Color correction is just one step of the entire filmmaking process…but oh, what a difference it can make. You can take average footage and really make it pop, sing and enhance the viewing experience of your project. If you have excellent footage, then the sky is the limit. You can also make images look garish, ugly and destroy all the hard work the crew did to capture those images on the day of the shoot. The challenges and choices are many and it comes with great responsibility if you are the one applying the Color Correction and Color Grade. In the indie film world, jobs are more often merged and unified and Color Correction is more and more falling into the hands of the Editor. The smaller the budget and tighter the deadline…the more often this becomes true. Shane asked me to take this opportunity and pass on some tips and tricks I have learned over the years of Coloring features, shorts, ads, music videos and documentaries. I choose to use Adobe CS5.5 for my Color post work and bounce between After Effects, Photoshop and Premiere as I love the seamless integration it provides. I am ecstatic to be integrating Speedgrade into my workflow as it will be part of the upcoming CS6 release. That said…the tips I would like to share with you are applicable to all Color Correction software.
To get on the same page, let’s quickly go over some terminology that clarifies what is what in this realm.
COLOR CORRECTION is the process where every clip is manually tweaked to get a good exposure and balance of light. Each clip is adjusted to match color temperature to a predefined choice for each scene. This tedious and mechanical process is essential and in its own way, an art form. The use of SCOPES (Waveform, Vectroscope, Parade) is critical to this step and luckily most NLE’s and Grading software have them built-in. Without them you are literally flying blind and solely trusting your eyes, which have to adjust to room light ambience, fatigue, funky monitors and other factors constantly. Trust the SCOPES and let them guide you into accurate and creative decision making.
COLOR GRADING is the creative process where decisions are made to further enhance or establish a new visual tone to the project through software including: introducing new color themes, re-lighting within a frame, films stock emulations, color gradients and a slew of other choices. Being that this is purely creative, there is no wrong or right…only what the DP, director and colorist feel is appropriate for the story. It can be subtle and invisible or over-the-top and uber-stylized. Therein lies the challenge…The challenge of choices. The tools available are so numerous, powerful and often free (Davinci Resolve Lite!) that you have no excuse not to explore these options further before you embark on the Grading journey.
LIFT-GAMMA-GAIN / SHADOWS-MIDTONES-HILIGHTS / BLACKS-MIDS-WHITES
These are the 3 interchangeable assignments used to describe what portion of the image you will be working with. Every program uses one of the 3 naming conventions above, but in essence they are all the same. Even when working with LEVELS or CURVES, you rely on numericals but still have 3 sliders (at least) to make your adjustments. With these 3 controls, you can mold images almost at will.
There are so many different elements to Color Correction that trying to fit it all into one blog would be futile. I would like to focus on several specific tips that will allow the indie filmmaker to be as effective as possible in creating imagery that will help serve the story. I would like to thank Michael Evanet, the director of “HWY”, for allowing me to share his footage for this blog. I just finished editing and Color Correcting his film.
TIP #1 – SHOOT WITH A FLAT OR LOG PROFILE
Shane has learned over his extensive research and testing of every profile available that choosing a flat profile will allow you to capture as much information as possible into the camera. When I shoot on the 5Dmkii, I like to use Technicolor Cinestyle or Canon Neutral with minimal sharpness and contrast. I’m also about to test the Similaar Flaat profiles that just became available in 4 different flavors. The camera companies often have stock profiles that look contrasty and rich in camera but when analyzed on a monitor, you will have crushed blacks and blown-out highlights. That is information that is gone forever and you cannot get it back. We, as filmmakers with the tools in our hands, cannot accept stock anything! Just as auto anything on the camera is a recipe for disaster, stock profiles are for rank amateurs. Tweak away!
Click the image to view high resolution.
TIP #2 – TRUST THE WAVEFORM, VECTROSCOPE and PARADE SCOPES
In PREMIERE, go to the WINDOW tab and choose WORKSPACE and COLOR CORRECTION. Push the little RGB BUTTON on the bottom right of any window. This will reveal the SCOPES and more. Waveform=Luminance. Vectroscope=Chrominance. Parade=Red,Green,Blue values. I can’t stress enough how critical and essential it is to use these tools. Once you embrace the SCOPES, you will be confident to plow through footage and have instant visual feedback to confirm you are making the right decisions. I won’t broach the calibrated monitor issue that is always lurking ($$$) and will just say that understanding and trusting the SCOPES will get you 95% of the way home. Grab a Matrox Mini and use that to calibrate any LCD TV if you’re in a pinch. This includes finishing projects for broadcast or passing QC for distribution. I’ve on-lined 4 indie features on Final Cut Pro using only SCOPES that all passed QC the first time around. I was sweating bullets…but survived! Adobe makes it even easier for me now.
