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1. Re: How to properly use tonal range definition?
Fuzzy Barsik Jan 28, 2014 5:22 AM (in response to jay.schipper)Get a copy of the 'Color Correction Handbook' by Alexis Van Hurkman so as to understand colours better. It does explain all terms and principles, irrespective of which application you use.
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2. Re: How to properly use tonal range definition?
R Neil Haugen Jan 28, 2014 12:39 PM (in response to jay.schipper)Hello Jay ...
Which version of PPro are you using? Do you have Speedgrade also? Or AfterEffects?
I've got a GH3 three, and also a D600 Nikon. LOVE working with the GH3 footage ... the D600's ok. Does either of them have the total dynamic depth of a Red or Arri? Um ... no. But precise metering and WB before exposure should give you a complete range to deal with in post afterwards. I'm not sure of your experience, but ... if you are planning on doing much "grading", as corrections of color/s-/tonality are called, you do want to shoot fairly "flat" as far as contrast settings in the camera. Most users of the GH3 ... no matter whether they use "Natural" or whatever as the base mode to shoot in ... set contrast to -1 to -4. In-studio stuff with very controlled lighting and exposure, -1 to maybe even 0 would be ok. Outside in bright light ... probably you're better of around -3 or -2 for contrast. Color ideas have changed a bit recently, at first "the Received Wisdom" was saturation at -4 or so, now ... a lot of us are moving to more -2 or thereabouts.
This gives you files that you can pretty much grade the Hades out of ... again, they don't have the total "depth" of a $20G camera. You don't have room enough to ignore tight WB and exposure to begin with. Take care of those, you can do amazing stuff with the files.
Now ... as to grading in PPro ... not the easiest. The three-way color corrector is used by a lot of people who work there, and it's good to get a handle on the settings that control where and when those wheels "work", whether on over-all, shadows, mids, highs. And yea, you kinda need to hunt for that and then play with it a while. I did NOT find that intuitive when I started with it. To be gentle of comment. In the CC versions there are better tools for grading in PPro, so yea ... it can be done. Read the books if you're going to grade there.
The Hurkman book referenced above is EXCELLENT ... as is Hullfish & Fowler's "Color Correction for Video" ... also sitting here by my monitor. Read through those two, you'll have a vastly deeper understanding of what happens in ANY program you grade in. They both talk about the typical controls and sub-controls in video grading programs. I found understanding some of the sub-controls that "limit" the effect of the dials and whatnot in PPRo to be more complicated than just going into Sg.
If you are on the CC apps, then you should also have access to Speedgrade and AfterEffects. Even on the pre-CC versions, you may have PPro & Ae ... a lot of people (like myself) did. Speedgrade is a grading program, period. And with the new direct-link from PPro in the CC versions, you don't "export" an edl or anything to go grade ... just click a menu item & your timeline opens in Sg. WAY cool. When you're done grading, you just click to go back to PPro and it saves the file and takes you back to PPro ... sweet. After reading the mentioned books, watching a LOT of lynda.com tutorials and some from Creative Cow and Adobe, I've found Sg to be a very handy program, like working in it very much EXCEPT for the poor utilization of the scopes, which ... well ... anyone who's read much of anything here or on the Sg forum knows about. Sigh. They're usable, if not optimal.
There are quite a few people who don't bother with Sg and instead prefer to grade in Ae. I found that possible but oh my ... my head hurts at all the options all it's controls have. It can do about anything, though. It works quite well for master-level graders who have tons of their own LUT's that they use as a "base" look for near anything they'll work. Shian Storm has his "Color Ghears" for that ... and they can do a huge amount on your "look" by just cliking one or the others within Ae. There's many places to get LUT's to expand your tool-set.
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3. Re: How to properly use tonal range definition?
jay.schipper Jan 30, 2014 6:50 AM (in response to R Neil Haugen)Thank you so much for your time to reply and being thorough. I do have CC. I just need to jump in to the deep end of color correcting. I'm no colorist, nor have any interest in coloring. I just need to do basic color correcting and I have found that premiere pro CC's 3-way corrector is way more complicated than FCP 7, which is a good thing, I just need to get used to it.
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4. Re: How to properly use tonal range definition?
R Neil Haugen Jan 30, 2014 9:32 AM (in response to jay.schipper)Speedgrade's system is in some ways easier to 'grok' than the PPro 3-way. If actually more capable.
You've got three wheels ... l-r that's "Offset", "Gamma", & "Gain".
The "offset" moves the whole shebang of data up or down; "Gain" basically extends or shrinks the top half of the data, doing more "movement" the higher up in the signal it goes. "Gamma" moves the middle to upper middle tones up or down, less in the shadows, nothing to blacks or highlights. And this is for both color and luma.
The outer rings are the controls for luma, the inner circle for color. Your scroll wheel controls the outer ring, mouse or trackball the inner. Handy once you get it down.
But wait ... there's more! It slices & dices ...
You have a bar above them for overall ... shadows ... mids ... and highlights. So you click on "shadows" and ALL three controls are now affecting your shadow areas, with the same effect they would have if applied to the whole signal. You can set "pivot" points to determine where shadows & mids "fall" relative to each other, and where mids and highs "fall".
Once you understand what they do ... you can fly through corrections. And learn when to just go to color temp or hue bars above the wheels, that sort of thing.
Yea, the 3-way in PPro takes more ... thought ... from me, that is. I think you need to understand the options in the ton of things around them.
Neil


