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1. Re: how do I create a grading layer?
R Neil Haugen Dec 1, 2014 2:52 PM (in response to yadnom1973)Happy to help. This program is AMAZING ... but it's got a very different "paradigm" for the interface that actually works very well once you've learned it and work it a number of hours, and oh, spent a couple full weeks on Creative Cow & Lynda dot com & whatnot ... the people that created this and built and re-did it and re-built it and all have done a wonderful job, but ... documentation of how it can do all the stuff it does, and how to use it ... was never an immediate need.
Using the direct link command invokes a VERY different process than using SpeedGrade in "Native" mode. In DL, Sg is actually working within your PrPro project file ... and they don't want Sg to be able to do much to the timeline, which is why the timeline of any sequence is 'locked down' in Sg. You can't do "editing" stuff, like add or delete clips, ANYTHING ... that affects the timeline itself. Only things that affect how that timeline/sequence looks. Using a "native" Sg process, where you create the timeline from inside Sg or take an EDL (edit decision list) and re-connect it to the folders of clips of that EDL's sequence, Sg creates its own project file ... an ircp file. You can do all sorts of stuff to that timeline.
So ... to create a new layer or track on the sequence/timeline, you HAVE to go to PrPro and add an "adjustment layer". Click the "new item" icon, on the lower right of the project panel box; choose "new adjustment layer" and drag it onto your sequence, then space it out as needed.
Now ... just a bit about how the layers thing works in the Adobe apps. The bottom layer in the Look panel (lower right of the screen) sees your clip in its entirety. That is the ONLY one that does. You make certain changes in that primary, then maybe create another primary over it for different changes. THAT primary only sees the result of the primary below it, and affects the image that it is "handed" up by that lower layer. Now make a secondary above that to say, modify certain colors in a narrow band of upper middle tones. That layer again makes those changes just to the "image" as passed up by the layer just below it. Re-arrange your layers, you WILL get startling different effects.
Grading layers are the same ... they only see what's passed "up" to them from the clip below, but ... AFTER all the work you've done on that clip directly. Change the work of the layers in the Look panel of the original clip, and your grading layer above may need some changes also because the image getting up to it has changed.
It's very logical as you get used to it. Though it can throw you for very puzzled loops at first.
The speed with which one can go from PrPro to Sg to PrPro to Sg to ... makes it very easy to adopt Sg earlier in the editing process, and to use radically different workflow patterns than used to be required. I LOVE working in Sg ... it's just so thrilling to see what one can do with it ...
Neil
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2. Re: how do I create a grading layer?
yadnom1973 Dec 1, 2014 6:19 PM (in response to R Neil Haugen)I'd come to accept that I was getting no grading layers and your explanation makes perfect sense. I had't thought of making the adjustment layers in PP, I'll give it a go next time. SpeedGrade dose seem to be a great app though. There are a few odd things like it seems to miss with the cross hairs on the secondary sometimes and a few smaller object I have had to give up and fix in other apps but to be able to just hit the button in PP and check that clips and sequences will work is really good, and AE linked in now as well.
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3. Re: how do I create a grading layer?
R Neil Haugen Dec 1, 2014 9:32 PM (in response to yadnom1973)Glad to have helped. I've found the plus dropper useful to start a secondary, but the "minus" ones don't seem to help much ... I get much better results after doing an initial "capture" of the general area by going to the gray-out mode and manually adjusting the sliders to nail more tightly the exact tones I want to change, and then going back to a normal screen to check my work. The way the dropper works you are essentially drawing a rectangular box, and I normally find to get the best controlled sample for it I need to increase the screen magnification by quite a bit, so that the area I'm sampling is a majority of the screen. I've found that otherwise it's awfully easy to end up adding into the sample a bit of area I didn't think I was including ... I wish that dragging the dropper created a "box" on screen to show what you'd sampled.
Once one gets into Sg ... it can get into you. I've visited a number of places online where Sg users have talked together, and down at NAB in Vegas last year actually talked with a few major users ... (for networks & such) ... who, like me, are basically hooked on the program. If I get a few minutes to just play (like that happens very often ... sigh) I love to be able to just take some footage into Sg and ... play. Except that after allotting myself say, 20 minutes ... the missus or a partner will suddenly mutter a low growling sound standing in my open door ... and ... it's been ... oh CRAP ... over two hours, and that document I was supposed to finish for them to includ in the report they were due to finish 20 minutes ago ... oh ... um ... um ...