Click the image to view high resolution.
TIP #3 – ORDER OF OPERATIONS
To maintain image quality and to preserve as much info as possible, it’s important to do things in the proper order. Just as you wouldn’t ice a cake before you bake it, when you apply an effect is critical. I have always achieved great results using Stu Maschwitz’s advice. Doing Color Correction on your footage in this order will help you maintain extremely high quality in the interaction of all the effects you use. Not all steps are needed for every shot but in case you have to use them all, here they are:
1. Remove artifacts and de-noise.
2. Balance your shots by adjusting BLACKS/MIDS/WHITES, SATURATION and WHITE BALANCE.
3. Relight within a shot using power windows or masks.
4. Add gradients, diffusion and other lens filters.
5. Add vignettes
6. Grade your images
7. Simulate a film stock of your choice
8. Resize and sharpen
Click the image to view high resolution.
TIP #4 – THE FAST COLOR CORRECTER EFFECT in PREMIERE is 32 BIT, EASY AND EFFECTIVE
This video effect is a great starting point to tackle any shot. This one effect will allow you in REAL-TIME to address levels, saturation, tinting of the image, white balance and more. The shot below shows how I added contrast by raising the input black slider and lowering the white input slider. I used the color wheel and dragged towards orange to counteract the blue in the original image. You can also use the White Balance dropper to achieve an accurate starting point…but I preferred in this case to Tint the whole image towards orange and approximate a 1950’s film look. I boosted saturation by a healthy 40% to make the image pop. Finally, a 2.35 matte was added to approximate the old Cinemascope aspect ratio.
Click the image to view high resolution.
TIP #5 - ADJUST YOUR LIFT/SHADOWS/BLACKS FIRST
By adjusting your BLACKS first, you get a baseline started to balance your image. I like working from the bottom up and getting my BLACKS just kissing 0 IRE on the WAVEFORM. I then push the WHITES up to expand my image and get some contrast into it. Finally, I tweak the MIDS as needed. You will notice that moving the BLACKS or WHITES up or down will affect the entire WAVEFORM so there is a give and take dance as you work back and forth. MIDS do not affect the BLACKS or WHITES too much and that is why you should work with them last. Lastly, if you raise MIDS, you will lose overall saturation to the image, so compensate by bumping up the SATURATION to keep the colors popping.
Click the image to view high resolution.
TIP #6 - MIDS ARE WHERE FACES LIVE
MIDS are where the skin tones live and you can really make a face pop by raising the MIDS after you have a good balanced image. Sometimes it feels easy to raise the EXPOSURE in Premiere or After Effects to brighten a face or scene…but that raises all the levels evenly and will ultimately not be as effective as separately adjusting the 3 zones. A good IRE for a properly exposed face is 60-70 IRE on the WAVEFORM. If you raise the MIDS too much, you will introduce the beast of digital noise, so use judicially!
Click the image to view high resolution.
TIP #7 - Look for the FLESH LINE on the VECTROSCOPE to see how far off your skin tone is. On the 3-Way Color Corrector effect, or on a plug-in like Colorista, you can change the specific zone of color where the flesh tones live. By adjusting the color of the MIDS wheel you can introduce the proper hues into a face that need tweaking. Move the wheel in the direction of the color you need more of in your face. Watch the section of skin tone move until it lines up with FLESH LINE. An interesting note is that the FLESH LINE is accurate for all races and skin tones. We all share the same skin pigment that registers as numeric FLESH color. Proper WHITE BALANCING earlier will make this a minor but still important adjustment. If you are going for a natural look, no one likes a pink, red or green face. SATURATION should be dialed in at this point to give a natural look to the flesh tone. Here’s a subtle example of adjusting for skin…and an overt example for comparison. Neither is right or wrong….it’s all up to what feels right for that moment.
Click the image to view high resolution.
Click the image to view high resolution.
