Correct color with D-Cinelike

[RobH2]

You can do a 14-day free trial at: box.com and have 100GB of free storage. It's not bad to have a place like this for the future. If you can afford it, it's only $5 per month after the trial is over. I use it and it's very handy.

 

[charlas]

Got unlimited Google drive [emoji4]

 

[dwallersv]

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

I totally understand what you're getting at. Completely valid concept. Hardware can have some inherent, bias error, for which a fixed correction (usually via a LUT), will get you to a close record of what actual light illuminated the sensor. There are LUTs available for various camera platforms (like the GoPro) for just this purpose.

In my opinion, they're a complete waste of time, effort, money (for those that aren't free). Further, in my opinion, they confuse the non-professional about what color correction/grading is for, and why.

This is for one simple reason: Any errors associated with hardware are completely drowned out by the lighting issues that surround the concept of white balance (and again, the Phenomena of Color Constancy).

Human perception of color is far more psychological, a consequence of neurological processing -- than the proportions of red, green, and blue in a pixel.

So, just applying corrections for known errors in sensor will do very little to "correct" the color of a clip. Such changes are relatively small compared to the subjective changes necessary to get it to look "right" -- something your brain does real-time to the images it sees, but not possible for any post-processing AI. Available to date.

 

[RobH2]

I totally understand what you're getting at. Completely valid concept. Hardware can ...not possible for any post-processing AI. Available to date.

Well said!

 

[charlas]

I totally understand what you're getting at. Completely valid concept. Hardware can have some inherent, bias error, for which a fixed correction (usually via a LUT), will get you to a close record of what actual light illuminated the sensor. There are LUTs available for various camera platforms (like the GoPro) for just this purpose.

In my opinion, they're a complete waste of time, effort, money (for those that aren't free). Further, in my opinion, they confuse the non-professional about what color correction/grading is for, and why.

This is for one simple reason: Any errors associated with hardware are completely drowned out by the lighting issues that surround the concept of white balance (and again, the Phenomena of Color Constancy).

Human perception of color is far more psychological, a consequence of neurological processing -- than the proportions of red, green, and blue in a pixel.

So, just applying corrections for known errors in sensor will do very little to "correct" the color of a clip. Such changes are relatively small compared to the subjective changes necessary to get it to look "right" -- something your brain does real-time to the images it sees, but not possible for any post-processing AI. Available to date.

Couldn't agree more [emoji4]

 

[plexus]

I read through the thread and I didn't see a reference to something quite critical: montior calibration. Monitors render colours very differently even across the same make and model. If you want to work with colour more accuralty you need to work against a reference. That reference is a colour calibrated monitor. I use the Pantone i1 Display Pro. One nice thing about Davinci Resolve is that you can colour correct against a ColorChecker Passport. So if I want a solid colour management work flow I will shoot the ColorChecker Passport with the Mavic before the scene and use that as a reference in Davinici. But even without using a ColorChecker, having a calibrated monitor will give you a better sense of the colours your are working with. Without it, you are pretty much guessing. Often just guessing is good enough.

After all that, then I move to LUTs....

 

[charlas]

I read through the thread and I didn't see a reference to something quite critical: montior calibration. Monitors render colours very differently even across the same make and model. If you want to work with colour more accuralty you need to work against a reference. That reference is a colour calibrated monitor. I use the Pantone i1 Display Pro. One nice thing about Davinci Resolve is that you can colour correct against a ColorChecker Passport. So if I want a solid colour management work flow I will shoot the ColorChecker Passport with the Mavic before the scene and use that as a reference in Davinici. But even without using a ColorChecker, having a calibrated monitor will give you a better sense of the colours your are working with. Without it, you are pretty much guessing. Often just guessing is good enough.

After all that, then I move to LUTs....

