implies. Color is a function of the spectrum of the illumination, the shading and light angles, and so much more. There is no "correct" color balance in a photo or video in some deterministic way. Color correction for images is truly a subjective process.

You either let the electronics make a best guess with "normal" color balance, or you use a log mapping and perform the correction afterward with subjective judgement.

Do some online research on the Edwin Land's Retinex theory of color perception, and the phenomena of Color Constancy in vision.

 

[AstroMelly]

I'm also on the same path to colour nirvana with my Air and what I did was watch alot of videos on YouTube to see what others did.

As I understand it, the general ethos is to: Choose D-Cinelike in the camera settings and a custom profile of anywhere from 0,0,0 to -3,-3,-3 depending on who you listen to. I am going down the route of 0,-3,0 which is cutting contrast only and it seems to deliver a decent raw file to 'grade' (scary word - just read 'process').

Shoot to the left - so underexpose wherever possible to allow room to move later on and don't clip to the left either. (I'm refering to the histogram here).

Once you have your raw footage, import it to a timeline and split to clips, chuck the stuff you don't want and you are left with a selection of (typically short) clips, all with varying requirements as far as colour grading is concerned, since they will contain different subjects and hence different amounts of highlights/shadows etc.. How am I doing so far?

So now your task is to process (grade - sorry) each of these clips separately, using your eye/brain to help you, to taste. This is where I think most, inlcuding me, slip up; thinking the holy grail of one touch video perfection exists under the mantle of a 'LUT' or some other magical setting we have yet to find. I think this is a personal and subjective part of the creative process - we will all end up choosing different final results. The experience is frustrating at first but if you stick at it you will start to find that you can produce acceptable and even very good results. After a few days thinking I would never see improvements between my raw footage and final images similar to I had seen others displaying on YouTube, I realised I was!

Now like anything new, you just have to accept that at first you may not be very good at it. Keep trying and things soon improve. I think the key part of this for me was realising that each clip needed it's own small amount of attention although mostly similar adjustments are a good place to start. If the footage is shot slightly underexposed as is my aim, I tend to:

1. lighten shadows
2. increase contrast
3. lighten highlights
4. play with saturation (usually add just a touch)
5. Review for the eye/brain reality test - does this look like it did when I was there? If not go back and make minor changes - if in doubt roll it off a bit.

Then remember roughly what the changes were and move on to the next clip and adjust based on what it looks like after making the same changes as before.

I'm posting this rather lengthy description since I am interested in what else others do - maybe I'm missing a trick but I don't think so since to do 10-15 clips takes me maybe 10-20 minutes. Once you're on a roll, it's easy really.

Oh, one tip is to choose a frame in each clip to grade that contains a good mix of shadows/highlights. Typically this will be some sky and a foreground object that has some darkness in it. This allows you so see what effects your changes are having and to guage the level to which to apply them.

I'm using iMovie at the moment as it is free and does (most of) what I want it to do but I'm thinking about moving up to a paid / better free piece of software (might be another thread!).

I hope this makes sense and really I am not telling anyone how to do this (because I don't really know!). I'm just putting it out there as this is how I am doing it at the moment and am interested in hearing how others 'grade' their footage.

Cheers
Iain

 

[4wd]

LUTs

One to try here, you won't normally want it at 100% but it has quite a nice effect despite being created for something else.

 

[kingofmyempire]

I've been working with color for still/video/film for a few years, and first thing I allways do for each clip is to match/equalize every single clip separately and in compare to each other. Removing unvanted casts and also undistort the lenses. You can call it a technical correction of sensor and lens short comings. Before I do anything else. This I do with colorprofiles specifically for each sensor and lens profiles for each lens. This is what I was hunting for in my first post. a color profile that is "technically correct". For instance, when I look at the clips from my Mavic Air, shot on a Xrite Colorchecker, I can see that under specific conditions (sensor heat/ISO) some colors are off when running REC709. As someone pointed out, out that color is perceptive. I don't care much about that. The sensor and lens has its faults, and needs to be identified. Even if you look at a digital film camera as Arri Alexa with whatever prime lens, there are certain technical aspects that needs correcting. And so.

Here is my personal workflow that works for me.