I hope that I was able to pass on some helpful knowledge and that you learned at least one thing you didn’t know before you read this. There are infinite ways to approach Color Correction and the best thing is…no one way is the best. You don’t need every plug-in known to man, a 4k projector and a $20,000 control surface to color correct. You only need time, the simplest effects and a sense of wonder and excitement. Feel free to push the footage around and see how it responds. What may look like a mistake on one shot could be the secret sauce you need for a completely different shot. Experiment and enjoy!
To inquire about my editing and post services or if you have any questions, please contact me at:
vashi@me.com
310.526.1400
www.vashivisuals.com
Tags: adobe cs5.5, adobe photoshop, adobe premiere pro, DSLR Color Correction, HD Color Correction
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Wow, this was SUPER helpful. A great way to get started into properly color correcting. I am amazed at the impact color has on the overall feel of a scene.
Thanks a lot!
Thank you Mick for your kind comment! I hope you can take away something from the article and use it your advantage. All the best…Vashi
[...] jump into Tip 4…I wanted to quickly touch on the actual color grade before the VFX was added. In my article on Shane Hurlbut’s Blog (and the most viewed article of all time on his site!), I go into depth of how I color correct [...]
Sharpen goes first. Because modify the black curves. After you lost a lot of shadows information. Try it!
Hey Vashi,
Great post, very usefull, thank you! One question:
You say you first denoise your source material, so you can have a clean start.. Do you mean you apply the denoise filter to your clips, and then export everything, and then reimport the rendered files into premiere?
If so.. what do you export as? What container/codec? Cause that would have to be lossless right?
Thank you!
Wow, that was super! very nice tutorial! thank you so much!!
I have just one question…tell me if this is correct: I always use the LIFT and GAIN to stretch the individual RGB parades while matching them, instead of using the “master” slider. Is this the proper way of doing this? because sometimes your image may have more blues… or greens… I don’t know if that’s the correct way.
this blog is the best, Shane is great!
thanks again
Ivan Lee
Sorry, forgot to mention that I use Apple Color
thanks
Thank you for the kind comments Ivan! I’m glad you enjoyed my post and Shane’s amazing site. In answer to your question…you are doing it the right way. By using the separate color channels to balance the image, you have much more control and accuracy in your color grade. The master slider will usually affect RGB and Luminance which in turn effects saturation as well. The master slider is fine for overall changes but not for specific or isolated tweaks to your image. I hope that helps and best of luck in your endeavors! All the best…
Vashi Nedomansky
vashivisuals.com
[...] Tips for Color Correction: http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2012/01/7-tips-for-hd-color-correction-and-dslr-color-correction/ – great tips from Shane Hurlbut, DP of “Terminator: Salvation”. All based around [...]
Excellent tutorial! I denoise the original footage with neat video in AE, then color grade in davinci resolve and for the final touch I apply holygrain film grain for the film look and to reduce color banding.
Nikomedia, thanks for the kind comment. Your workflow is solid and very similar to mine. I haven’t tried holygrain but will look into it. I’m always searching for new ways to improve and “cinematize” digital footage. Thanks for the tip!
[...] great tutorial session with Vashi Nedomansky (with a nod to Stu Maschwitz) from hurlblog: http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2012/01/7-tips-for-hd-color-correction-and-dslr-color-correction/ This entry was posted in Color Correction, Editing, Production and tagged color correction, [...]
Thanks for the repost and your support! Glad you enjoyed the article…All the best.
[...] COW” on Color Correction/ Grading. And I am also looking at this blog on “7 tips for HD Color Correction and DSLR Color Correction“. Please click the pink links so you know what I am currently talking [...]
Denoising your videos earlier the better!! and vashi thanks for for sharing some great tips on boosting the flesh tones!! Thats why I thought that your video has a great lighting!!
I’m impressed. I’m on my 3rd serious film , ever in my life and its a documentary. This tut quickly helps me understand on how to get rid of a given colour tone i dont like. My EX1r’s tend to f^&*-up the WB if the lightning is accompanied by a softbox. A certain scene was too greenish so i did what i usually do with my pictures and crush the blacks and lift the whites, adjusting greys for brightness. After tugging on the fast colour corrector as explained here i went to the opposite coulour of the green tone and just loved what i saw. I’m gonna get deeper into this now with better understanding. Just 1 thing:
3. Relight within a shot using power windows or masks.
4. Add gradients, diffusion and other lens filters.
I’m curious on that. Do you have any more tutorials on that?