Agreed (used to work in print, so sorry of second nature now, but should have thought about mentioning it)

Also if you are colour grading, make sure you know what the tools and the rgb/scales/etc (depending on what software you use) mean, after all if it looks good on your monitor, but you can see you have crushed your lows in the tools etc, then odds are it will look bad elsewhere. It's the only way to account for the fact that 99% of people WON'T have colour calibrated screens, and worse yet, 80% of them will be on over saturated mobile devices

 

[Dave Maine]

I second the need for a calibrated monitor. Without it, there is no way to share your work and expect that it looks like what you corrected it to. Most modern computer monitors can be corrected pretty well with a 200 or 300 $ calibration package.

Commercial production uses dedicated self calibrating monitors at the $25,000 point.

 

[plexus]

I think a Pantone i! calibrator is around $200. if you are working with colour and spent >$1000 on a Mavic, $200 to work with colour accurately is worht it if it matters to you. all your other work on the monitor will also look better and more natural. it doesnt cost much to get closer to an accurate refernece.

With my DLSR work, I use the colour checker, both the small portable one and the larger one. with the larger one I take multiple shots of it at different exposures. Each set of exposures is under a certain lighting condition such as full sunlight, cloudy etc. then in an app I use called Photo Ninja it can read the images of the charts and work out how to balance the output of my camera against a standard and creates the equivalent of a LUT. So now I have profiles in my RAW processor that match the exact camera I am using. Further, I can shoot the portable checker under whatever lighting conditions I am shooting in at the time and then take my shots of subjects. in Photo Ninja I let it process the shot of the checker first, it can read the swatches and compare against a digital reference. Then use that "shoot profile" and the camera profile to work out how to shift all the colours to the feel I want. For example if I shoot under a green forest canopy, I can tell it to colour grade to sunny or cloudy and its pretty nice. Davini Resolve also has this kind of ColourChecker management where you can shoot the same colour target with the Mavic and align that up in Davinci and it will colour grade to reference for you. Its often a good starting point.

 

[charlas]

I use a data color spider 5,works fine for most stuff to be fair. You can go further and get the calibration chart to go with it (shoot it before shooting rest of the scene) and use that to calibrate too. Not ideal for drone stuff though as lighting changes so often. But calibrated screen is a good idea.

You can get 80% the way there though if you understand all the tools available in premiere lumentri and the likes.

 

[dwallersv]

I read through the thread and I didn't see a reference to something quite critical: montior calibration.

Bingo. BINGO BINGO BINGO!

This is far more important than anything else we've discussed here. Correct/grade on a badly adjusted monitor and the result, shown anywhere else, will be an embarassment.

 

[kingofmyempire]

I Use a EIZO ColorEdge CG248-4K and an old Samsung LED-TV to work with. I tend to correct everything to look good on the Eizo, and then put it on the TV to correct gamma! I also work with the colour checker, the video version, works really good!

 

[Kyle Dias]

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

Hey man, that's a great direct to the point explanation ! Thanks.
I am new on this kind of stuff and still playing around with my adjusts, almost there though ! But I still don't know well how to work with these video treatment softs, witch one would you recommend me to be the easiest and really suited for beginners like me ?

Thanks

 

[Dmbrody]

I Use a EIZO ColorEdge CG248-4K and an old Samsung LED-TV to work with. I tend to correct everything to look good on the Eizo, and then put it on the TV to correct gamma! I also work with the colour checker, the video version, works really good!

I’m pretty sure film poets makes a d-cinelike Correction LUT specifically for the Mavic Air. You’ll have to capture your footage with sharpness 0, contrast -3 and saturation -2. I can’t speak for its quality, but there you have it. To be honest, I doubt it’s technically correct and properly mapped to rec 709. They seem to be wedding and event photographers/filmmakers, not professional colorists. Not that they aren’t really good at what they do, but professional colorists are a unique breed. They do also sell Neat Video noise profiles and presets, so that’s nice. Again I can’t vouch for the quality, but it’s another time-saver.