Neil
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4. Re: how do I create a grading layer?
yadnom1973 Dec 2, 2014 10:28 AM (in response to R Neil Haugen)I've wondered about that, so it's creating a rectangle. I have been labouring under the impression that it was just collecting samples in the line I drew. If it's describing a rectangle as with a crop tool then this would account for my problems.
I love working in Sg but I have been working with footage from a GoPro, I just dropped it on the timeline in PP strait out of the camera. PP has been playing it and doing very well but Sg is not handling it well at all. The PC has a good CPU and GPU a i7 3.8GHz four core and Nvidia GTX780 with 16G of ram and It's all running of a RAID0 and SSD. Sg plays at quarter resolution ok but it's on and off, after a few hours working more off that on and sometimes it seems to get all clogged up and barely stutters through a few frames at a time.
I just opened up my sequence in Sg now to look at the CPU usage and it's playing the whole timeline at half resolution no problem! I tried loading one primary and one secondary correction on top with every parameter I can change changed and it plays fine at half resolution, paused at full. But I did some things in another app and when I came back it was slowing down again. My main complaint is that when I press somewhere on the timeline I must wait a few seconds before it moves and loads the other clip onto the canvas. There seems to be big delays. I wanted to do some vignettes at the end but it just took so long to respond when I tried to change the shape or move the mask I had to give up and look elsewhere to get these things done. I had the Task Manager open and nothing was maxed out, the Ram was at 9GHz usage but that was to do with other apps too, everything else was well below 50%.
Sorry to keep pestering with questions but I share you enthusiasm for this app, when i first open it and it can play the footage and I can see the scopes in real time, when it all works it is an amazing tool but once it slows down it's not usable for me and it's frustrating having tried it when it's working because as you say it's a great app. Is there some media management I'm missing or some settings maybe.
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5. Re: how do I create a grading layer?
R Neil Haugen Dec 2, 2014 11:41 AM (in response to yadnom1973)Have another response ready but the blasted forum won't let me post it ... in a few minutes. Sigh. Try again, rinse & repeat ...
Best advice ... watch every AdobeTV, Creative Cow & Lynda dot com tutorial you can find. CS6 through CC, noting some things will have changed. Take some time to play with anything before adopting it into a "real" project is good. SpeedGrade seems to play very differently on different machines, there's something about the way it runs that can be glitched up by some gaming video settings or other Mojo stuff it seems. Both Mac & Win can have system changes during updates that make it almost painfully slow until "we" figure out what the change was and how to fix it.
Neil
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6. Re: how do I create a grading layer?
R Neil Haugen Dec 2, 2014 11:46 AM (in response to R Neil Haugen)For several weeks my system loafed under any of the Adobe DVA's ... CPU usage never went above 32%, RAM never above 48% even though it had been told in all the DVA apps to use up to 80% in the preferences, and GPU and v-RAM were pretty much ignored. Had all sorts of testing done and we couldn't figure it out. I was crawling. Then one day, CPU/RAM usage went back to normal, but still my GTX770 and it's 4Gb vRAM aren't doing much.. VERY frustrating!
And yes, I played with the sample tool while in gray-out mode ... and if I went diagonally and say an imaginary rectangle from my starting point started going into a different color as I dragged upper-left to lower right and the imaginary rectangle expanded, the area affected by the gray-out would suddenly change dramatically. That seems a solid indication of what it's doing. A lot of people demonstrate how the various color/density controls work using black to white step-wedges, and it's a good training to watch as they apply changes to tonality & color to see WHERE each tool works in the color/tonality continuum. And where those "pivot" sliders do their thing as you change the S/M and M/H controls in each tab. Take a secondary that's on the 3rd level in the Look panel layer stack, and move it down under the layer before it, and see how differently it works. That sort of thing.
Neil
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7. Re: how do I create a grading layer?
R Neil Haugen Dec 2, 2014 11:47 AM (in response to R Neil Haugen)And ... masking. I'd HIGHLY recommend doing all your other grading & style work ... ALL of it ... before going to masking especially if you're going to track something. Save that for the end. I don't do a lot and only occasionally track as it can be ... odd. So I've not TOO much experience with it, and I'll state right up they've improved it a lot since the first CC version. However, some people still create any key-framed masking over in PrPro or Ae and somehow use those in Sg to "fill" with grading. I haven't tried that yet ... and need to soon.
Neil
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8. Re: how do I create a grading layer?
yadnom1973 Dec 2, 2014 12:59 PM (in response to R Neil Haugen)Yes I've found a few threads already on how to speed things up and different quirks that different set ups can have. Thanks for all the help again it's really appreciated, there's a little way to go before I'm at home in Sg but I cas see already it'll be worth it.