1. Add color correction profile for sensor, if I don't have one, I need to create one. This I do globaly on all clips. And ofcourse only need to do one time.
2. Add Lens correction profile for lens. if I dont't have one , I need to create one.This I do globaly on all clips. And ofcourse only need to do one time.
3. Correcting contrast for each clip with Luma Waveform for REC709
4. Correcting colorbalance for each clip with Vectorscope YUV for REC709, If possible for, white, 40% gray and black.

Ok, so now I have clips that are basically ready for cutting and color grade.

5. I now put them on a time line and play them trough to see if I can recognise anything that stands out in terms of contrast differrencies or color differencies. Correcting them if/when I see them.
6. Now I put a LUT on that I choose or create my own according to what I want. At this point the clips I have are not low contrast/low saturation any more. SO the LUT I apply can't be a LOG LUT. I find it hard to correct a LOG like picture that has a effect type LUT applied to it afterwards. Of copurse you can do it but in point 3 and 4 I then tend to go easy.
7. Go back and foreward to even more correcting issues in my previous points (3 and 4)

I know this is over doing it, but that's the workflow I like!

 

[charlas]

It's all personal, colour grading is used for mutiple reasons, most commonly to 'match' the footage from different camera's. It's practice, practice, practice. I'm still learning, but getting better (I hope).

YouTube is your friend, loads of video's on using Premiere to do it.

For example

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[CanadaDrone]

I like the Film Poet's LUT. It's kind of a catch-all LUT and not a specific filter or look. It mathematically maintains maximum DR and keeps colors looking natural.

 

[kingofmyempire]

There is also a difference, to me at least, color correcting for me means correcting stuff the sensor does wrong (eg color cast etc). Color gradeing is simply adjusting the look and feel

 

[charlas]

Yeah grading / correcting, same diff, but your technically correct

Colour grading is that, grading, correcting is grading used to correct the colour's between different cameras / shooting conditions (or if you F'd up the original shoot settings ), so technically the same thing, used for different reasons.

 

[RGL]

This has to be one of the most worthwhile threads I’ve ever read on this forum. Thanks to the many of you who posted your tips and techniques! I have some serious reading to do now!

 

[baddog]

Hello! This is my first post here, just bought the Mavic Air!

Have anyone tried color correcting the D-Cinelike Log like mode? I'm not after a LUT that ads some kind of effect type look but rather a "correct" color look?

Andy

Yes, I use a free LUT from

Hello! This is my first post here, just bought the Mavic Air!

Have anyone tried color correcting the D-Cinelike Log like mode? I'm not after a LUT that ads some kind of effect type look but rather a "correct" color look?

Andy

FREE Cinelike-D to Rec.709 LUT

 

[RobH2]

I've been unable to find any LUT's that work with a high percentage on multiple shoots. The LUTs you buy are not any special programs that do magic, they are just a bunch of presets. If you have Photoshop or some editing software you can create your own. There is really no right or wrong way to adjust your footage. If it looks good to you, then it is good. Always drive the settings you are adjusting all the way up and all the way down to see what they do over their full range. You'll start to get a feeling for it. Again, there is no right or wrong, just what looks good to you.

Once you have one you like, save it and name it. You don't even have to save it as a LUT. In the Photoshop Camera Raw filter, you can save all the adjustments you just did as a preset. I have one now that I reuse on a lot of footage and 90% of the time it looks really good. Plus, it was free and I learned a lot about grading.

 

[kingofmyempire]

Guys this is also a really simple way to create a LUT. For video footage I prefer to not use photoshop but AfterEffects or Premiere. They have all the tools I need, like vector scope, different types of waveforms RGB parade and LUMA etc. There you can also investigate the amount of noice, and where the noice are at, in a specific colour Chanel and or in a specific IRE range. To suppress the noice in a more targeted way.

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Im not saying this from a specific drone gradeing experience (I truly suck at flying my drone at this point but learning) but rather from a generic video camera point eg. ENG style cameras and cinema cameras like Canon C line, RED and Arri.

 

[kingofmyempire]

Also. One thing I really want to test is to use Cinelike profile and adjust contrast, looking at noice amount and exposure latitude. In compared to exposing NON Cinelike profile “to the left” and lifting the shadows. Will it be possible to achieve the same result? Will the noice level be the same? To me the bitrate is really good, but is it enough? In a ENG style camera, you can adjust so much more to achieve a good base for your picture, like “knee” and “black level”, black gamma“ and what not!