Spectrumgrades also sells some LUTS for the Air (and/or for d-cinelike), but I’m pretty sure those are all Style LUTS. There might be a Correction LUT in their Pure bundle. It’s probably worth emailing them.

As I’m sure you know better than I, a Correction LUT relies on a good exposure. That’s pretty much impossible to get from the sky with the Mavic Air’s limited dynamic range. You just have to choose whether you want a properly exposed sky and clouds, or properly exposed ground and shadows. I’m still experimenting, but it looks like we can use a pretty strong ND filter to preserve interesting clouds and sky, and still recover a lot of detail in the darks on land. So once I get the footage into my pc, I fully expect to be lifting shadows A LOT first, then fixing highs and gamma until I get as good an exposure as I can, then applying a Correction LUT (once I find one). I’ll use the Neat Video plugin in Resolve to deal with the noise that will come from that approach.

It’s a lot of work, render time, and disk storage, just get to a color correct gradeable base line, so anything that saves a little time is worth it. On that note, if you do find a good 709 Correction LUT for the Air (or if you end up making your own), please post back to let us (me) know. ;-)

 

[Dmbrody]

I’m pretty sure film poets makes a d-cinelike Correction LUT specifically for the Mavic Air. You’ll have to capture your footage with sharpness 0, contrast -3 and saturation -2. I can’t speak for its quality, but there you have it. To be honest, I doubt it’s technically correct and properly mapped to rec 709. They seem to be wedding and event photographers/filmmakers, not professional colorists. Not that they aren’t really good at what they do, but professional colorists are a unique breed. They do also sell Neat Video noise profiles and presets, so that’s nice. Again I can’t vouch for the quality, but it’s another time-saver.

Spectrumgrades also sells some LUTS for the Air (and/or for d-cinelike), but I’m pretty sure those are all Style LUTS. There might be a Correction LUT in their Pure bundle. It’s probably worth emailing them.

As I’m sure you know better than I, a Correction LUT relies on a good exposure. That’s pretty much impossible to get from the sky with the Mavic Air’s limited dynamic range. You just have to choose whether you want a properly exposed sky and clouds, or properly exposed ground and shadows. I’m still experimenting, but it looks like we can use a pretty strong ND filter to preserve interesting clouds and sky, and still recover a lot of detail in the darks on land. So once I get the footage into my pc, I fully expect to be lifting shadows A LOT first, then fixing highs and gamma until I get as good an exposure as I can, then applying a Correction LUT (once I find one). I’ll use the Neat Video plugin in Resolve to deal with the noise that will come from that approach.

It’s a lot of work, render time, and disk storage, just get to a color correct gradeable base line, so anything that saves a little time is worth it. On that note, if you do find a good 709 Correction LUT for the Air (or if you end up making your own), please post back to let us (me) know. ;-)

@kingofmyempire :
I tested out film poets noise profiles (they are good, but defaults settings are too strong), and their LUT. Ended up likening the Spectrumgrade Purity LUT better. Anyway, check it out here (disclaimer: there’s a bit of very low quality effects fun at the end. Just ignore that part).

 

[Jameslavis]

Filmpoets lut. Hands down is perfect. Even when I colour correct, this lut is the quickest to perfection out of a lut

 

[Dmbrody]

Filmpoets lut. Hands down is perfect. Even when I colour correct, this lut is the quickest to perfection out of a lut

I tried it. It was good for sure, but I ended up prefering the SpectrumGrade Purity LUT.

 

[rnederhorst]

I made a Mavic Air LUT to be used with Cinelike and -3 on the saturation. Seems to work well for my exterior shoots : Dropbox - DJI_Cinelike_-3_Saturation_1.DJI_0002.cube

 

[Devlin]

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

Awesome channel. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Dan C]

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).

I imagine you are aware of the "shoot to the right" advocates. The argument I've heard is that there is more information in brighter (stronger) light sources. Therefore, the farther right you shoot without clipping, the more information you capture.

I personally have no clue if there is any truth to this...