Bram….thank you for the kind comments and I’m glad my tutorial helped you get better results with your work.
I will be posting more tutorials on color correction, editing and sound work on http://www.VashiVisuals.com There are some new tutorials there that cover color correction. All the best and thanks for your support!
Hi Vashi.
Send you a huge ‘Thank you’ from Germany.
I was looking about a week for the right order of doing my CC.
And for luck I found it here.
These eight points and the ‘one-after-the-other’ was really helpfull!
(Beside: I came to this article via this: http://vashivisuals.com/adobe-cs6-5-editing-tips-for-music-videos/)
So – and now I do have a question to the skin tones:
I found that it is helpful to use the ‘Four-Point-Matte’ (hope this is the right name for this tool in english) to select only skin-tones (for ex. a part of the face, without hair). So I can see if the skin-tones are at the ‘skin-line’.
But if not?
I have a clip here, which is shot with artificial lightning and which is somehow redish.
I tried to use the 3-way-color-cor. and push only the mids till skinline is reached. But: The whole clip gets really ugly (greenish).
And/or I also tryed the RGB-Curves. But it didnt work.
’3-way-color-c. second cc with mask’ didnt work well becouse the whole image is kind of redish/orange and so it isnt possible to mask only the face.
Am I doing wrong?
What else could I try?
Do I have to accept the little to red skin?
Thanks for an answer
Adam
Hi Adam and thank you for reading my article and posting a very good question. You are on the right path with your approach to fix the skin tones and remove the red. The secret is that you need to combine both a mask (matte) and secondary color correction. Ideally, you should make a matte around only the part of the frame that has the skin tone. If you have already tried this and could not isolate just the face/skin tone because everything is reddish/orange you will probably have to rotoscope the face frame by frame. Another option is to open this clip in Davinci Resolve Lite (free!) and track a matte that only has the face/skin in it. It will automatically follow the area you select and you can then change the skin tone color with the same 3-way color wheels that exist in Premiere. Without seeing the image for myself, it is kind of hard to say exactly which technique to use…but the tracked matte with secondary color correction would be my suggestion. I know it can be frustrating, but good and believable results in post are often time consuming. The more you do it…the easier it wil be! Good luck and I hope this helps answer your questions! Vashi
Thanks Vashi for this great workflow. It is really great. I have a further question:
In Tip 3
1. Remove artifacts and de-noise.
What do you mean by “Remove artifacts” and how is that done.
De-noise is that a step that can only be achieved by getting plug-ins ?
Cheers and keep up the excellent work
Thank you Yago for the kind comment. Glad that you found it helpful! In terms of artifacts and de-noise…artifacts are usually considered macro-blocks in the darker areas of footage and also banding in skies or gradients. Both can be addressed with de-noising plugins like Neat Video or Magic Bullet De-noiser. If you own or have access to After Effects, there is a “remove grain” effect that is already built in, but you really have to fiddle with all the settings to get a similar result to Neat Video or MB De-noiser. You would also have to add back some sharpness with an “unsharp mask” in After Effects in my opinion. If you have a lot of noisy or low light footage…it might be worth it to buy a plugin and save a lot of hassle and time. The choice is up to you! All the best…
Hi Vashi
I was reading again the answers to Q&A’s and found the answer there already.
Thanks for your time
yago
[...] trabajo es correcto o se ha de modificar. La mayor parte de la información está sacada del blog Hurlblog Educate, que pertenece a Vashi Nedomansky, un profesional con años de experiencia en el mundo del [...]
[...] this before Thursday 25th http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2012/01/7-tips-for-hd-color-correction-and-dslr-color-correction/ Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:Like [...]
Woow great man! thanks alot. Especially the order how to aply color correction is really helpfull.
Thank you Remco for the kind comment. That Order of Operations tip really helps in maintaining footage quality through the color workflow. So glad it helped out!
I noticed that you shot in cool lighting so that there’s no need to add add blue shadows and highlights in post production so all you need to add in post production are the orange midtones. How do you shoot in cool lighting when you are outside? What camera settings should I adjust to shoot in cool colors?
And by cool I mean blueish. Not the cool as in awesome.