Also I do realise this drone is just a toy, but a fairly capable toy

 

[charlas]

Also. One thing I really want to test is to use Cinelike profile and adjust contrast, looking at noice amount and exposure latitude. In compared to exposing NON Cinelike profile “to the left” and lifting the shadows. Will it be possible to achieve the same result? Will the noice level be the same? To me the bitrate is really good, but is it enough? In a ENG style camera, you can adjust so much more to achieve a good base for your picture, like “knee” and “black level”, black gamma“ and what not!

Also I do realise this drone is just a toy, but a fairly capable toy

Also, latest version of premiere has auto matching, so colour grade one shot, then use it to match other shots too, recently added to latest version of prem

 

[RobH2]

Guys this is also a really simple way to create a LUT. For video footage I prefer to not use photoshop but AfterEffects or Premiere. They have all the tools I need, like vector scope, different types of waveforms RGB parade and LUMA etc. There you can also investigate the amount of noice, and where the noice are at, in a specific colour Chanel and or in a specific IRE range. To suppress the noice in a more targeted way.

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Im not saying this from a specific drone gradeing experience (I truly suck at flying my drone at this point but learning) but rather from a generic video camera point eg. ENG style cameras and cinema cameras like Canon C line, RED and Arri.

I agree, doing the grading in After Effects or Premiere is a much nicer experience than in Photoshop but a lot of people don't have Adobe Suite. I'd guess that most people who have AE or Premiere already have some skills with manipulating images and video. If you are going to get into this business I suggest you look into getting an Adobe Suite and then you'll have the tools you need. Besides the excellent LUT video above, Lumetri in both AE and Premiere is a great way to start any grading adventure.

 

[kingofmyempire]

Could be interresting for some!

4K 25fps Cinelike picture profile -

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4K 25fps Standard -

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2.7K 25fps Standard picture profile -

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2.7K 50fps Standard picture profile -

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1080p 25fps standard picture profile -

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1080p 120fps standard picture profile - 1080p 120fps standard picture profile

Unfortunately I have no place to share the original files, any ideas? If you want to I can upload screenshots of after effects, but I don't know where to put them.

Now let´s see what hides in the profiles

Ok, first of,

- The standard profile is simply an S-curve but with added blue tint, probably to "pop" more in compare to cinelike profile. To much tint if you ask me, but hey, everyone wants different The blue tint spreads all over the image, not only in highlights. The cinelike profile has a bit cyan/magenta tint in the lows.

- The 2.7K 25fps image has the same FOV as the 4K image, but 2.7K 50fps file is actually cropped in, wich in turns means it's zoomed in with natural loss of resolution! For a majority of people this would not matter, but if you want to Know the exact FOV to for example track your shoots in 3D, this is a good thing to know.

- The 1080p 25fps image has the same FOV as the 4K 25fps image. AND the 1080p 120fps has the same FOV.

- The 1080p 25fps image is actually really crisp and nice! The 1080p 120fps is as expected really not useful unless scaled down in post to say 720p. You can sharpen the 1080p 120fps image a little IF scaled down. The 1080p 25fps image really shines with the high bitrate!

- The 2.7K 50fps image is noticable less crisp, as expected. But can be carefully sharpened in post with good result.

Why am I shooting at some boring trees you may ask. Well if you think about compression. Moving trees with tons of details really puts the compression to its limits Really if you only shot nice gradients you could definately shoots some nice 1080p 120fps images, but as soon as you introduce more and more contrasty details, the bitrate would need to start working more and more the more details. with added compression artefacts as a result!

To me, I'm actually starting to thinking that the cinelike profile is maby, maby introducing to much noice in the lows when you expand the compressed contrast curve! If I look at the standard profile, and raises the lows without moving the black point, the result is actually less noicy. I have seen this with other "flat" profiles, often contributed to not enough compression bandwidth!

This might look like critics, but the more I investigate the picture, the more amazed I am they actually managed to put such a good image processor in it. The camera it self is probably not stellar technology, but regular camera and sensor.