Hi Bien and thanks for your support and good question. We achieved the blue-tint look all in camera. We dialed the Color Temperature from 5600 (daylight) down to 4200 using the manual settings in the Canon 5Dmkii. That shifted the color to the look we wanted and then we added make warmth in the mids to the skin tones. You can do all of this in post we had shot 5600…but with the 8-bit color space of the h.264 footage…we captured as close to the final look straight off the bat. I hope that helps and best of luck on your projects!
Thanks, Vashi! You’re a great help! You really helped me become better at color grading.
Bien…glad that it helped out! There is so much to learn…so every little tip and trick gives you another tool to perfect your craft. Thanks again for your kind commment!
That’s genious since you don’t need much effort in post anymore:D
How much sharpening do you typically apply with the Premiere Pro sharpening tool? I’ve been adding a value between 30-50 to most of my shots. I have sharpening dialed down to zero in the camera. Thanks
Hi Aaron. Good question…I will share my method of sharpening h.264 (DSLR) footage. First off, sharpening dialed all the way down is essential as the in-camera sharpening will cause ugly sharpening and a lot of moire and fringing edges. Second, I prefer Unsharp Mask in Premiere/After Effects for my sharpening. I find it has more control then the Sharpen effect. After some testing to dial it in…my secret sauce for Unsharp Mask is Amount 100 and Radius 1.1 for a good general sharpening effect. That’s the settings I use to give my footage a nice pop. Give it a shot for yourself and let me know how it works for you! All the best…Vashi
Wow.. I’m beginning my way to Color Grading.. and I stumble upon this article… Thank you… I think It’s a very good headstart for me..
Hi Arie! Thanks for the kind comment and I’m hope it gives you a nice introduction to the huge world of Color Correction! Best of luck!
[...] http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/2012/01/7-tips-for-hd-color-correction-and-dslr-color-correction/ [...]
My pleasure Flain! Thanks for taking the time to read it.
Hi, saw your article on grading, excellent thanks!
Just a couple of questions…
Do you always de noise and what plugin/ program do you use for that?
Also do you always sharpen at the end? And Once again what do you use?
Ive been using the flat profile from marvels adfa for my dslr work wich is good for grading, ive hust never been in the habbit of post sharpening, have I been doing myself a disservice?
Thanks
Peter
Thanks for the questions Peter. Glad you enjoyed my post!
For my denoising work I use either Red Giant’s Denoiser 2 plug-in or Neat Video plug-in After Effects. They are both solid options and can really save your footage from artifacts, blocky dark areas and general digital grain patterns. I use denoising on a shot by shot basis…not on every shot.
I usually add some sharpening with DSLR footage (5Dmkii). Every NLE has either a sharpen or unsharp mask filter effect. In my editing software of choice, Adobe Premiere CS6…I use the unsharp mask filter that one of the most knowledgable and accomplished gurus, Stu Maschwitz, has recommended…especially for DSLR footage. I use Unsharp Mask: Amount=120 and Radius=1.1 as an excellent starting point to pop the footage.
My other choice for sharpening is using the “Pop” setting in Colorista II and dialing it up as needed. It adds nice contrast to give perceived additional sharpness and can be used in both the positive and negative direction to sharpen or soften.
In terms of picture profiles…I like the Neutral setting that Shane recommends and also use Cinestyle from Technicolor for extreme contrast situations. I try to get it as close to final image in camera.
I hope this helps you out…
all the best,
Vashi
Hi Vashi,
Should I apply de-noisier to the native 5Dmk 3 clips in the Premiere cs6 timeline before I “send to speed grade” ? Then reimport the new dpx files into the timeline for final adjustments (ie. mojo and sharpening)?
Why would denoising after speedgrade be less optimal?
And on a side note: Can I approximate Mojo style looks within Speedgrade, using secondaries? As I feel that that would be more ideal than re-grading the dpx sources with MB-Mojo.
Thanks,
Basil
Hi Basil…here’s the way I would do it. I always denoise first on the source footage so I can have a clean start to add my color corrections, grade and fx. I find that if I add all the additional color and curves then denoise after..I can introduce additional noise into the original image and it can be harder to remove at the end. Just my choice.
You can approximate most any look in Speedgrade including the Mojo style. You can do it with secondaries to isolate the skin tone and boost the flesh tones…or you can do it on a separate node in Speedgrade and apply mid boost to orange and lows towards blue/green to get that look.
The good thing is you have many different choices and methods to accomplish your goal. Good luck!